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Apple Accused of Trapping 40 Million UK Customers Into iCloud Service
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Why should Apple be forced to do that, beyond allowing apps to access photos, contacts, messages, etc. and save them to their own cloud storage? Let the app run in the background to automatically update the server when things change, or just periodically.
I don't think Apple is any better than Microsoft to be honest - and frankly, not that important to really worry about privacy about some other folks do.
I already use OneDrive for my photos and all my business and personal documents are there too, there's nothing else I would worry about.
Ever since Apple has the Files app, I think using any cloud is pretty easy now.
I do think 5GB is pretty much useless. When it 1st came out, it was great.
I do think 5GB is pretty much useless. When it 1st came out, it was great.
Which? are one of the leading British consumer advocacy/rights groups whose reviews and opinions are valued by consumers and advertisers. They have no affiliation with the state.
This said they're not wrong. If you're happy with the Apple ecosystem (I certainly am) you won't see a problem. I understand that point of view.
But the whole point of an open market is consumers also have choice and any barrier to data migration or access is a clear roadblock to this. In the case of iCloud I can bulk-transfer my Photos to Google its true, but moving over loads of documents requires manually downloading everything. I have to copy-and-paste my notes, I cannot extract DRM-ridden book purchases nor are app licences transferable.
Most of this is also true of Google and Microsoft but those companies provide their apps for competing platforms where Apple does not. This is in the truest sense of the word a form of lock-in as most customers lack the skills or patience to extract everything manually.
Apple produce apps for Windows to let users sync their data locally with their PC. All they have to do is provide an iCloud app for Android to let others do the same (and maybe also mop up some extra service subscriptions along the way?)
I'll end with a quick reminder that it was only releasing iTunes for Windows and making the iPod PC compatible that sent its sales curve nearly perpendicular. Opening up to new markets only feeds growth.
This said they're not wrong. If you're happy with the Apple ecosystem (I certainly am) you won't see a problem. I understand that point of view.
But the whole point of an open market is consumers also have choice and any barrier to data migration or access is a clear roadblock to this. In the case of iCloud I can bulk-transfer my Photos to Google its true, but moving over loads of documents requires manually downloading everything. I have to copy-and-paste my notes, I cannot extract DRM-ridden book purchases nor are app licences transferable.
Most of this is also true of Google and Microsoft but those companies provide their apps for competing platforms where Apple does not. This is in the truest sense of the word a form of lock-in as most customers lack the skills or patience to extract everything manually.
Apple produce apps for Windows to let users sync their data locally with their PC. All they have to do is provide an iCloud app for Android to let others do the same (and maybe also mop up some extra service subscriptions along the way?)
I'll end with a quick reminder that it was only releasing iTunes for Windows and making the iPod PC compatible that sent its sales curve nearly perpendicular. Opening up to new markets only feeds growth.
You may not be aware, but Apple is using AWS for iCloud storage, not data centers of their own. Also, if Apple end-to-end-encrypted iCloud, it wouldn’t matter on whose servers it is stored.
Even after reading the article, I'm not sure how Apple is trapping people into iCloud ?
You do realize that this is a British consumer group and not the UK government?
I love the stupid "forced" argument when there are tons of other options freely available. People whine just to whine.
If you’re not concerned about the consequences of big companies mining your data then we definitely are from two different worlds.
I’m in tech and fully aware of the consequences mass mining of data can have so I’d fully disagree with your stance. History dictates Apple is more cautious with their users’ data than any other big company out there. Made possible by them making money from hardware than from their users’ data.
And that $0.99 plan includes iCloud+ features, including hide my email, which I'm using a lot and means I'm willingly locked in.
Then they’re just stupid this time. But I was more referring to the typical gov bureaucracy from both from recent years.
Ah, so when you said iCloud is “really poor” you just meant "expensive"
That said, I agree with you that it's expensive and that the 5GB free tier is a joke (heck, even Gruber thinks so).
Apple should have given each user 5GB every time they buy a new device, but their chosen strategy seems to be to pump up service revenue as much as they can.
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There's nothing stopping anyone from making a self-hosting solution for regular consumers.
In fact, I think most cloud services that are oriented towards businesses permit self-hosting.
I think the issue is:
1. The market is small as most people don't care + don't have enough technical know-how (remember, most houses need somebody from the ISP to come and setup their cable box/modem... I can set this stuff up myself, and I suspect you can too, but we're odd.)
2. Where's the business case? Nobody wants to pay a recurring fee for it. The one-time fee people would be willing to pay isn't much, and then this just works for 10+ years so they won't be back to spend more for awhile.
For the most part, all I really want is a self hosted option for my pictures/videos. Which... I think there might actually be options for this? I think you can buy a hard drive that connects to wifi and has a phone app that automatically syncs with it for free.
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You’d think the iPhone was the only phone on the market. Nobody forcing anyone to use iCloud. Nobody forcing anyone to buy an iPhone. As much as I think competition is good and their overall objective in terms of improving competition in the mobile space is something I support, Apple’s tight integration of services with hardware is something I specifically enjoy. Leave it alone and buy something else.
I don't use cloud storage any more, I don't have a iPhone, but I do have a Mac mini, use an Android phone and also have a Windows machine. i used to use Drop box and on my Android phone I could use it with their app, Windows I could and on my Mac I did for a couple of months. Even had the app on Linux.
So can you not have Drop box app on IOS?
If you can, then how is Apple pushing people into buying Icloud? It is no different to Google and Microsoft.
I am in the U.K
So can you not have Drop box app on IOS?
If you can, then how is Apple pushing people into buying Icloud? It is no different to Google and Microsoft.
I am in the U.K
Do any of the alternative cloud services offer 50GB for £ 0.99 a month? That’s virtually free. This lawsuit is clearly a pile-on. Meanwhile, I’m getting by just fine on the base 5GB of iCloud space… with five different devices.
But is that not the same for anything? On Windows, you put your files into a folder, and it is synced to the MS cloud, Android is the same, you can have your files synced automatically to the Google cloud. I am not sure what Which is on about.
That`s not entirely true, is it?You never tried
iPhone backups can only be kept in iCloud or locally on a Mac/PC.
You can back up your phone to the Mac and use TimeMachine for external backups of the lot. Apple doesn`t charge anything for sync or TimeMachine after the hardware purchase.
I agree that 5GB of free iCloud storage in 2024 is rather pathetic, compared to 15GB+ of rivals. However, with all the recent changes Apple are forced to implement due to the DMA provisions, I guess this “iCloud lockdown” will soon go away by itself, as the UK will be working on similar laws.
I really hope one outcome of this will be, that Apple makes local backups more convenient. I have plenty of storage on my always-on NAS. If I could conveniently backup all iOS devices to that locally and automatically, that would be glorious 🙌.