Apple hit with class action lawsuit over iCloud's 5GB limit
Apple hit with class action lawsuit over iCloud's 5GB limit - 9to5Mac
Apple hit with class action lawsuit over iCloud's 5GB limit::A newly-proposed class action lawsuit alleges that Apple has “marked up its iCloud prices to the point where the service...
Sometimes it's hard to feel sorry for Apple users given the amount of repeated nickeling and diming they go through,yet make excuses for (as seen in the comments). Definitely shades of battered woman syndrome
On the other hand, the phone just works, upgrades between devices are seamless, and the phone retains value after 4 years.
Plus, the backup restoration is insane. If you stole my phone, I’d be back to where I was within an hour or two — all of which is driving to Apple and waiting on a sales clerk to pull an iPhone from the back, then going to a store owned by my cell carrier to register the device on their network. No device re-customization at all in the equation. There is nothing like it on Android.
5GB is a lame amount for a base tier of storage in 2024 but it’s hardly abuse.
This sounds like something that hasn't been true for 5-10 years tbh. At least not within the Pixel family. I upgrade phones without a single hiccup. My older phones are still around and used daily by my kids with no problema. I've had to wipe a phone and restore from the cloud backup and it was a matter of minutes to be usable, and was effectively like nothing had happened as soon as my apps and their data finished downloading.
On the other hand, the phone just works,
Same with android
upgrades between devices are seamless,
Same with android
and the phone retains value after 4 years.
Aight you got me there, except for that apple has been proven in court to slow down their older models of phones
Plus, the backup restoration is insane. If you stole my phone, I’d be back to where I was within an hour or two
Same with android
— all of which is driving to Apple and waiting on a sales clerk to pull an iPhone from the back, then going to a store owned by my cell carrier to register the device on their network.
I just go to walmart
No device re-customization at all in the equation.
Same with android
There is nothing like it on Android.
False
5GB is a lame amount for a base tier of storage in 2024 but it’s hardly abuse.
I agree, if people are willing to buy into apple they get what apple serves them.
It's pretty cool how you can just download any app and install it, also how you can customize the phone to look however you want, run whatever software you want, and all for under $200
Oh wait
I have had zero issues restoring or moving between android phones. What in the world are you talking about?
Meanwhile my mom forgot her apple password and their customer support was so unhelpful she had to get a new account after talking to them for months. They refused to let her reset her password.
Actually, there's something exactly like that on Android too. Just like on iOS, you also don't have the choice to back that up to where you want tho. You have to use Google Drive if you're not using a custom ROM like LineageOS.
There is nothing like it on Android
In the past, I've always made a conscious choice not to try to do it that way on Android. Getting a new phone is a good chance to reset, only install apps that I specifically still use, etc.
But in the past, I've always replaced a phone because the old one was so old the battery couldn't get through even one day, so I had plenty of time to manually back up and take care of any specific data I really needed to be sure about. Recently, I had to get a new phone prematurely after I crashed and landed directly on the old one. So I did use the Pixel's restore functionality as I upgraded from the broken Pixel 6 Pro to the new Pixel 7a. And it was completely seamless. Kept me logged in to apps that I never thought would stay logged in, remembered wifi passwords, everything.
Of course, all of that was only possible because I casted my screen to my TV and plugged in a mouse and keyboard. The screen was too broken to approve the transfer otherwise.
Apple makes my life as the family sysadmin significantly easier. If I only had to worry about myself I’d do Android with a privacy focused ROM, but I doubt I could handle my entire family doing that. No way am I putting them on stock Android.
It would be nice if there was some competition but I’m not holding my breath.
What abuse?
That’s a pretty sick analogy. It’s crazy the levels you guys take these Apple feuds to.
What!? the company that weaponizes vendor-lockin the most is overcharging for their service!?!?!
Meh, they let you use whatever service you want, just not for some of the OS and app preference files - which are well under 5gb.
If you want to back up your media and docs to Dropbox, go for it.
I could join the 5GB club as well - after maybe ten years in the Apple ecosystem, my iPhone backup is 4.1GB.
Separately I have 28GB photos that could be synched to any service
I buy 2TB iCloud because I have multiple devices, share the space with a family of four, and use it for cloud storage from my PC
I read this article, because it's absurd to make a class action lawsuit about the free tier remaining at only 5GB. Apple has the right to give as much or little away for free.
Instead, the lawsuit is about something a lot more lawsuit worthy: The fact that you cannot backup your iPhone with other cloud service providers, providing an unfair advantage to iCloud. This should definitely be illegal.
Additionally, can we have a lawsuit over excessive storage markups (that are over ~2x the gross margin of the device)? This is also basically pure profit.
“There is no technological or security justification for Apple mandating the use of iCloud for Restricted Files,” the lawsuit reads.
Wouldn't this argument also be true for everything else Apple restricts you from doing? Texting app, browser, Apple music on a home pod, etc? (I don't have a lot of good examples because I don't have an i thing but I'm sure there are more)
This is Apple's face falling brick my brick. The app store was just the start
There's already a ruling they have to allow other browser engines
How are you guys reading this article? It took me 5-10mins of unchecking each cookie vendor one by one before I gave up.
Modern internet is a shit show
Firefox for Android
I’ve always wondered whether I should bother about doing this. I assumed if I read the article in a Private Browser, no cookies are stored, and therefore none of my information is tracked?
Privacy badger turned up to max
I hope they loose this lawsuit and set a precedent that Samsung also has to follow. At least Samsung gives you the choice between onedrive and Google, but still no choice for generic WebDav...
That 2
well you can add ftp/sftp/samba storage as "native", just not webdav
I hope this forces their hand in having to allow other actual e2e cloud services, its legititmately bullshit we even need to have this convo :(
I’d love to use my 2TB iCloud with my Android devices
This is a stupid lawsuit. You can back up your phone locally using iTunes and Finder and the new device app on Windows. You can also back it up using third party software. No one is forcing you to use iCloud.
You get a free computer with purchase of an iPhone? Neat!
What’s a “computer”?
You get a free backup to the cloud with purchase of a computer? Neat!
You get a free external backup drive with the purchase of a computer? Neat!
Y’all realize that paying for a backup device has been a thing since the dawn of computing, right?
It doesn’t matter if the hard drive is in my house, or in a server farm. Someone is going to sell me the space.
Seems the issue is what you can back up on the phone and where
Apple nevertheless arbitrarily requires that its mobile device holders use iCloud to back up certain file types—mainly, device settings as well as apps and apps data (“Restricted Files”). With respect to other file types—e.g., photos and videos (“Accessible Files”)—Apple mobile device holders can select from other cloud-based storage providers servicing the market, including Google Drive, Sync.com, pCloud, and others.
Many services depends on iCloud to work. Message sync and sharing Notes for instance. If your backups are taking up all your storage these things stop working right. It’s dumb.
Messages sync without being on iCloud backup.
This is an extra service they don’t have to offer. If they wanted to they could just drop the free tier altogether. You have space on your phone and you can back it up to your computer as well. I do t see the point of this lawsuit except “wah, they’re not giving me enough stuff for free!”
This is an extra service they don’t have to offer.
No, they could let you use someone else's service instead, but they've chosen to block that.
you can back it up to your computer as well
According to the article you literally can't
Although based on the comments there, the article may be wrong on that point
I hate this the most about my iPhone. I’m currently on my 3rd Apple device, but you don’t get more storage every time you buy one. So if you have an iPhone and an iPad you’re still stuck with 5gb, and it’s shared with you backups and your cloud-based apps like photo sync, message sync. That 5gb is gone pretty quick.
It’s easy enough to sync photos elsewhere, but not messages. So the $1/mo storage upgrade becomes really attractive.
I hope this opens up their backup service but I doubt it.
Apple gives you free iCloud storage to back up your phone when you get a new device.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/104980
You can also sync phone to phone when upgrading as part of the setup assistant, without needing iCloud storage.
You don’t get “more” storage though. And if you have even just one iPad your storage is gone really quick between the two devices.
Oh it’s good to know. Thanks
Apple does let you use any cloud backup service you want… just not for the OS and app preference files. Those go to iCloud, but those are also highly unlikely to hit 5gb.
When you cloud restore with your media backed up to something like Dropbox, this is what happens.
Apple gets no money for storage, but Dropbox gets a check.
After ten years, I hit 5GB. I upgraded to 200GB.
For $3/month
There are many, many reasons to bash the shit out of Apple until you’re left with applesauce, and this is the one they chose?
Whatever, guys..
They need to make it your choice (of compliant options where compliant != neutering for the USgovernment) for the default background running option tho, you're not defending the hero we deserve, only what is forced by their lax regulation
Right now, Apple selectively degrades the experience of effortless syncing thru any other modality than its in-house inferior option. That is wrong and monopolistic and antitrust-worthy action now that the technology is ubiquitous and Applehas the tools to ensure its done consistent with the Apple walled garden gestalt. A gated garden would not be so bad, hell, everybody has one basically
I can't wait till we get all the Europe stuff! And I'm all in on Apple, i just don't gratuitously defend their nonsense (upvoted by the way, im not the naysayer. You raise an important defense that needs to be dismantled)
Launch Dropbox, or similar, to pull down your backed up media and files.
It's not nearly as smooth as having the native solution though, which I believe is what this lawsuit is about. For example, the feature that lets you upload images to iCloud and delete them off your phone, but still have them visible in your photo app comes to mind.
You should take a peak at Google photos does on iOS. It’s basically Apple’s photos app, but all connected to Google’s cloud services. You can autobackup, keep stuff mirrored, keep stuff only in the cloud, only local, a mix of both, etc. I don’t know if it’s smart enough to automatically clear up local space if you don’t interact with a file very often, but I don’t see why a 3rd party developer couldn’t build that.
So they seem to be arguing that Apple isn't spending enough money to offer a free service it never had to offer because reasons.
I mean from the article it seemed like not being able to backup completely to different cloud platforms was the bigger issue
Did they previously offer more for free then drop it? I only have a single IPad that's intentionally not cloud synced just because I'd rather host things local, so I'm not in a place to judge average use, but even my Google account has less than 5GB in it.
It’s been 5gb for 0.99c for more than a decade.
It’s easy to hit 5gb when backing up photos and videos, or message threads that contain photos/video. The space is also shared with the non-backed up data.
I read this article, because it's absurd to make a class action lawsuit about the free tier remaining at only 5GB. Apple has the right to give as much or little away for free.
Instead, the lawsuit is about something a lot more lawsuit worthy: The fact that you cannot backup your iPhone with other cloud service providers, providing an unfair advantage to iCloud. This should definitely be illegal.
Additionally, can we have a lawsuit over excessive storage markups (that are over ~2x the gross margin of the device)? This is also basically pure profit.
Even Google gives you three times that.
But then again, you never know when the service you rely on will be canned by Google.
How many Instant Messengers have we(yes, I'm an Android user) been through now?
Do you remember when they allowed you to combine SMS and Chat messages into the same app and you would see them merged together in one long chat? Those were the days.
I have half a dozen messengers on my phone, none of them from Google.
I stopped using Google apps after they dropped SMS integration with whatever version of their integrated messaging system in about 2010.
I can't trust their products to continue to work, so I just won't use them.
Microsoft does 5gb too though
Is it shared with gmail? Or will it be separate? Because my gmail is always 14gb+ full.
Unfortunately it's shared.
Your Gmail sits on Google’s servers, just like IMAP email accounts. If you go to a brand new device and log in with your gmail account info, it will download from Google.
Disabling iCloud backup should eliminate the upgrade nag. Can tap iCloud (the profile photo) at the top of Settings, and start unchecking. You might have enough space to still back up e.g. contacts, so you shouldn’t have to disable everything.
Go to backup settings and turn off photos and messages. You only need essentials like calendar, notes, health, passwords etc.
The lawsuit isn't really about the 5 GB free tier, but about being able to use system services like device backups with other cloud providers.
Poorly written headline.
The actual article headline
Ah ok. I was so confused. I still don't know if it's legal.