Apple promotes free month of upgraded iCloud storage to non-paying users

AppleInsider

In a move designed to drive iCloud storage subscription upgrades, Apple is now promoting free month-long trials of 50GB, 200GB and 2TB plans to customers currently on the gratis 5GB tier.

Photo courtesy of AppleInsider reader Vin.

As seen in the image above, provided by AppleInsider reader Vin, Apple is advertising free one month trials of its premium iCloud storage plans to Apple device owners not currently paying for a subscription and who have reached their 5GB limit.

When these users attempt to perform an iOS device backup, a pop-up message appears promoting the step-up 50GB plan. A similar notification without mention of the free trial has long been part of iOS.

"You do not have enough space in iCloud to back up your iPhone. A 50 GB plan gives you plenty of space to continue backing up your iPhone. Your first month is free and it's just $0.99 each month after."

Tapping on a large blue button reading "Get 50 GB Free For 1 Month" navigates to "Change Storage Plan" under iCloud settings.

The free-to-try options apply to each of Apple's upgrade tiers, ranging from the 50GB rung for $0.99 per month to the 2TB tier for $9.99 per month.

As with other Apple subscription services, specifically Apple Music, the selected storage plan will automatically renew at its regular monthly fee once the trial period ends. Users can elect to discontinue services at any time to avoid charges.

For now, it appears the promotion is limited to Apple device owners who have not yet upgraded to a premium iCloud tier, as the advertised trial is not showing up for current subscribers.

The 5GB tier has been Apple's standard free offering since its introduction in 2014, though premium plan pricing and capacities have changed over the years. Last year, for example, Apple axed a legacy 1TB plan and reduced pricing for its 2TB tier.

Most recently, the company introduced family sharing for users subscribed to the 200GB and 2TB tiers, and in March increased free storage for schools to 200GB.

cashxx

As much money as they have, they can throw its users a bone and match Google in free storage!

PabloTresUnoSeis

It’s been 4 yrs and the richest company in the world can only throw 💩 5GB free storage to its loyal customers.

rogifan_new

Gotta increase those services revenues to please Wall Street.

nunzy

Likely this promotion will make Apple a lot of money  when the free trial period expires.

luke hambly

I can’t believe it’s not per device! I own 2 iPads, phone, watch and two laptops and I still only get 5GB!! I’m disgusted by it! Email Tim a year ago without reply 🙁

LoneStar88

While those of a certain persuation keep expecting "free stuff" from companies which "have enough money", according to them, in the real world, Apple just keeps on making great products and delivering great services such as paid iCould storage plans. We've been on the 2TB plan for months now, and it's very nice to have that much capacity for a reasonable price. It's very convenient to have it available to all of our devices (family plan), too!

clarker99

Is this a USA only offer?

deminsd

LoneStar88 said:

While those of a certain persuation keep expecting "free stuff" from companies which "have enough money", according to them, in the real world, Apple just keeps on making great products and delivering great services such as paid iCould storage plans. We've been on the 2TB plan for months now, and it's very nice to have that much capacity for a reasonable price. It's very convenient to have it available to all of our devices (family plan), too!

In the other real world, Microsoft makes great products like Office365 (which is FAR cheaper than any Apple device) yet they generously give every Office365 user a FREE 1TB of cloud storage.  A $99 annual price gives 5 users 1TB EACH of OneDrive PLUS the entire Office 2016 suite.  But Apple wants to charge it's users that paid $1000 for an iPhone or $500 for an iPad for anything more than a measly 5GB.  

This ridiculous deal Apple is giving (a free month) is nothing more than baiting their loyal customers into more expensive plans.  Once a user puts more than 5GB in their cloud during that month to make use of their "free space" what happens the next month?  Gotta pay more or lose your data.  

columbus

LoneStar88 said:

While those of a certain persuasion keep expecting "free stuff" from companies which "have enough money"

Better to use that money on stock buybacks instead of providing customers with enough space to backup their devices or keep their photos and memories safe?
It is a tough one to try and justify.

rogifan_new said:

Gotta increase those services revenues to please Wall Street.

Agreed - I was trying to find the quote but couldn't find it. Essentially Steve would always reiterate that Apple's focus should be on building the best products they can and if they achieve this then stock price will take care of itself. It is hard to align this with the scrimp and save iCloud plans. Regardless of what others (Google) are charging it is a horrible customer experience. To me recurring "service" revenue is clearly taking precedence over user experience.

iPhone is an expensive product, but part of its value proposition is that Apple will make the whole experience as seamless and simple as possible. Unfortunately the iCloud storage policies and nag-ware is user hostile rather than user friendly.

jwmartin4

I think the free 5 GB has been since iCloud was introduced in 2011 (not 2014).  Also, while i get that nothing is free I think they could do something along the lines of a matching the amount of storage per device (e.g. 512 GB rMBP and a 256 GB iPhone X gets me 768 GB iCloud storage as long as those devices are tied to my iCloud account).  Or attach it to the AppleCare (in addition to standalone options).  But agree with above posts that 5 GB is a joke - especially since they keep pushing us feature wise to the cloud (e.g. iMessages, "Clean Up" the Mac feature offloads files to iCloud, Photo Library lives in the cloud, etc.).  Hoping WWDC brings some changes!

racerhomie3

rogifan_new said:

Gotta increase those services revenues to please Wall Street.

iCloud revenue is only a rounding error.

racerhomie3

luke hambly said:

I can’t believe it’s not per device! I own 2 iPads, phone, watch and two laptops and I still only get 5GB!! I’m disgusted by it! Email Tim a year ago without reply 🙁

Maybe make a separate account for your device?
Or spend $1 a month. I have chosen the backup to my Mac route and Photo Stream.

columbus

racerhomie3 said:

rogifan_new said:

Gotta increase those services revenues to please Wall Street.

iCloud revenue is only a rounding error.

Ben Thompson (stratechery) has it as their second biggest service revenue after the app store.

In the last earning call Luca Maestri (CFO) announced it was up 50% year over year to an all time record.

You can listen on this recent episode of the talk show from 2:27:10.

kudu

I get that 5GB seems a little frugal on Apple’s part. On the other hand, when you pay you’re not the product (as opposed to free GDrive and free Facebook and you’re definitely the product) You get privacy and encryption and stability and peace of mind and convenience. Surely worth 99c or $2.99/month?

felixer

They’re giving us 99 cents LOL jeez thanks aPple!!

macxpress

columbus said:

racerhomie3 said:

rogifan_new said:

Gotta increase those services revenues to please Wall Street.

iCloud revenue is only a rounding error.

Ben Thompson (stratechery) has it as their second biggest service revenue after the app store.

In the last earning call Luca Maestri (CFO) announced it was up 50% year over year to an all time record.

You can listen on this recent episode of the talk show from 2:27:10.

iCloud is not their only service included with the services category. 

macxpress

kudu said:

I get that 5GB seems a little frugal on Apple’s part. On the other hand, when you pay you’re not the product (as opposed to free GDrive and free Facebook and you’re definitely the product) You get privacy and encryption and stability and peace of mind and convenience. Surely worth 99c or $2.99/month?

This is what people are getting...sure its FREE on Google, but is it really free in the end? Is the free price tag really worth it your privacy?

clarker99

Lol. $0.99/mo and people complain.  Your free option is to back up with itunes on a computer.

If you cant find space in your budget for $0.99/mo then use dropbox or some other cloud service for photos and use the 5gb of free storage to back up the non-photo/video stuff on your device (settings, messages, apps etc).

dewme

The practicality of letting someone "trial" a larger storage plan is questionable for a lot of folks, myself included. I already have the 200 GB plan. Getting all of your devices configured to properly take advantage of the greater storage capacity, e.g., optimizing music storage, configuring photo storage, mirroring your document folders into the cloud, etc., isn't a trivial exercise. Coming up with a personal storage strategy requires some forethought and insight into your long term storage needs, accessibility of content, performance trade-offs, etc. I have a crap internet connection so I have to consider the performance implications of what I store in the cloud. Initially synchronizing my Photos to the cloud took several days and maxed out my internet connection the whole time. So ... why would I jump through all of these hoops for one month trial, only to decide that it wasn't worth my effort and expense and pull the plug? I don't see any value in the trial, at least for my own situation. You may as well just pretend you have more storage for a month, tell all your friends about it, take a selfie with the big storage number in the background, and see whether the excitement lasts for 30 days before making the 12,398th most important decision of your life.

For me, the 200 GB for $3 bucks a month is a no-brainer and I still have 75 GB free after a couple of years.

volcan

deminsd said:
But Apple wants to charge it's users that paid $1000 for an iPhone or $500 for an iPad for anything more than a measly 5GB.

While I agree with your discontent, I believe you can get an Apple ID without actually owning any Apple hardware by simply going to iCloud.com and signing up. I haven't tried this but theoretically that would get you 5GB of storage along with mail and productivity apps, all for free.

I've owned all sorts of Apple products since the mid 80s but I don't use iCloud except for syncing of contacts and whatever. I made the decision to go with paid Google Drive with 100GB because originally iCloud would only support files from Apple and third party Apple Store apps which was a non-starter for me since most of my files are Adobe. Now that they do support files with other extensions, it is too late. I've got thousands of files all organized on Google. I think they charge me $4 a month which includes advertising free subscription to mail and other services most of which I rarely use, but I do really like the features of Google Drive. Clearly, since I have never used iCloud Drive I can't offer a comparison. I used to use my own cloud running on a server at a data center using file manager called FileRun which was pretty good but Google Drive is better in my opinion.