Microsoft/Google/Amazon all lose money on hardware to booster their services/software.
Apple needs to do the same in reverse. Offer amazing services at competitive prices to booster hardware sales. They are already doing this with free OS updates and free office programs. But Cloud is a huge whole in their services package. There is no way on earth iCloud should cost 200% more than Google/MS/Amazon's products.
They should be doing it with all their apps/service. Make the default mail app so good I don't want to use GMail or anything else. Make the notes app as good or better than One Note. Buy Fantastical and use it to make the best calendar app. That's not going to ruin 3rd party app ecosystem. There will always be stuff not in Apple's wheelhouse that 3rd parties will be there for.
It's sad that when you decide you randomly stick on something, you spam every fucking thread with it. Otherwise, you're a decent poster so I don't know why you engage in this garbage. Tell me, why the sudden outcry about iCloud prices NOW? Why the sudden need to troll about this incessantly? Apple has made you many tens of thousands, yet you pretend to the outraged at the prospect of paying $1/m. It's pathetic.
I find it quite amusing for sog to complain about that but have no problem defending Apple over its device storage pricing.
I thoug
Quote:
Originally Posted by sog35
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogifan
I find it quite amusing for sog to complain about that but have no problem defending Apple over its device storage pricing.
I have no problem with Apple's storage pricing because it is up front and clear.
With iCloud it is not. Most people have NO IDEA that you only get 5 GB of cloud PER APPLE ID. And once you pay for the device its over. With cloud you need to pay each month, every month, again and again. People dont like that.
And then look at the margins. Apple is making ridiculous margins on iCloud storage for people who are paying 99 cents for 15 additional GB of data. How do I know? Cause you can buy cloud space for 1 cent a GB almost anywhere. Why can't Apple just foot the 10 cents of cost for additional cloud? Friken ridiculous. iCloud margins are probably close to 90%.
Again its all about the user experience. I don't mind paying $900 for great hardware. But then don't try to nickle and dime me on ESSENTIAL SERVICES after that. It would be like charging 99 cents for an email account.
3500 pictures will easily get you over 5GB. Most long time iPhone users have over 3500 pictures, easily.
And good job criticizing my hardworking parents. Thats whats wrong with our society. You bash my parents for not wanting to pay $2 every month for an essential service instead of Apple who has $200 billion in cash. Nice job. My parents are retired, living in a million dollar home in Hawaii. They did not reach that status by giving money away. Yes its only $2 but even to my parents it makes no sense to pay DOUBLE or TRIPLE what the others are charging with the same quality. Its like buying a BigMac for $10. Can you afford it? Yes. Should you?
And its not about the money. I would pay the $2 for my parents but I can't since you need to pay with your AppleID.
Some of you guys are real jokers in your support to Apple. I have a feeling a bunch of you would defend Apple even if you would have to pay 99 cents a month for an email account.
If it meant no scanning of my emails and no ads, I'd pay for an email account.
I'll be waiting to see you post your receipt that you bought it.......
And maybe you would be willing to 'pay' for email. But the vast majority of individuals are not. And cloud is become the same way right now.
If I did, I wouldn't post it. I'm not compelled to be held hostage by a commenter on an internet forum.
Saying "everyone else is doing it" is not always a reason to comply. Everyone else is leading the race to the bottom on hardware; should Apple follow suit there too?
Update: The System Status page indicates that all services are back online as of noon Eastern.
I experienced the iCloud email outage. It lasted about 10 minutes at the most. This cannot be classified as a major outage in any way. This was a hiccup and that’s all. Getting your panties in a knot over this is just plain stupid.
I've seen rumors in my Twitter feed that Apple will announce free photo cloud storage at WWDC. They need to do it. Let iCloud be a loss leader to sell more hardware and keep people in Apple's ecosystem. Don't give people any incentive to use rival services.
It probably wouldn't even be making a loss considering they already run data centers for the App Store and streaming music. It's just expanding the use of the data center they already maintain. Making 30% off every App Store purchase pays for a lot of it. The following site says that Google's servers cost about $2.82b per quarter:
Apple makes just under $5b revenue per quarter from services but they don't say how much profit is in there and they will have to pay content fees out of that. Apple's pricing doesn't look too bad:
Google Drive
15GB- Free
100GB- $1.99 per month
1TB- $9.99 per month
Dropbox
2GB- Free
Up to 16GB- Free, if you refer a bunch of friends. With a basic free account, you get an extra 500MB per referral and you can earn up to 16GB total through this method. It works the same for paid users, but you get 1GB instead of 500MB per referral.
1TB- $9.99 per month
iCloud
5GB- Free
20GB- $0.99 per month
200GB- $3.99 per month
1TB- $9.99 per month
OneDrive
15GB- Free
100GB- $1.99 per month
200GB- $3.99 per month
1TB- $6.99 per month
Google can make their ad business more effective using customer data, which is harder for Apple to do:
Google can analyze photos to get insights into design, product, location trends to be able to improve click-through rates on ads for travel and products. Apple doesn't need to monetize storage though, it's not like they're going to have 400m people paying even $1/month, they'd just turn it off. I remember having it on an iPad and it gave a warning about space and locked everything up like described here:
Had to do a hard reboot, it came back days later and had to hard reboot each time so I just disabled it. Matching online capacity to device capacity would be a good option because they don't need to backup apps or music for people with iTunes Match so the actual data would be much smaller (they can deduct app storage from the allocation if they wanted). They'd have to watch for when SSDs become inexpensive though because Macs can have as much as 10TB eventually.
They can have two payment tiers iCloud and iCloud Pro where the Pro one could be $1/month per 100GB used beyond the device's storage (up to 100GB). If you bought a 16GB iPad then if you use 17GB, you'd have to move up a tier, which pushes people into buying higher capacity devices.
I think she already had that article written and then rec'd quotes from Google about how it was really being handled. (Note: She's a former free-lancer for The Guardian which may be where she learned the tone.) She pretty much dismissed the Google response to her questions at the very end of the article, IMHO as it didn't jibe well with the tone of what she had already written. I think even you would admit that Google did a much better job of getting out in front of some of the expected attack gang than they normally do.
I'll dig the article up in a few but yesterday Google made it clear that no data is leaving the photos app (used the word silo'd as I recall) that you yourself didn't request and nothing from it is being monitized for Google's financial gain.
And to be perfectly fair and upfront they also said that one day they might do more with it. As an example they mentioned if they assumed you owned a Tesla (based on pictures) and a recall had been issued on it they could notify you, but anything along those lines would only be rolled out after users had been informed and permission granted for the change. FWIW Google Photos does not even use facial recognition to put an identity with a face. Will they at some point? I suspect they will eventually but for a reason that benefits the user even if it also benefits Google and with proper safeguards and noticed. Then again perhaps they won't tho it would surprise me with Facebook and Microsoft making it a priority.
IMO Google is being unusually responsive to customer concerns about privacy regarding their new Photos app. Will things change over time? I'll be surprised if they don't but that doesn't require Google to ignore privacy concerns or user preferences.
I think those days are past and Google understands they have to be more proactive and respectful of privacy issues than they may have been.
Anyway Marvin there's a more on-topic thread for it probably so feel free to move the posts to the Google Photos discussion if you think it's the more proper venue. No intention of waylaying this one.
It's annoying not to at least see a 100 GB / $1.99 a month option:
iCloud
5GB- Free
20GB- $0.99 per month
200GB- $3.99 per month
1TB- $9.99 per month
It's like 20GB is not enough for a lot of people, but 100 GB might be more than enough for a lot of people. It's not that hard to go over 20GB after awhile.
Anyway, just an observation from a potential customer.
Apple really needs to up its game when it comes to services. Make their services best in class and use them as loss leaders to sell more hardware. Personally I think Cook should poach a top notch cloud executive from Microsoft, Google or Amazon and give all iCloud/Siri/Maps stuff to this new executive. Let Eddy Cue focus iTunes, Apple Music, ?TV, AppStore and ?Pay.
Also I think Apple really needs to step it up when it comes to their own apps and services. Right now I could probably fill up an entire home screen on my iPhone with Google apps. Same with Microsoft, who just spent around $100M on another iOS app - Wunderlust. Google's photos app is getting really good reviews. but it's almost like as long as you buy an iPhone Apple doesn't care what services you use. No I want them to care. I want them to be pissed off that so many people use GMail, Google Maps, Google Photos etc. and make their software products that much better.
My point is that I don't think Apple has the server capacity yet to open the floodgates. They're adding how many tens of millions of new FaceTime, iMessage, Siri, Maps, Photos, etc., customers per month, and they really only just started building data centers. Where are the centers in China and Europe?
Give them a year or two and the situation will be different. Server farms don't really grow out of the ground. They are probably trying to encourage discipline or home backup or diversion of big users to other providers for the present.
Instead of things like more t hers ($1.99/100GB) I'd like to see you be able to share iCloud across a family. Wife and I each have to pay $4 a month since the $1 is not enough for her phone backups. I was already paying the $4/200GB and only using 50GB or so but I can't share it with the wife, since her Apple ID is different. (We share one ID for iTunes/App Store but have separate for iCloud).
That is UNLIMITED for FREE for photo's and videos. And for 99% of users that is exactly where most of the storage is going.
Also don't forget you need to buy an Apple device to use iCloud. With Google Drive/Google Photos you don't have to buy a Google/Android device.
It's unlimited with restrictions on quality but Google can monetize this data to help their ad or search business. They said they aren't just now but there's not an official privacy policy stating clearly what they do or can do with the data.
"Bradley Horowitz, who is Google's VP of Streams, Photos and Sharing, suggests that the company does not have any plans to monetize Google Photos, at least for now.
"The information gleaned from analyzing these photos does not travel outside of this product?-?not today. But if I thought we could return immense value to the users based on this data I'm sure we would consider doing that," says Horowitz. "For instance, if it were possible for Google Photos to figure out that I have a Tesla, and Tesla wanted to alert me to a recall, that would be a service that we would consider offering, with appropriate controls and disclosure to the user.""
To Apple it would just be a cost, they don't really have any service just now that can benefit from massive amounts of personal data. They don't have to go all the way to unlimited storage because people will abuse it. They need a cap of some kind. 100GB tiers would be ok and they can make you pay extra for each 100GB. To make 1TB free would be a bit crazy because that would be like buying a $50 hard drive per user. Although they won't likely use it, it's still a potential $50 x 400 million users = $20b and growing each year. If they're using SSDs then it's more like $500 per 1TB for MLC.
Basing capacity on what a customer bought would be quite good. If you bought a Mac with 1TB SSD, a 128GB iPad and 64GB iPhone then that person has paid quite a lot for storage. They could get 64GB + 100GB + 100GB free cloud storage and then beyond that pay $1/month for each extra 100GB. Maybe iCloud could come with a separate login too so that families can link multiple Apple IDs into a single iCloud login and share the storage. They can set it up to share certain content between members or keep them private e.g share purchased music tracks and apps (don't need to be backed up as they are on the store) to family and some photos but not private photos.
A year or two? This is tech! Apple can't be dicking around for a year or two.
Why don't they just lease cloud space from Amazon or Microsoft for now? Its not like running a cloud server is rocket science.
Maybe they will, but it doesn't seem very Apple-like to be leasing space, entrusting their customers' data, to competitors. Microsoft and IBM are maybe least objectionable.
Anyway, it looks like each data center takes about three years from the planning stage. But what do I know about any of this? I'd like to see some informed commenting here. I do know that foot-stamping without considering material causes looks very bad and just spreads more entitlement tantrums.
It's unlimited with restrictions on quality but Google can monetize this data to help their ad... business. They said they aren't just now but there's not an official privacy policy stating clearly what they do or can do with the data.
Two things: If they haven't said what they can do with the data then where do you come up with the claim they can use your pictures for ads?
Secondly they HAVE commented specifically about it in their support pages:
"Your photos and videos will be backed up to your Google Photos library and are private unless you choose to share them."
If Google can use them for public advertising then they obviously could not be private to begin with. Sounds like some folks you're reading have an ax to grind (or a story to sell) and resorting to fear-mongering. Google may change it some day, but as they said and you mentioned not without properly notifying users and getting the needed permission. Anything less would cause much more damage to the brand than the teeny bit of ad revenue it might bring benefits them.
Two things: If they haven't said what they can do with the data then where do you come up with the claim they can use your pictures for ads?
I think what Marvin is saying is that they can analyze the photos (like they would in the Tesla example) and use that information for determining ad rates.
I think what Marvin is saying is that they can analyze the photos (like they would in the Tesla example) and use that information for determining ad rates.
That's an interesting angle. Maybe. But not now since they've specified that no data leaves the app, at least in the current iteration. Since they came out and advised the users and public of that fact they would be obligated to let them know if/when that ever changes.
the truth of the matter is that there is an injunction in place against apple. Not to desecrate a mans grave but Steve Jobs stole the idea for itunes (Along with the smartphone and the ipod) Now its time to pay the piper. What do you think is more logical - he invented it and never patented it or paid someone for the patent- which was never presented in court. Or that he stole the idea that lead to Apple becoming the biggest company. When you steal something and get caught you have to pay for it
the truth of the matter is that there is an injunction in place against apple. Not to desecrate a mans grave but Steve Jobs stole the idea for itunes (Along with the smartphone and the ipod) Now its time to pay the piper. What do you think is more logical - he invented it and never patented it or paid someone for the patent- which was never presented in court. Or that he stole the idea that lead to Apple becoming the biggest company. When you steal something and get caught you have to pay for it
Comments
They should be doing it with all their apps/service. Make the default mail app so good I don't want to use GMail or anything else. Make the notes app as good or better than One Note. Buy Fantastical and use it to make the best calendar app. That's not going to ruin 3rd party app ecosystem. There will always be stuff not in Apple's wheelhouse that 3rd parties will be there for.
It's sad that when you decide you randomly stick on something, you spam every fucking thread with it. Otherwise, you're a decent poster so I don't know why you engage in this garbage. Tell me, why the sudden outcry about iCloud prices NOW? Why the sudden need to troll about this incessantly? Apple has made you many tens of thousands, yet you pretend to the outraged at the prospect of paying $1/m. It's pathetic.
I find it quite amusing for sog to complain about that but have no problem defending Apple over its device storage pricing.
I thoug
I find it quite amusing for sog to complain about that but have no problem defending Apple over its device storage pricing.
I have no problem with Apple's storage pricing because it is up front and clear.
With iCloud it is not. Most people have NO IDEA that you only get 5 GB of cloud PER APPLE ID. And once you pay for the device its over. With cloud you need to pay each month, every month, again and again. People dont like that.
And then look at the margins. Apple is making ridiculous margins on iCloud storage for people who are paying 99 cents for 15 additional GB of data. How do I know? Cause you can buy cloud space for 1 cent a GB almost anywhere. Why can't Apple just foot the 10 cents of cost for additional cloud? Friken ridiculous. iCloud margins are probably close to 90%.
Again its all about the user experience. I don't mind paying $900 for great hardware. But then don't try to nickle and dime me on ESSENTIAL SERVICES after that. It would be like charging 99 cents for an email account.
Agree 100%.
If it meant no scanning of my emails and no ads, I'd pay for an email account.
If I did, I wouldn't post it. I'm not compelled to be held hostage by a commenter on an internet forum.
Saying "everyone else is doing it" is not always a reason to comply. Everyone else is leading the race to the bottom on hardware; should Apple follow suit there too?
Update: The System Status page indicates that all services are back online as of noon Eastern.
I experienced the iCloud email outage. It lasted about 10 minutes at the most. This cannot be classified as a major outage in any way. This was a hiccup and that’s all. Getting your panties in a knot over this is just plain stupid.
Hope the unlimited, free photo storage will be provided by Apple as well...
It probably wouldn't even be making a loss considering they already run data centers for the App Store and streaming music. It's just expanding the use of the data center they already maintain. Making 30% off every App Store purchase pays for a lot of it. The following site says that Google's servers cost about $2.82b per quarter:
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/07/23/from-112-servers-to-5b-spent-on-google-data-centers-per-quarter/
Google has over 1 million servers, could be as much as 2 million:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/161772-microsoft-now-has-one-million-servers-less-than-google-but-more-than-amazon-says-ballmer
Apple makes just under $5b revenue per quarter from services but they don't say how much profit is in there and they will have to pay content fees out of that. Apple's pricing doesn't look too bad:
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-cloud-storage-price-google-drive-dropbox-icloud-one-drive-2014-12
Google Drive
15GB- Free
100GB- $1.99 per month
1TB- $9.99 per month
Dropbox
2GB- Free
Up to 16GB- Free, if you refer a bunch of friends. With a basic free account, you get an extra 500MB per referral and you can earn up to 16GB total through this method. It works the same for paid users, but you get 1GB instead of 500MB per referral.
1TB- $9.99 per month
iCloud
5GB- Free
20GB- $0.99 per month
200GB- $3.99 per month
1TB- $9.99 per month
OneDrive
15GB- Free
100GB- $1.99 per month
200GB- $3.99 per month
1TB- $6.99 per month
Google can make their ad business more effective using customer data, which is harder for Apple to do:
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/01/google-photos-reminder-smile-its-free-youre-the-product/
Google can analyze photos to get insights into design, product, location trends to be able to improve click-through rates on ads for travel and products. Apple doesn't need to monetize storage though, it's not like they're going to have 400m people paying even $1/month, they'd just turn it off. I remember having it on an iPad and it gave a warning about space and locked everything up like described here:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3901612
Had to do a hard reboot, it came back days later and had to hard reboot each time so I just disabled it. Matching online capacity to device capacity would be a good option because they don't need to backup apps or music for people with iTunes Match so the actual data would be much smaller (they can deduct app storage from the allocation if they wanted). They'd have to watch for when SSDs become inexpensive though because Macs can have as much as 10TB eventually.
They can have two payment tiers iCloud and iCloud Pro where the Pro one could be $1/month per 100GB used beyond the device's storage (up to 100GB). If you bought a 16GB iPad then if you use 17GB, you'd have to move up a tier, which pushes people into buying higher capacity devices.
I think she already had that article written and then rec'd quotes from Google about how it was really being handled. (Note: She's a former free-lancer for The Guardian which may be where she learned the tone.) She pretty much dismissed the Google response to her questions at the very end of the article, IMHO as it didn't jibe well with the tone of what she had already written. I think even you would admit that Google did a much better job of getting out in front of some of the expected attack gang than they normally do.
I'll dig the article up in a few but yesterday Google made it clear that no data is leaving the photos app (used the word silo'd as I recall) that you yourself didn't request and nothing from it is being monitized for Google's financial gain.
And to be perfectly fair and upfront they also said that one day they might do more with it. As an example they mentioned if they assumed you owned a Tesla (based on pictures) and a recall had been issued on it they could notify you, but anything along those lines would only be rolled out after users had been informed and permission granted for the change. FWIW Google Photos does not even use facial recognition to put an identity with a face. Will they at some point? I suspect they will eventually but for a reason that benefits the user even if it also benefits Google and with proper safeguards and noticed. Then again perhaps they won't tho it would surprise me with Facebook and Microsoft making it a priority.
IMO Google is being unusually responsive to customer concerns about privacy regarding their new Photos app. Will things change over time? I'll be surprised if they don't but that doesn't require Google to ignore privacy concerns or user preferences.
I think those days are past and Google understands they have to be more proactive and respectful of privacy issues than they may have been.
Anyway Marvin there's a more on-topic thread for it probably so feel free to move the posts to the Google Photos discussion if you think it's the more proper venue. No intention of waylaying this one.
It's annoying not to at least see a 100 GB / $1.99 a month option:
iCloud
5GB- Free
20GB- $0.99 per month
200GB- $3.99 per month
1TB- $9.99 per month
It's like 20GB is not enough for a lot of people, but 100 GB might be more than enough for a lot of people. It's not that hard to go over 20GB after awhile.
Anyway, just an observation from a potential customer.
My point is that I don't think Apple has the server capacity yet to open the floodgates. They're adding how many tens of millions of new FaceTime, iMessage, Siri, Maps, Photos, etc., customers per month, and they really only just started building data centers. Where are the centers in China and Europe?
Give them a year or two and the situation will be different. Server farms don't really grow out of the ground. They are probably trying to encourage discipline or home backup or diversion of big users to other providers for the present.
Instead of things like more t hers ($1.99/100GB) I'd like to see you be able to share iCloud across a family. Wife and I each have to pay $4 a month since the $1 is not enough for her phone backups. I was already paying the $4/200GB and only using 50GB or so but I can't share it with the wife, since her Apple ID is different. (We share one ID for iTunes/App Store but have separate for iCloud).
It's unlimited with restrictions on quality but Google can monetize this data to help their ad or search business. They said they aren't just now but there's not an official privacy policy stating clearly what they do or can do with the data.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/56945/20150601/google-photos-offers-unlimited-storage-its-free-in-exchange-for-your-privacy.htm
"Bradley Horowitz, who is Google's VP of Streams, Photos and Sharing, suggests that the company does not have any plans to monetize Google Photos, at least for now.
"The information gleaned from analyzing these photos does not travel outside of this product?-?not today. But if I thought we could return immense value to the users based on this data I'm sure we would consider doing that," says Horowitz. "For instance, if it were possible for Google Photos to figure out that I have a Tesla, and Tesla wanted to alert me to a recall, that would be a service that we would consider offering, with appropriate controls and disclosure to the user.""
To Apple it would just be a cost, they don't really have any service just now that can benefit from massive amounts of personal data. They don't have to go all the way to unlimited storage because people will abuse it. They need a cap of some kind. 100GB tiers would be ok and they can make you pay extra for each 100GB. To make 1TB free would be a bit crazy because that would be like buying a $50 hard drive per user. Although they won't likely use it, it's still a potential $50 x 400 million users = $20b and growing each year. If they're using SSDs then it's more like $500 per 1TB for MLC.
Basing capacity on what a customer bought would be quite good. If you bought a Mac with 1TB SSD, a 128GB iPad and 64GB iPhone then that person has paid quite a lot for storage. They could get 64GB + 100GB + 100GB free cloud storage and then beyond that pay $1/month for each extra 100GB. Maybe iCloud could come with a separate login too so that families can link multiple Apple IDs into a single iCloud login and share the storage. They can set it up to share certain content between members or keep them private e.g share purchased music tracks and apps (don't need to be backed up as they are on the store) to family and some photos but not private photos.
Maybe they will, but it doesn't seem very Apple-like to be leasing space, entrusting their customers' data, to competitors. Microsoft and IBM are maybe least objectionable.
Anyway, it looks like each data center takes about three years from the planning stage. But what do I know about any of this? I'd like to see some informed commenting here. I do know that foot-stamping without considering material causes looks very bad and just spreads more entitlement tantrums.
Secondly they HAVE commented specifically about it in their support pages:
"Your photos and videos will be backed up to your Google Photos library and are private unless you choose to share them."
If Google can use them for public advertising then they obviously could not be private to begin with. Sounds like some folks you're reading have an ax to grind (or a story to sell) and resorting to fear-mongering. Google may change it some day, but as they said and you mentioned not without properly notifying users and getting the needed permission. Anything less would cause much more damage to the brand than the teeny bit of ad revenue it might bring benefits them.
Two things: If they haven't said what they can do with the data then where do you come up with the claim they can use your pictures for ads?
I think what Marvin is saying is that they can analyze the photos (like they would in the Tesla example) and use that information for determining ad rates.