For the user above, mathematically, you are correct, but rarely would a person even come close to using their full iCloud allowance. I'm on the free tier plan and only use 3GB. And other places are offering much more generous free and cheaper paid options than Apple too, especially considering it has been known that Apple actually uses Google for their iCloud storage. Apple is just too cheap here and offering a free 20GB would go a long way.
Why do I only use 3GB? I don't believe in storing sensitive files online (including my non-sensitive photos and videos). All of that is on SSDs.
Yes I mentioned this point in my post. However, the general complaint is that 5GB is not sufficient and since people take more photos than ever and rarely have backups of those photos, it's highly desirable to have some form of online backup. My main point was that, if Apple were to announce a higher storage tier then they would need to have the infrastructure in place to deliver at least a high proportion of it. I'm sure Apple have better stats on typical iCloud storage usage per user than you or I and can probably model how much actual infrastructure they might need to be able to offer, say 50GB of free storage. From experience with my own family, including my Dad who is a very light user of iCloud, I suspect the average usage is probably at least 20GB, especially for people who don't have a PC or Mac too offload photos to. I remember before iCloud Photo Library my iCloud backups were very large due to the fact it was backing up the camera roll. For many iOS users their iPhone or iPad is their only computing device.
My own iCloud Photo Library is 160GB and my son has even more because he often uses a Go Pro when doing activities and video files are much larger than still images obviously. I actually have the 2TB family plan with 6 family members on it and I'm very happy with that service. I used to use Dropbox but prefer Apple due to their strong stance on privacy. Personally, I think if you choose your online storage provider carefully and take measures to secure your most sensitive information by encrypting prior to uploading (eg. using Arq + S3/Backblaze B2) then you can gain the considerable benefits of off-site backups without compromising your security or privacy. I think for most people, the risk of losing important data is far greater than the risks of it falling into the wrong hands.
I think the problem with iCloud Drive is that you can’t customise which files are stored on your Macs – you have to store all the files on all of your computers. Until Apple address this their cloud solution really isn’t that useful for people with a lot of files that can’t fit on a laptop SSD.
That's not true actually. You can enable "Optimize Storage" on both iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Drive so the machine will retain the most commonly/recently accessed files and photos on your Mac and leave the rest in iCloud. Go to System Settings -> iCloud -> iCloud Drive -> Options and you'll see the checkbox. There is a similar checkbox in the Photos app in preferences. I expect these are both defaulted to being on for a new install but I'm not certain.
I already pay for 200GB for family storage across 5 devices but I think for Apple it would be a smart move to increase the free tier. If only to stop people using other services (google, amazon, onedrive etc.) or force those competitors to increase their own tiers to match and thus reduce their profit margins. I can't see it happening however given how profit focused Apple are nowadays.
I think what would be an interesting marketing strategy would be to offer the same storage as the iPhone you buy for two years free, after which you pay. Buy a new iPhone, another two years free at the storage of the new iPhone. It would certainly encourage one to buy a new phone every two years, like clockwork. A new iPhone in fact. It would kill looking at other brands. How would that translate into profits I wonder?
As I've mentioned before -- the reason Apple doesn't raise the free storage (though I join you all in hoping for a bit more in the near future, like 10GB) is because **Apple is the only one that doesn't supplement the cost with personal data collection or ad revenue**. Thus, it makes zero sense for them to be generous with the free tier, though I agree with those who say 5GB is barely adequate even for a single device backup anymore. 10GB would be a reasonable amount; anything more than that would be surprising.
What I'd like to see is a good-better-best and family tiers. Something like the current 50GB for $1, 200GB for $3, but add 500GB for $5. That would cover most individual users, but for the rest: family tier would be as it is now, 2TB for $10.
(addendum: Microsoft also doesn't monetize their free tier -- apart from nagging you to buy Office 365 -- as far as I know. Their free tier is 5GB, same as Apple. For the same reason.)
To those who are up in arms that Apple doesn’t just give everyone 50GB instead of 5GB for free, or even 200GB for free, have you considered the data centre implications of this? It’s not just an finance/marketing exercise - we are talking many hundreds of millions of active iOS devices and iCloud users who would suddenly be granted access to 10x or 40x more storage. Lets’s Throw around some numbers, admittedly based on a bunch of, hopefully not unrealistic, assumptions:
Say we have 1.3 billion active iOS users (announced by Apple in Jan 2018) and each user has the current 5GB of free space. That’s 6500 Petabytes of storage which, to put it in perspective is roughly 10x the total storage size of the well known backup and cloud storage company Backblaze. Now imagine Apple moving to a 50GB free tier overnight. That needs 65000 Petabytes or 100 Backblaze sized datacentres. Now imagine 200GB free tier...you get the idea. I realise that not every user would max out their storage budget immediately but it would also be disingenuous for Apple to give away 50GB to every user if in reality they only had data storage space for, say, half of those. How annoyed do we all get if we can’t get onto an overbooked flight for example?
Anyone following Apple knows that they are building, or trying to build, data centres all over the world and have had some setbacks with planning approvals etc in recent years. They also, rightly in my opinion, try very hard to make their data centres renewable powered which no doubt makes the process a bit slower and dependent on suppliers of PV panels amongst other things to also scale up.
i don’t know how many Petabyte or Exabytes of storage Apple actually has available but I also know from following Backblaze and their excellent company blog how much investment and actual work it takes to build storage racks and there is no magic! It comes down to physically building hundreds of storage enclosures using many thousands of 3.5” hard drives, which also have to be built by someone else. The supply chain involved is complex and takes a finite time to deliver.
i have no doubt in my mind that Apple would love to be able to give away iCloud storage at least equal to the storage size of the devices being sold because the marketing narrative would be worth more than the loss in margin. But they need to be able to deliver the goods and that is a multi-year exercise in data centre building. That said, I think we should expect them to at least be able to make a step up from 5GB soon but my guess is that it’ll be to 20GB or 50GB at most with paid tiers beyond that to ensure that demand doesn’t outstrip supply until they can build more data centres.
The only problem with your example is that all 1.3B users wouldn't use 200GB each. Some wouldn't use any, most would probably use 50GB and usage per user would decrase as you go up the scale. Microsoft gives 1TB of FREE space to every Office 365 subscription user. You think every user uses 1TB? No. You think MS has 1TB of space "set aside" for every subscriber? No.
The point people are making is that if MS can offer FREE 1TB of storage (enough that we don't have to worry about running out of space) for each $20 annual Office 365 subscription ($100/5 users), then Apple can certainly do better than 5GB. People use what they use, and just because they're given 10x more doesn't mean they'll use it. But it does mean than people don't have to be nickel-and-dimed the ridiculous 99 cents for a usable amount of cloud storage to backup their phones.
"Why are these offers always US only? People outside of the US buy iPhones too!"
Are you saying that Apple is busy selling hardware internationally but don't give a hoot about offering things like trade-ups, specials or even features like maps flyover in all but a handful of non USA cities? Sad but true. But the "special" in the article is for US telecoms selling new iPhones though I bet Apple give buyers of unlocked phones sold in their Apple Stores the same little freebie ... in the USA. As for me in my city with 2 Apple stores and 1.5 million people we still don't have flyover. As to the freebie - too late I already buy 50gb.
Only U.S. customers are stupid enough to jump for it.
I'm dissapointed that Apple would let this happen: It's a sham offer. Very UnApple like.
To those who are up in arms that Apple doesn’t just give everyone 50GB instead of 5GB for free, or even 200GB for free, have you considered the data centre implications of this? It’s not just an finance/marketing exercise - we are talking many hundreds of millions of active iOS devices and iCloud users who would suddenly be granted access to 10x or 40x more storage. Lets’s Throw around some numbers, admittedly based on a bunch of, hopefully not unrealistic, assumptions:
Say we have 1.3 billion active iOS users (announced by Apple in Jan 2018) and each user has the current 5GB of free space. That’s 6500 Petabytes of storage which, to put it in perspective is roughly 10x the total storage size of the well known backup and cloud storage company Backblaze. Now imagine Apple moving to a 50GB free tier overnight. That needs 65000 Petabytes or 100 Backblaze sized datacentres. Now imagine 200GB free tier...you get the idea. I realise that not every user would max out their storage budget immediately but it would also be disingenuous for Apple to give away 50GB to every user if in reality they only had data storage space for, say, half of those. How annoyed do we all get if we can’t get onto an overbooked flight for example?
Anyone following Apple knows that they are building, or trying to build, data centres all over the world and have had some setbacks with planning approvals etc in recent years. They also, rightly in my opinion, try very hard to make their data centres renewable powered which no doubt makes the process a bit slower and dependent on suppliers of PV panels amongst other things to also scale up.
i don’t know how many Petabyte or Exabytes of storage Apple actually has available but I also know from following Backblaze and their excellent company blog how much investment and actual work it takes to build storage racks and there is no magic! It comes down to physically building hundreds of storage enclosures using many thousands of 3.5” hard drives, which also have to be built by someone else. The supply chain involved is complex and takes a finite time to deliver.
i have no doubt in my mind that Apple would love to be able to give away iCloud storage at least equal to the storage size of the devices being sold because the marketing narrative would be worth more than the loss in margin. But they need to be able to deliver the goods and that is a multi-year exercise in data centre building. That said, I think we should expect them to at least be able to make a step up from 5GB soon but my guess is that it’ll be to 20GB or 50GB at most with paid tiers beyond that to ensure that demand doesn’t outstrip supply until they can build more data centres.
The only problem with your example is that all 1.3B users wouldn't use 200GB each. Some wouldn't use any, most would probably use 50GB and usage per user would decrase as you go up the scale. Microsoft gives 1TB of FREE space to every Office 365 subscription user. You think every user uses 1TB? No. You think MS has 1TB of space "set aside" for every subscriber? No.
The point people are making is that if MS can offer FREE 1TB of storage (enough that we don't have to worry about running out of space) for each $20 annual Office 365 subscription ($100/5 users), then Apple can certainly do better than 5GB. People use what they use, and just because they're given 10x more doesn't mean they'll use it. But it does mean than people don't have to be nickel-and-dimed the ridiculous 99 cents for a usable amount of cloud storage to backup their phones.
Yes, I already said that not everyone would use the full quota. However, even at 5GB the storage capacity required is huge and any change to that quote takes effect immediately for "up to" 1.3B users. I also said that it was more likely that Apple might move the free tier up to 20GB, certainly not 200GB as you mention in your post. I believe a large proportion of users WOULD consume 20GB literally overnight because suddenly the iCloud backup that normally fails would be able to complete. It has been a few years now since 16GB iPhones/iPads were a thing and it's not difficult to fill up a 32, 64 or even 128GB device with photos and videos these days. I would hope that Apple will have analytics to show them how many devices out there are constrained by the 5GB quota and how many extra GB those devices would consume if unconstrained. I'd bet the average consumption would be between 5GB and 50GB if unconstrained with outliers above and below as you'd expect.
Another thing that I don't think you are appreciating is that there is a big difference to bundling free, integrated iCloud storage with a hardware product vs bundling free storage with a subscription software product. With the iCloud storage, devices are already using it by default and may be constrained as mentioned before and will automatically utilise whatever extra quota they receive literally overnight. With an MS Office subscription, the user would have to take explicit action to hook up the MS storage to their device(s) and start consuming it. Also, this is a "subscription" service, meaning recurring revenues which again, is far different to getting free, lifetime storage with a one-off purchase of a hardware device. Microsoft also have the option, however unlikely, to withdraw the free storage offer to new users if they found themselves unable to provide capacity but it's quite a different story if you have a pipeline of hardware products which are being sold all over the world in massive quantities. You can't just stop selling iPhones because you don't have enough iCloud storage because iCloud is an integral part of the hardware product, not a bonus item.
A fairer comparison might be to expect Microsoft to grant 'x' GB of free cloud storage to everyone who ever bought the Windows OS and this storage would be available forever without subscription fees. Doesn't seem so likely when you think of it like that does it?
"Why are these offers always US only? People outside of the US buy iPhones too!"
Are you saying that Apple is busy selling hardware internationally but don't give a hoot about offering things like trade-ups, specials or even features like maps flyover in all but a handful of non USA cities? Sad but true. But the "special" in the article is for US telecoms selling new iPhones though I bet Apple give buyers of unlocked phones sold in their Apple Stores the same little freebie ... in the USA. As for me in my city with 2 Apple stores and 1.5 million people we still don't have flyover. As to the freebie - too late I already buy 50gb.
Cell phone service in the US is usually around $50/month for unlimited voice/SMS and 3GB data. Compare that with O2 in England for £17/month for unlimited voice/SMS and 10GB data. I'd rather pay the lower monthly cost than see a tiny morsel of an incentive offered only to new customers that is good for only one extra month.
I think the problem with iCloud Drive is that you can’t customise which files are stored on your Macs – you have to store all the files on all of your computers. Until Apple address this their cloud solution really isn’t that useful for people with a lot of files that can’t fit on a laptop SSD.
That's not true actually. You can enable "Optimize Storage" on both iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Drive so the machine will retain the most commonly/recently accessed files and photos on your Mac and leave the rest in iCloud. Go to System Settings -> iCloud -> iCloud Drive -> Options and you'll see the checkbox. There is a similar checkbox in the Photos app in preferences. I expect these are both defaulted to being on for a new install but I'm not certain.
True, however, I think I underemphasised my first point – you can't customise what is stored on your Mac. It's perfectly possible to let Apple do it for you but that requires you to sync everything with iCloud Drive and then you lose all control over what is downloaded and what isn't. I understand it probably works for most Mac users, but I like control over what is stored on what device and wish Apple gave us the option.
I think the problem with iCloud Drive is that you can’t customise which files are stored on your Macs – you have to store all the files on all of your computers. Until Apple address this their cloud solution really isn’t that useful for people with a lot of files that can’t fit on a laptop SSD.
That's not true actually. You can enable "Optimize Storage" on both iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Drive so the machine will retain the most commonly/recently accessed files and photos on your Mac and leave the rest in iCloud. Go to System Settings -> iCloud -> iCloud Drive -> Options and you'll see the checkbox. There is a similar checkbox in the Photos app in preferences. I expect these are both defaulted to being on for a new install but I'm not certain.
True, however, I think I underemphasised my first point – you can't customise what is stored on your Mac. It's perfectly possible to let Apple do it for you but that requires you to sync everything with iCloud Drive and then you lose all control over what is downloaded and what isn't. I understand it probably works for most Mac users, but I like control over what is stored on what device and wish Apple gave us the option.
Sure, it doesn't have the same flexibility that you get with Resilio Sync or Dropbox perhaps but, as you suggest, for the majority of people that probably doesn't matter and might even be preferable. Where you win with Apple is in the level of integration across all devices and the "out of the box" experience. For me I use iCloud drive and photo library for the convenience factor and I have other backup strategies in play as well including S3 and Resilio Sync, both with encryption at source. I used to spend a lot more time configuring my tech to work exactly the way I want it to but in recent years I find myself just buying the bigger SSD and simplifying the process. Maybe it's a form of mid-life crisis but I find myself more willing to spend money to free up time than I did a decade or so ago.
What I do tend to do is use S3 or Backblaze B2 or Resilio Sync to offload large files such as Movie rips or GoPro raw footage or disk images to the cloud so that my iCloud storage is focussed more on my working set of files. That allows me to fit everything I need for business and personal life comfortably inside a 1TB SSD with space to spare. I find that segmentation to be very low maintenance and effective. I also tend to keep a local copy of those large files on a spinning disk but it doesn't always have to be spinning and if I'm away from home I can still get at my files from the cloud.
Anyway, use what works for you and you can't go far wrong
The fact that 5GB is barely adequate to backup one normally used device, never mind multiple devices, is pathetic.
An iCloud backup is not a luxury -- it's essential to keeping data safe, helping to troubleshoot, facilitating device replacements, or even just upgrade to a new model. It's one of the first things Apple will ask you to have when visiting a store for service.
In the larger picture, it's also about preserving a good user experience. Not having to worry about managing photos and documents, other data...without being nicked and dimed, even after one has paid the high price for a premium product.
iTunes is still capable of making local backups, but how long will that last? Most users never plug their devices into computers anyway; they rely entirely on cloud connections to do software updates, download apps, etc. As Apple removes more and more physical access to its devices, making online/wireless connections the only option, it can tighten the vice.
The headphone jack was the first to go. With wireless charging, Lightning will eventually be sunset. The goal, no doubt, is a slab that's entirely free of jacks, and with everything wireless and funneled through the cloud. Apple can control what apps you use, where you store that data when using the native apps, only MFi-approved accessories, and so on. Then, and probably only then, will Apple up the allocation, to make it seem like they're doing users a favor, when they're locked-in and become a guaranteed revenue stream.
This is just one minor battle in a larger war. And, it should horrify any long time Apple user to see the company being compared to Microsoft, and come out looking worse.
Comments
My own iCloud Photo Library is 160GB and my son has even more because he often uses a Go Pro when doing activities and video files are much larger than still images obviously. I actually have the 2TB family plan with 6 family members on it and I'm very happy with that service. I used to use Dropbox but prefer Apple due to their strong stance on privacy. Personally, I think if you choose your online storage provider carefully and take measures to secure your most sensitive information by encrypting prior to uploading (eg. using Arq + S3/Backblaze B2) then you can gain the considerable benefits of off-site backups without compromising your security or privacy. I think for most people, the risk of losing important data is far greater than the risks of it falling into the wrong hands.
Apple Support link here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206996
It would certainly encourage one to buy a new phone every two years, like clockwork. A new iPhone in fact. It would kill looking at other brands. How would that translate into profits I wonder?
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/drive/HvbkeoRTjS4
So Google doesn't monetize their free tier either.
The point people are making is that if MS can offer FREE 1TB of storage (enough that we don't have to worry about running out of space) for each $20 annual Office 365 subscription ($100/5 users), then Apple can certainly do better than 5GB. People use what they use, and just because they're given 10x more doesn't mean they'll use it. But it does mean than people don't have to be nickel-and-dimed the ridiculous 99 cents for a usable amount of cloud storage to backup their phones.
Another thing that I don't think you are appreciating is that there is a big difference to bundling free, integrated iCloud storage with a hardware product vs bundling free storage with a subscription software product. With the iCloud storage, devices are already using it by default and may be constrained as mentioned before and will automatically utilise whatever extra quota they receive literally overnight. With an MS Office subscription, the user would have to take explicit action to hook up the MS storage to their device(s) and start consuming it. Also, this is a "subscription" service, meaning recurring revenues which again, is far different to getting free, lifetime storage with a one-off purchase of a hardware device. Microsoft also have the option, however unlikely, to withdraw the free storage offer to new users if they found themselves unable to provide capacity but it's quite a different story if you have a pipeline of hardware products which are being sold all over the world in massive quantities. You can't just stop selling iPhones because you don't have enough iCloud storage because iCloud is an integral part of the hardware product, not a bonus item.
A fairer comparison might be to expect Microsoft to grant 'x' GB of free cloud storage to everyone who ever bought the Windows OS and this storage would be available forever without subscription fees. Doesn't seem so likely when you think of it like that does it?
What I do tend to do is use S3 or Backblaze B2 or Resilio Sync to offload large files such as Movie rips or GoPro raw footage or disk images to the cloud so that my iCloud storage is focussed more on my working set of files. That allows me to fit everything I need for business and personal life comfortably inside a 1TB SSD with space to spare. I find that segmentation to be very low maintenance and effective. I also tend to keep a local copy of those large files on a spinning disk but it doesn't always have to be spinning and if I'm away from home I can still get at my files from the cloud.
Anyway, use what works for you and you can't go far wrong