Apple has quietly slipped some pretty hefty price rises into its iCloud+ cloud storage plans, with millions of users across the world potentially affected.
With US pricing unchanged, it’s likely that the rises were a move to tie back into true values that have been affected by currency exchange rate fluctuations in recent months.
UK customers are among the worst affected, having to deal with price rises of at least one-fifth: the 50GB plan has gone from £0.79 to £0.99 (25%), the 200GB plan from £2.49 to £2.99 (20%), and the 2TB plan from £6.99 to £8.99 (29%).
iCloud+ prices go up across the world
According to 9To5Mac, customers in Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates are also now having to fork out more each month for their cloud storage.
Apple did not immediately confirm to TechRadar Pro which countries have been affected and whether the move is likely to be mirrored across the rest of its online services. Late last year, some services like Apple Music and Apple TV+ were made more expensive.
The trio of online service bundles, known collectively as Apple One, had their pricing adjusted to reflect these changes last year. They include access to at least Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and iCloud+.
Apple has not yet adjusted its prices to reflect the iCloud+ changes, so Apple One remains at £16.95, £22.95, and £32.95 per month for Individual, Family, and Premier, respectively.
Furthermore, each of the three iCloud+ storage plans - which can be shared with up to five more family members - also comes with iCloud Private Relay which is designed to maintain some online browsing privacy, Hide My Email, and support for a custom email domain. They also get support for varying numbers of HomeKit Secure Video cameras depending on the plan.
Among the like-for-like plans that Google offers, its 200GB plan is now cheaper than Apple’s at £2.49 per month, as is its 2TB plan at £7.99 per month. Dropbox also costs £7.99 per month for 2TB.
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