[NewsPoster]

Earlier today, as part of its unveiling of the new iPhones and other products at its special event, Apple revealed it was cutting the price of iCloud storage. Customers can pay $1 per month to get 50GB of online storage, an increase from 20GB previously, while those with greater data storage needs can get 200GB of storage for $3 per month, saving $1. Buying a whole terabyte of storage now costs just $10 per month, half its previous price.


The price drop largely brings Apple in line with other major cloud storage services. For example, Google offers 100GB of storage for $2 per month, 1TB for $10, and then higher tiers are effectively priced at $10 per TB. While Dropbox doesn't have tiers of data, its Pro account costs $10 per month and includes 1TB of storage, equal to the other two. Microsoft's OneDrive bucks the trend slightly, by offering 100GB for $2 and 200GB for $4 per month, while the 1TB tier costs $7 per month and includes access to Office 365.

While the new tiered pricing falls in line with its competitors, iCloud is certainly lacking in terms of free storage. Apple did not mention the free storage quantity at the event, but it is likely to remain at 5GB. Google Drive and OneDrive both offer 15GB of free storage, making iCloud's allocation seem small, but it is still larger than the 2GB free space Dropbox offers its users.

Apple did not state when the new pricing structure would come into force, but it may arrive at the same time as iOS 9 on September 16.

[coffeetime]

What about the freebie version? Can Apple bump it up to 10GB?

[Stuke]

Wasn't announced, so guess not...although I agree with you!

[Charles Martin]

They actually mentioned during the keynote that 5GB is free, so it appears that that limitation is staying, at least for now.

[DiabloConQueso]

Yep, 5GB is just about the minimum usable iCloud storage to whet one's palette -- iPhone and iPad backups typically take up 1GB or more (potentially much more) and Photo Stream can eat up several more GBs... not to mention any documents you've got stored in the cloud as well.

$0.99 for 20GB was a no-brainer, and $2.99 for ten times that amount is a pretty darn good deal in my opinion. $9.99 for 1TB matches the amount of space and price that others are offering (like Dropbox), so at least in terms of cloud storage space, it looks like we won't be subject to the "Apple Tax".

I held off for quite some time because of the pricing, but now there was just no reason to hold back anymore, and not having to fight for usable space on my 16GB iPhone because of sneaky photos eating up all the space is going to be a boon.

Yes, Apple is pushing their customers toward heavier use of iCloud (as is apparent with the new AppleTV), but all-in-all, it's the cloud service I trust the most. Microsoft's new Windows 10 "analyze everything you do and say" is unsettling, Google Drive is no different from GMail in terms of analyzing content for targeted advertising, and rumors about Dropbox's security and partnerships gives some people concern. Apple is consistently the one that sides with customer privacy (as is evident in their resistance to FBI/DOJ initiatives for law enforcement backdoors), and their business model doesn't revolve around turning a profit off of users' content.

[Mike Wuerthele]

Don't forget, this kind of thing comes off of iTunes/Mac app store credit before it gets billed to a card, so those "X for .8X" deals on iTunes gift cards lowers the effective price even further.

[osiris]

Not too bad - and better late than never, I suppose.

I may spring for the 50GB plan and move away from desktop backups of my phone.