“In successive iterations — iTools, MobileMe, .Mac, and now iCloud — Apple has built its products around services hosted in the cloud,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Macworld. “Mac and iOS device owners depend on iCloud. We use it for our music, our photos, our contacts, calendars, and reminders. We store our email in the cloud, as well as our notes and many of our files. And, critically, we back up our iOS devices to iCloud (though you can and should also back them up to your Mac using iTunes).”
“These services, once dependent on an annual subscription ($99 a year for MobileMe in the US; $149 for a family plan), are now free. But as the price dropped, so did the amount of storage allocated to users,” McElhearn writes. “From 20GB with MobileMe, to 10GB with .Mac, iCloud only offers 5GB per user. You can pay to get more storage, of course, and that’s how Apple makes some spare change. But only 5GB per user? Seriously?”
“Why doesn’t Apple give us 5GB of iCloud storage for each device we own?” McElhearn writes. “Given the cost of iOS devices and Macs, Apple’s 5GB free iCloud storage just seems stingy. Give use a bit more, so we can safely back up our iOS devices, and give us a bonus when we own multiple devices.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s scary how many iPhone and iPad users we encounter who never back up their devices to their Macs or crappy Windows PCs via iTunes.
As for Apple being stingy with iCloud storage? Yes, Apple is stingy and should at the very least give users 5GB of iCloud storage per device.
They also need to keep doubling the capacity or offer higher end tiers for the same price/lower prices.
99¢ a month for 50GB of storage us not stingy. A good deal I think.🙂
I agree. If you can’t afford that then you shouldn’t have electronic devices.
Thank you for telling us that.
Same here. Great price. Still have not used all of it. 🙂
I think the difficulty with offering 5GB per device is how do you determine the users device count. I have used over 10 different iOS devices and a few macs since beginning to use Apple devices. Would all of those count or only the devices I’m actively using?
It’s a nice thought to get more iCloud storage but I agree with a previous post that 50GB for 99¢/month is well worth the investment.
How about this then: backups don’t count against storage limits. Unlimited backup sizes free of charge. Then keep everything else the way it is. Then it won’t matter which devices count, because it just won’t count against you if it’s an iCloud backup file type.
If the value paradigm is for us to buy Apple hardware, then the “5GB per device” count is trivially simple.
Overall, while I agree that 50GB for $1/month isn’t a bad value, it is because Apple is being so deliberate stingy at the 5GB level that motivates a resistance to even starting to pay anything (even but $1/mo) simply out of principle. Irrational? Yup. But it’s still real in terms of a negative factor that doesn’t “delight” this customer, particularly when I’ve watched Apple deconstruct their Mac-centric ecosystem.
My beef is iCloud backup won’t tell you that an app isn’t on the AppStore anymore when you back up, so when you restore it won’t come back. So, yes, more storage would be helpful.
I completely agree. The amount of data is and always has been stingy. With the new back up all of your documents feature of macOS Sierra, we definitely need even more storage capacity. I pay $5 per month for 200GB. For that I get 1TB with Dropbox. Apple should definitely match or exceed Dropbox’s storage plans and price if they want people to willingly commit to the monthly expense to take advantage of these features.
5GB is data chump change. How about 5TB?
Can be yours… for $50/month. :p
Free is better. 🙂
Who the flying delusional f*ck are you troglodyte? I AM an Apple stockholder you moron. The rest of your trog-spew isn’t worth responding to.
Go f*ck yourself junior. You’re the just past puberty troublemaker One Note Joe from Doofus, MO.
Yeah I’M the one who’s insane with a poster like you with a convenient ever-changing-to-hide-your-identity pseudonym like “Yeah right, everyone you get angry with is the mythical “One-Note Joe”.
Just who are you really loser? The One Note Joe is a specific person and also a type, and you fit right in asshole. The other posters who “think I’m going insane” are the ones with the screws loose, like you. Come down to earth with a real pseudonym or God forbid real name & reasonable commentary and we’ll see who’s “insane.” So far jerks like you are incapable of sane remarks as you demonstrate by your every post.
BTW Derek’s a nice guy, and sane poster (like many here) with salient thoughts and opinions. You clearly do NOT. Apparently you’re jealous since you are not well thought of so translate that jealousy into adolescent derogatory babbling. All of your advice easily applies to you more than anyone else here.
Wow you really are a total loser. And you call me or others insane. You’re as loony and unhinged as they come and completely undo any point you clumsily have tried to make, tripping all over yourself. Oh and such witty repartee. Well if you’re 8 years old maybe.
While I don’t plan to get a Galaxy phone, many people I know are looking at the higher cost of Apple combined with the seeming neglect of the Mac line and thinking they can save some money and not lose much by going to Windoze, Android, Google, etc. Apple needs to wake up.
I don’t mind paying for more iCloud space! But let me do whatever I want with it! Let me use any old Internet friendly app to backup to it!
Or better yet, have Apple provide a solid Internet backup app! They used to have one! How about an off site mirror of what’s saved via Time Machine?
Apple has been consistently obtuse about cloud services.
Corrected spelling:
If you don’t like Apple products or services then get an Android phone, TROLL!
It is good to share humor at the end of a hot and tiring week. Thank you. 😀
Yeah, that same moron pretty much said the same to me above. I suspect it’s our ol’ chameleon pal One Note Joe in his usual doofus clothing. Have a great weekend!
I have never gotten what iCloud does for me. Not that much. MobileMe gave me an iDisk that I could back up anything to just by dragging and it worked much more reliably than Dropbox. I get that my mail is there, but isn’t that just called hosting?
I was an original .Mac owner so Apple gave me a deal – 200GB for £2.49 a month.
It’s a great deal but I think it should be available to all users of iCloud,
The difference between something cheap and something expensive is how hard you’re willing to work for it.