Apple’s iCloud tax rate needs adjustment

Thanks to Sean McEntee

Apple has introduced a new 2TB storage option to iCloud (for around $240/year), but it can still go a lot further to make life easier for its customers, particularly families.

You see, right now every Apple family is likely to have multiple Apple devices, an iPhone each for example, perhaps an iPod touch, an iPad, more… However, to make sure we have no choice but to pay the “iCloud Apple Tax” the company gives us just 5GB of free iCloud storage no matter how many devices we own.

Meanwhile the company adds feature after feature to its online service, integrating these closely across all its platforms. This means that if you’re the main bread winner in your family group, paying Apple’s iCloud storage tax can end up expensive.

It doesn’t need to be this way.

Even if Apple continues to resist the (I think) perfectly reasonable idea of giving customers 5GB of free storage with each Apple device they purchase on a cumulative basis (so you end up with a lot of storage over time), then surely it can figure out a 2TB family iCloud storage plan?

How hard is it to enable an iCloud account administrator (ie. Mom or Dad) to create folders and assign storage quantities and permissions to each family member, linking each virtual storage volume with an Apple ID?

For me the problem is that I see Apple’s introduction of a 2TB iCloud storage tier as a kind of sign that Apple knows how much online storage its users need. It’s twin insistence that 5GB of free storage is enough even as it weaves more platform components into iCloud shows it knows what people need, but won’t give it to them.

I argue that even if Apple won’t do the right thing and raise the free storage allocation, or at least make it grow to reflect your investment in Apple hardware (more iThings: More iCloud) it should at least begin offering a 2TB iCloud Family Storage plan.

The world’s wealthiest corporation surely can’t be so greedy that it must effectively force people to cough up cash they don’t have in order to enjoy the platform advantages it has been selling them?

No one likes an unfair tax system, after all.