Apple hit with class action lawsuit over iCloud's 5GB limit

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

Apple hit with class action lawsuit over iCloud’s 5GB limit and iPhone backup restrictions
- Ah ok. I was so confused. I still don't know if it's legal.

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

Does android offer free storage for cloud backups?
- Drive is 15 GB
- As far as I know, Android also doesn't give you the option to back up system and app data to something else than Google Drive. LineageOS gives you that option but they implemented that themselves.
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!?!?!

9,99€ per month for 2 TB seems pretty normal to me. Google Drive is the same price iirc, and other providers have similar pricing.
- That's still expensive tho. After 10 months you could've just bought a 2tb nvme instead. Or a refurbished 10tb HDD.
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

The ddg browser on my phone just kinda does it automatically
- Thanks, I just installed it and now I can use the share button to load the article in ddg.
  
  I'll consider switching to it as my default browser if it doesn't let me down over the coming weeks.
  
  Honestly thanks for sharing with your comment
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?
- I'm not quite sure if they're allowed to use your IP to index your history or not. If you use private browser and VPN you'll be fine.
  
  I've just never worked out how to easily open private browsers from my mobile sync client
Firefox for Android
One thing Apple device browsers get so right is ReadingMode. Brave and Orion have the best in my opinion but that list is not exhaustive
- What's good about Apple device browsers reading mode compared to others?
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...

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
- You can still do backups to your desktop like you used to do, it's just not usually necessary.
- Amazon Photos works. Dropbox works. NextCloud works. What service are they blocking?
- The article is wrong.

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.

You don’t need to backup messages to iCloud for it to sync across devices. I have multiple iPhones and iPads on one account and don’t come across this issue because I backup photos to my laptop.
- Your messages share the 5gb space with the backups.
It's shared across the account, the devices don't matter. That's what makes it seamless.
- My issue is that you don’t get more space for each active device you add to the account.
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.

After logging into iCloud, iOS checks iCloud for the apps you had installed, and it downloads the latest compatible versions from the store. Then, iOS pulls down OS and app preferences from iCloud
Launch Dropbox, or similar, to pull down your backed up media and files.

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.

Well, they make so much money on selling the content of your files, they better give you a lot of space.
- Right, because Apple doesn't collect your data, even though it says they do right in the terms of service you agreed to without reading.
- they'd* better give you
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.

It really sucks what they do. I have an iPad for the kids and it always complains about storage being full and offers me the "upgrade". I will never pay them that $1.

Edit: "downvotes" don't mean shit on Lemmy, and I'm getting them because I dislike how apple is fucking people side ways. I wasn't gonna say this, but it really is very hard to feel bad for the apple sheep. No matter what apple does they scream "give it to me harder, daddy cook". Stop being loyal to corporations, not a single corporation on earth gives a shit about you. Literally zero.

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.
- I'll check that out. Thank you.
- does it still have the "we noticed you are running out of space, turn on cloud to free up device space" nag? I haven't used apple in years but that one drove me crazy
Go to backup settings and turn off photos and messages. You only need essentials like calendar, notes, health, passwords etc.
- Thank you. Photos are already off. I'll turn off messages, too. Storage gets filled because my 6 year old daughter loves to make videos of herself pretending she's making YouTube videos showing her toys😂
I think a lot of Apple stuff is paid astroturfing. Its so obvious, like a domestic abuse victim or a chump who doesn't realize they're being screwed. It would be fun to watch if they were any other ecosystem inhabitant than the same one I use predominantly
- Stockholm syndrome is what it is.