steven n.

100% agree. I have long advocated Apple is neither a hardware nor a software company but rather a highly skill Systems design house. 

So will Apple simply stop billing you if you are on a qualified plan?

wizard69 said:

auxio said:

If theories like creationism and flat earth are any indication, many people just seem to prefer random, unfounded speculation over well-researched facts.

The difficult thing for support staff is that people come to them expecting that they have all of the answers to their problems.  When really, only the people who are directly working on the hardware and software can determine the cause (and solution) for these types of problems.  Apple should really tell support staff that if they don't know the solution, and can't find it in their knowledge base, they should tell people that information instead of providing speculation-based answers.

 We live in a world of theories largely and often struggle to explain the facts.  

I take exception to this nihilistic view (and also how you use the word "fact" and "data" and the concept of observation as interchangeable.

If you take Auxio's original sentence, he equates people buying into creationism and flat Earth theories as people not willing to accept well research facts. If we take "fact" as being:

"An objective consensus on a fundamental reality that has been agreed upon by a substantial number of people."

I think we can assuming the Earth being round and Evolution are both "An objective consensus on a fundamental reality that has been agreed upon by a substantial number of people."

In an observational world, our theories do an amazing job of explaining our observations (what you seem to be calling "facts"). For example: If I drop a brick from 4 meters high, Newton's basic theory of motion (a = dv/dt = d^2/dt^2) predicts it will take about 0.8 seconds to hit the ground and this fits observation extremely well. Theory even predicts interference patterns in double slit experiments with lights as well as quantum entanglement as demonstrated in (and in variations) of the quantum eraser experiments. Theory and observation match very well. Our theories, based on our observation of things around us, were good enough to get to the moon and send Voyager to other planets in a grand tour of the solar system.

Darwin made an amazing amount of predictions based on evolution such as predicting that precursors to the trilobite would be found in pre-Silurian rocks and he was right. He also predicted a method would be found allowing traits to be passed down from parents to offspring and he was right (as confirmed by Watson and Crick in 1953).

While it is true we don't have a single "Theory of Everything" explaining 100.000000% of everything we observe, saying we live in a world where "theories largely and often struggle to explain [observations]" is short sighted and poorly represents what we really know. There is lots left to explain and understand but we have an amazing set of theories today capable of explaining a vast array of data we observe every day.

magman1979 said:

You know what, you praise Apple in one breath for charging a measly $0.99 for 50GB and $2.99 for 200GB, which is literally less than (or the same) as sacrificing one of those Caramel Macchiato Latte's once a month, yet in the rest of this bash piece you claim you resent the 5GB? Self-entitlement complex much?

Seriously, NONE of the other services offer the seamless integration of what iCloud offers with iOS and macOS devices, and MANY of them I wouldn't trust with any of my data.

This whole article wreaks of bad advice, and endorsing inferior services, all to save, literally, a buck a month.

I say, don't be cheap, pay the buck (or three) a month, and have piece of mind!

Personally, this is an area Apple could do MUCH better. They have some nice backup and restore functions as well as nice cloud photos options but they are hamstrung by their measly free 5GB offering. Why not 5GB per device attached to an Apple ID? Or simply give every Apple ID 20GB and charge $1/month for 200GB. That would keep the $10 month for 2TB and be simple. Given a 4TB network class drive costs about $150, $120/year for 2TB of cloud sounds a bit $$$$.

I would think a more reasonable price would be:

20GB: Free with Apple ID
500GB: $1/month
5TB: $10/month

They would still be making bank with these prices. 

"And before that, Google's takeover of Motorola—once hailed as a genius deal on the level of chocolate and peanut butter"

I love lines like this. Classic.