iCloud iCloud storage plans. Do you believe they will change in the near future?

[gdourado]

Hello, how are you?
So, currently I have a 50gb iCloud plan.
It still holds all I need, but I am thinking about loading some old pictures to iCloud photos, so I would probably need more storage.

With this in mind, I am wondering if there are any rumors of changes to the plans.
Either the 0.99 plan to grow in space to say 100gb or the 2.99 plan come down in price to say 1.99.

Any kind of info on this matter?

Cheers!

 

[CTHarrryH]

People have wondered for years if Apple will change the plan - free is only 5 GB which is less than other companies provide but ??? I gather Apple makes a huge amount of money selling storage

 

[Erehy Dobon]

.

 

[jbachandouris]

I doubt they will change it. Wish they would, but most likely not.

 

[HDFan]

As storage media costs keep dropping (with 16TB and soon 20TB disks becoming available) so do the cost of storage plans. There are a number of unlimited cloud storage plans for ~$100 a year. I have two where I keep ~26TB of data on each. Apple will never match these prices, but over time I expect that they will gradually improve their plans, maybe increasing from 2 TB max to 5 TB or 50 to 100 GB for the same price. I don't expect to see any price drops.

When this will occur is totally unpredictable.

 

[Rodan52]

I haven't heard of any plans to change the existing structure. I guess 5Gb is sufficient for syncing basic services across devices but we all know that to take full advantage of all of the optional services available today and i'm not just talking about iCloud Photo Library, 5Gb is woefully inadequate.
Personally I think that if photo storage is all you need you might want to look at Microsoft's One Drive. I use MS Office on my Mac and Word on my portable devices so it was a logical choice for document storage but OneDrive is simple to use and gives you the 5Gb storage free a photo viewer (basic) and an upgrade to 100Gb for just AU $3.00/month.
If you already have a MS account it's a definite option. Get the app, login and setup as "basic" then upgrade (just OneDrive) through the app.

 

[konqerror]

As storage media costs keep dropping (with 16TB and soon 20TB disks becoming available) so do the cost of storage plans. There are a number of unlimited cloud storage plans for ~$100 a year.

Storage is only half the equation since consumer cloud services don't bill for bandwidth, unlike commercial cloud services. The cost has to be a combination of both. Also, the cost of energy to run the datacenters is important, particularly since Apple commits to more expensive renewable energy.

 

[gdourado]

I haven't heard of any plans to change the existing structure. I guess 5Gb is sufficient for syncing basic services across devices but we all know that to take full advantage of all of the optional services available today and i'm not just talking about iCloud Photo Library, 5Gb is woefully inadequate.
Personally I think that if photo storage is all you need you might want to look at Microsoft's One Drive. I use MS Office on my Mac and Word on my portable devices so it was a logical choice for document storage but OneDrive is simple to use and gives you the 5Gb storage free a photo viewer (basic) and an upgrade to 100Gb for just AU $3.00/month.
If you already have a MS account it's a definite option. Get the app, login and setup as "basic" then upgrade (just OneDrive) through the app.

I saw the prices of both Ms and google options.
While they have 100gb for 1.99 with the option to buy annually and save some, what I am really looking for is iCloud to keep the integration of the photo hosting with the iPad and iPhone in a seamless manner that only Apple does.
If Apple would drop their 100g plan to 1.99 to equal the competition, that would be perfect!
Because 36 euros a year for 100gb I still find steep.

 

[compwiz1202]

People have wondered for years if Apple will change the plan - free is only 5 GB which is less than other companies provide but ??? I gather Apple makes a huge amount of money selling storage

Yea if anything they will probably pull the same garbage they do with physical storage. Keep 50GB but up size and price for the other levels.

 

[unobtainium]

Between Files and Photos, my 200GB storage is almost full. Apple keeps bugging me to upgrade to 2TB for $9.99/mo., which I won't come even close to filling any time soon. In fact, I don't expect to use even half that amount for several years more. Yet there's no intermediate storage size between 200GB and 2TB!

Macs typically come with a reasonable range of storage sizes, so why can't cloud storage? Where is the 500GB or 1TB tier, Apple? $9.99/mo. for 2TB is super-overkill for me.

 

[rneglia]

Between Files and Photos, my 200GB storage is almost full. Apple keeps bugging me to upgrade to 2TB for $9.99/mo., which I won't come even close to filling any time soon. In fact, I don't expect to use even half that amount for several years more. Yet there's no intermediate storage size between 200GB and 2TB!

Macs typically come with a reasonable range of storage sizes, so why can't cloud storage? Where is the 500GB or 1TB tier, Apple? $9.99/mo. for 2TB is super-overkill for me.

I'm in the same exact boat. They need to offer something in between 200GB and 2TB. This is price gouging!