Apple’s $0.99 iCloud Storage Tier Is Insulting
Apple’s iPhone XS costs $999, but that’s not the end of it. You’ll soon start seeing warnings that your iCloud storage is almost full. Apple wants $0.99 per month so you can back up your phone and photos.
Seriously, Apple?
Your iCloud Storage Fills Up Fast
Apple gives every Apple ID account 5 GB of iCloud storage. This is shared for iCloud backups of your devices, iCloud photo library, application data stored in iCloud, and personal files you’ve stored in iCloud Drive.
This fills up quick! Modern iPhones have high-resolution cameras and take live photos. Just a single photo can be 3.5 MB in size. Videos will be even larger. Device backups can easily use 1.5 GB per device. And you only get a total of 5 GB to store your device backups, even if you have both an iPhone and iPad.
As you approach 5 GB of storage, your iPhone (or iPad) will start nagging you to pay up. Apple will even send you an email asking for more money.
The cheapest iCloud storage plan you can buy is $0.99 per month for 50 GB. Apple is asking for 99 cents per month to stop the nags.
That’s just a bad experience to have on a premium product, especially on a $999 iPhone XS or a top-end $1449 iPhone XS Max with 512 GB of internal storage. Apple shouldn’t be nickel-and-diming its customers, especially the ones who buy the high-end hardware.