Apple Accused of Trapping 40 Million UK Customers Into iCloud Service

[Mr_Brightside_@]

It's still incredibly sad that by ~2010, capitalists went with cloud direction instead of making well-integrated self-hosting solutions.

Imagine having all your stuff on a Mac mini at home, including phone backups, contacts, etc. Free forever, fully yours, just don't forget to replace hard drives once in a while.

I'm certain that every person could easily manage that setup, just like all the "normie" people used to pirate music for their iPods back in the day.

But of course, it's harder for police and for data brokers to access data that way, so here we are.

Have you met every person, let alone any person?
While I love this idea, I work on a daily basis with people who don’t read dialog boxes and/or speedrun them and then get surprised when things don’t work right. Self-hosting isn’t equivalent to Limewire, and even pirating is treated by the Generation Zs I’ve interacted with as a mythical skill few possess.

 

[Ad47uk]

If it wasn’t for ARM where would Apple be?

Where would any of them be, just a shame it now belongs to a foreign company. People don't realise where the ARM chip came form

 

[MilaM]

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 think the point is, that you can't use all those cloud-services for backups.

 

[Imperial926]

I remember when Microsoft had endless battles with IE and the various anti-competition lawsuits and accusations that arise. I didn't agree with those either. Windows has always been able to run any number for browsers and most discriminating users probably had something other than IE anyway. I live in the UK and completely disagree with Which following this route. It completely ignores some of the main functions of iCloud to share content safely across various devices and to allow further sharing of photos, music and other content. I hope they lose!

 

[MacDaddyPanda]

Lol this is the dumbest thing I’ve read this week. No duh they favor their own cloud service. Why wouldn’t they wtf? I have 3 mac computers , iPad, and iPhone . I have yet to even max the original $.99 of 50gb I paid before upgrading to the $2.99 for 200Gb. I backup locally to external. And anything more important I backup to my MSFT onedrive. So this sounds like the most frivolous lawsuit ever. I use Icloud mainly as shared storage for ease of transfer between my apple devices, but my onedrive makes it easy for that too. This suit makes no sense.

 

[scrapesleon]

wouldn't have happen if they had increased the free space option from 5gb to at least 50gb its 2024 that need to change

 

[Shirasaki]

And how do you suggest the average normie protects themselves against fire, theft, hard drive failures, or security breaches?

To that I doubt Apple will do a good job at managing their servers, understand that data stored there are not theirs and provide all due diligence truthfully.
Your data, your responsibility.

 

[Shirasaki]

wouldn't have happen if they had increased the free space option from 5gb to at least 50gb its 2024 that need to change

I’d prefer them to NOT provide free storage and turn off all of those services requiring iCloud by default. But Apple clearly wants service revenue so they will never do that.

 

[fontman]

Apple is facing an almost £3 billion ($3.78 billion) lawsuit after British consumer group Which? on Thursday alleged that the company breached competition law by locking millions of its customers out of its iCloud service and charging them "rip-off prices."

Apple users receive 5GB of free storage to back up photos, messages, and other content, and are then encouraged to pay for the service once they exceed the limit. Prices for extra storage in the UK range from £0.99 a month for 50GB of space to £54.99 a month for 12TB.

Which? alleges that the company makes it difficult for customers to use alternative cloud storage providers "by giving its iCloud storage service preferential treatment," and "'trapping' customers with Apple devices into using iCloud."

The consumer group filed the legal action with the Competition Appeal Tribunal, and said it was seeking damages for 40 million Apple users in the UK. If successful, the lawsuit could result in a £70 payout per customer. According to the Consumer Rights Act 2015, all those eligible are automatically included in the claim unless they choose to opt out.

Which? said it was urging Apple "to resolve this claim without the need for litigation by offering consumers their money back and opening up iOS to allow users a real choice for cloud services." Which? CEO Anabel Hoult commented: "Taking this legal action means we can help consumers to get the redress that they are owed, deter similar behaviour in the future and create a better, more competitive market."

Apple in a statement said it rejected the suggestion that its iCloud practices are anticompetitive, vowing to "vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise." Apple said it works hard to make data transfer as easy as possible, and that nearly 50% of its customers do not need nor pay for an iCloud+ subscription. It added that its pricing was in line with that of other cloud storage providers.

(Via Reuters.)

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Article Link: Apple Accused of Trapping 40 Million UK Customers Into iCloud Service

LOL -

 

[macos9rules]

5 GB of "free" storage is not enough for any iPhone, iPad or Mac owner. I asked Chat GPT why Apple is only offering 5 GB of free storage and the reply was: "Apple offers only 5 GB of free iCloud storage as part of its business model and to incentivize users to purchase additional storage through their subscription plans."

 

[jhwalker]

This is patently ridiculous.

1) Apple give you 5gb of storage essentially FREE
2) I get 2tb of storage for $0.99 / month (the article notes slightly different prices in the UK)

Apple provides and operates this storage which enables multiple Apple devices transparently to access / share docs / settings across an Apple account, and the free tier provides PLENTY of storage for this purpose. If you want more space it's easy to get and reasonably priced.

How is it "anticompetitive" to provide a convenient and inexpensive service?

 

[I7guy]

The market can't decide because Apple doesn't allow it. That is the point.

The market can decide. Vote with your $$$. The idea that for profit consumer discretionary companies should be giving away their IP is ludicrous.

You buy an iPhone, Apple uses all sort of tricks to make you use iCloud.

There are no tricks. For the first 9 years I used iCloud in a limited fashion.

The market has decided about the iPhone, iPhone is good.

iPhone is popular.

Apple uses that decision to prevent even having to fight for who makes the best cloud service: when you have an iPhone, you just have to use their service, for no technical reason, just the fact that they're trying to lock it like they did with the App Store.

Citation for “no technical reason”.

If Apple is that good at the game, they should let competitors play and prove it.

Or the consumer has many other choices.

Edit: they've also done all they could with browsers, maps, cables, repair... it's a very clear pattern.

What pattern is that?

 

[I7guy]

5 GB of "free" storage is not enough for any iPhone, iPad or Mac owner. I asked Chat GPT why Apple is only offering 5 GB of free storage and the reply was: "Apple offers only 5 GB of free iCloud storage as part of its business model and to incentivize users to purchase additional storage through their subscription plans."

So ChatGPT knows apples internal workings when us macrumors posters have no clue?

Why doesn’t google offer unlimited gmail? After all I had to purchase additional storage from them.

 

[paulovsouza]

Apple allows you to temporarily back up your entire phone, to move to a new phone without paying. If your 5GB is full, contacts will always be backed up. Other than that the options on how they store their information is completely up to the consumer (Google/Micorsoft services, a computer).

Only thing I want to see different is more options on capacity. If phones are now 64, 128, 256, 1Tb why are the options 50, 200, 2Tb for $9.99, no in between.

 

[rforno]

If Apple didn't intentionally cripple other platforms by prohibiting background sync, maybe folks wouldn't be so upset. So in some ways Apple has caused some of the bad blood here by purposefully creating an iCloud environment where their service 'works' better than everyone else's.

 

[jz0309]

You buy an iPhone, Apple uses all sort of tricks to make you use iCloud.

I use 650MB of iCloud storage, had iPhone for 15+ years.
you have options if you want to…

 

[I7guy]

If Apple didn't intentionally cripple other platforms by prohibiting background sync, maybe folks wouldn't be so upset. So in some ways Apple has caused some of the bad blood here by purposefully creating an iCloud environment where their service 'works' better than everyone else's.

That apples’ srrvices, hardware and software work well together is exactly what apple does and why it is so popular and why it has billions of customers. Many companies strive to make their services work well together, but few succeed as well well as apple, imo.

 

[victorvictoria]

About 35 years ago, Microsoft was sued for programming "hooks" into Windows to make its Office products work better than competitors. Now, those competitors are either gone, forgotten, or supported only by Mac User Groups still using G3, G4 & G5 Macs (probably a few 68XXX Macs, too). That's what's going to happen here, too.

 

[mike2q]

On the one hand I agree that the prices are deliberately tiered so that someone who wants >2TB has to pay the jaw-dropping prices of their highest two tiers which mostly will not get used, and Apple absolutely know this. But I don't find their approach anti-competitive. I am pretty content with how iCloud integrates well with Apple devices and I don't want it hacked about in a way that destroys the integration. Competitors have nothing even close to how slick iCloud enables seamless access to all my documents on all my devices.

You say you're happy with how iCloud intigrates with all of your Apple products then go on to say that competitors can't provide an equivalent seemless option. What you're missing is that is is exactly why there's a lawsuit against Apple. It's Apple that prevents competing services from being able to supplant their own services. Sure, you can use Google Drive but you can't use it for everything like you can with iCloud. That's why Apple provides such a small amount of storage on most of their devices. Your choice is pay an overpriced premium for extra on device storage OR pay more than fair market value for Apples cloud storage.
The irony is that Apple uses Google servers to host iCloud. Look it up.

 

[Lizzard899]

This sounds like it may be a shakedown attempt to get a payout from Apple by some lawyers, who will likely get the most out of the settlement. Perhaps this will cause Apple to give 10GB iCloud storage for free to every user worldwide or something like that to settle this matter.

I would support this. I live in the US and I will tell you I recently downgraded from $9.99 2tb storage to $0.99 50GB storage because it was too much for me. Also Im facing a issue where I just got a new debit card and cant get it activated with apple pay. Its a long story. BUT I have money on my apple account so Im hoping it takes money from that for the bill and it doesn't try to take it from my new card which isn't activated with apple pay yet. Ive heard ppl have issues with this. Where it tries to take money from your card instead of taking it from apple acount. Thats the other reason I downgraded. BUT I hope that one day apple goes away with the rule of you have to have a card on file in order to have icloud + subscription. BECAUSE if you have money on your apple account then u shouldnt be required to have a card on file. RULES need to be changed for this. Im also told if it doesn't charge u from your card (if its not activated) then u wont be able to update or re download apps (free apps I mean) in app store. ITS weird.

 

[laptech]

I think a huge number of members in this thread are missing the point. It has got nothing to with free icloud storage being given but everything to do with users wanting to use other icloud providers but Apple is not making it easy for the users to do so. If Apple make devices work seamlessly with it's icloud service but makes it difficult for devices to work seamlessly with other icloud providers then under UK law that makes it anticompetitive.

 

[Lizzard899]

Apple makes pricey phones with smaller storage than average to push you into cloud. Their cloud of course. Should at least present options for alternatives.
Please, don't think tech-nerds, think average people, think your aunt Debbie.
I worked in a repair shop, people got into iCloud and barely understood what it was. The free 5GB plan is almost automatically given to you with subtle tricks: you MUST have an account to use your phone (or you don't get apps), that account is linked to iCloud, if you don't read or don't understand what it means to have cloud backups, your signed in.
Then the space is full soon after, you panic, you think you need more space, from Apple of course. They keep sending you system reminders that make you feel like your phone will stop working if you don't give them a dollar. You trust them, it's system stuff, not an ad on the internet.
Whatsapp used to allow iOS backup only via iCloud, more deals to push you into their scheme.

Now, if you believe consumers should have no protections from this sort of things because they're ultimately responsible for everything they're technically choosing, you can skip thinking about this. You're cool, they'll never get you and you always make the right choices for yourself after all. You can definitely outsmart all of the multimillion corporations.

But if you have an aunt Debbie and care about her, you'll agree Apple (and of course all of its competitors who do similar things) should be stopped and forced to make products that people are happy to buy.

Edit:
Forgot to mention how hard it is to clean up your iPhones memory because access to the drive is locked and how bad transfering data you your Mac/PC works compared to any other device. These things are hard to understand befor you buy and try alternatives, most people don't even know how to find information about this.

Also, people who disagree, since I assume you like the freedom of capitalist competition, please tell me why you're fine with Apple having meetings to decide how they can avoid having to face competition with actual skills and good products instead of dirty tricks.

We shouldnt be required or forced if u will to have a card on file in order to use icloud + because if we have money on our apple account they shouldnt need our personal card on file.

 

[Lizzard899]

What other options to i have to get my messages, photos etc all synced across devices and backed up? Well, i need iCloud for that. And Apple are obviously aware that they put cameras on their phones that now create large file sizes making their free tier of storage useless. Cloud storage is important for these devices. A huge jump in cost to have them working as advertised is not fair game. Plus, if you have family members sharing your storage, good luck in getting them all to do cloud house keeping or consider moving to a different cloud provider for storing their photos.

In my humble opinion the first 2 tiers of icloud should be free.

 

[bayportbob]

This sounds like it may be a shakedown attempt to get a payout from Apple by some lawyers, who will likely get the most out of the settlement. Perhaps this will cause Apple to give 10GB iCloud storage for free to every user worldwide or something like that to settle this matter.

or just charge for the now free tier and let people decide what they want to pay for...

 

[Lizzard899]

How is Apple's iCloud offering "really poor"?

It cost too much. The first two tiers should be FREE in my opinion.