iCloud Additional Storage Pricing: $20-$100 per Year

i think that we may be missing the point of all this. iCloud is not a backup service, and in fact it is very similar to the previous mobile me which they charged for. now it's free and people are complaining? i don't get it. 5GB is a good amount of storage for keeping those documents that you need on the fly.

When you buy a new iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you implicitly pay for the 5GB. So Apple will not offer any more special deals to give you more for free.

If you have 1 iDevice, 5gb is okay. Why shouldn't you get more space if you own 7 iDevices?

What?

I thought it was $25 for some big number of gig's extra storage, making iCloud much cheaper than Amazon?

I'm confused.

You're talking about iTunes Match, not icloud.

I have an iPhone 4 32GB on iOS 5 beta 4. I can tell you all for a fact that 5GB isn't enough to back up all my data. Every morning when I wake up it says "Not enough storage. This iPhone cannot be backed up because there is not enough iCloud storage available (Close) (Settings)" so iCloud Free is essentially worthless if you actually want to backup your stuff. Forget the fact that I have an iPad 2 that can't use any of my iCloud at all because my iPhone overflows the free amount. You should at the very least get 5GB per device that you own. Making an iCloud account for each iOS device I own seems very un-Apple like as nothing would be in sync, defeating the purpose. Only separate iCloud account that makes sense is my wife's. Can we link iCloud accounts so we can share my larger paid storage?

I predict this iCloud thing is going to be confusing and upset a lot of people. Especially since everyone's iTunes account will be separate, unless they didn't ever buy a thing until they got a .Mac or MM account which is automatically an Apple ID and will be converted into iCloud. That or you'd have to rebuy everything you've ever purchased with Apple to keep them all on a single account. Again, very un-Apple like. Using AppShopper to get everything on sale, I probably have the equivalent of over $1000 spent on the App Store. I'm never going to rebuy that stuff! Not to mention music or shows.

If only I had a single, simple unified account to use on all my Apple devices. My iPhone 4 was $300, our iPad 2 was $600, my wife's iPod Touch was $230, and my Macbook Pro was $2500. Apple, make it happen! They should just work together with one account. I've paid enough! It should be easy for us.

Right, but I have 3 iOS 5 compatible devices on my account. I'm sure others have more. Why shouldn't it be 5GB per compatible device?

This is what I'm saying. I'm my family, we have 10 iOS devices on our account. Why should we pay more for the same amount of space. I'm not even asking for 50gb of free space. Just a few 'buy this and get some space for free' promotions would make me happy.

When you buy a new iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you implicitly pay for the 5GB. So Apple will not offer any more special deals to give you more for free.

Right, but I have 3 iOS 5 compatible devices on my account. I'm sure others have more. Why shouldn't it be 5GB per compatible device?

From Apple's iCloud webpage:

When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5GB of free storage. And that’s plenty of room, because of the way iCloud stores your content. Your purchased music, apps, and books, as well as your Photo Stream, don’t count against your free storage. Since your mail, documents, Camera Roll, account information, settings, and other app data don’t use as much space, you’ll find that 5GB goes a long way.

Just to clear things up.

What?

I thought it was $25 for some big number of gig's extra storage, making iCloud much cheaper than Amazon?

I'm confused.

Remember this excludes your 1000 most recent photos and excludes any iTunes purchased music, TV shows (and eventually movies when agreed with studios)

I'll take 5GB of free storage.

Hmmm... If it's as versatile and integrated as Dropbox (not holding my breath), I might have to drop my Dropbox Pro account and go with iCloud.