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Apple hit with class action lawsuit over iCloud's 5GB limit (9to5mac.com)

submitted 8 months ago by L4s to c/technology

143 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Apple hit with class action lawsuit over iCloud's 5GB limit::A newly-proposed class action lawsuit alleges that Apple has “marked up its iCloud prices to the point where the service...

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[–] [email protected] 131 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] simplejack 36 points 8 months ago (7 children)

The actual article headline

Apple hit with class action lawsuit over iCloud’s 5GB limit and iPhone backup restrictions

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[–] macattack 49 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

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

[+] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 39 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

This sounds like something that hasn't been true for 5-10 years tbh. At least not within the Pixel family. I upgrade phones without a single hiccup. My older phones are still around and used daily by my kids with no problema. I've had to wipe a phone and restore from the cloud backup and it was a matter of minutes to be usable, and was effectively like nothing had happened as soon as my apps and their data finished downloading.

[–] Sanctus 22 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I setup both for work. On this front there is hardly any difference. For the average user, it now comes down to OS and device preference. I manage my family's apple and google accounts and neither was much harder than the other. Now, for work, preparing an iPhone is much, much more complicated than an Android device. This, once again, only matters if you don't have automated enrollment from your business carrier into your MDM.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

On the other hand, the phone just works,

Same with android

upgrades between devices are seamless,

Same with android

and the phone retains value after 4 years.

Aight you got me there, except for that apple has been proven in court to slow down their older models of phones

Plus, the backup restoration is insane. If you stole my phone, I’d be back to where I was within an hour or two

Same with android

— all of which is driving to Apple and waiting on a sales clerk to pull an iPhone from the back, then going to a store owned by my cell carrier to register the device on their network.

I just go to walmart

No device re-customization at all in the equation.

Same with android

There is nothing like it on Android.

False

5GB is a lame amount for a base tier of storage in 2024 but it’s hardly abuse.

I agree, if people are willing to buy into apple they get what apple serves them.

It's pretty cool how you can just download any app and install it, also how you can customize the phone to look however you want, run whatever software you want, and all for under $200

Oh wait

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[–] fidodo 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I have had zero issues restoring or moving between android phones. What in the world are you talking about?

Meanwhile my mom forgot her apple password and their customer support was so unhelpful she had to get a new account after talking to them for months. They refused to let her reset her password.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Apple makes my life as the family sysadmin significantly easier. If I only had to worry about myself I’d do Android with a privacy focused ROM, but I doubt I could handle my entire family doing that. No way am I putting them on stock Android.

It would be nice if there was some competition but I’m not holding my breath.

[–] Enk1 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Why would you only use a privacy focused ROM and not stock Android, when you use a stock iPhone? Do you think that Apple doesn't collect just as much data on you as Android does? It's literally in the Apple terms of service. They've just conned you into believing their marketing BS.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Did you not read my post? I use Apple because it makes managing my family fleet easier. If I were by myself I would use a privacy focused ROM.

I’ve got users to manage, and Apple’s locked down approach makes it significantly easier. Everyone gets updates the same day, and phones are supported for years, not months. Backups are stupid easy if someone needs a replacement. iCloud is forgettable, which is ideal for the children and grandparents I manage.

Apple is collecting data on me, but selling data isn’t their primary business. The same cannot be said for Google, which is one of the reasons I’m not putting my family on stock Google. Apple is the lesser evil.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

There is nothing like it on Android

In the past, I've always made a conscious choice not to try to do it that way on Android. Getting a new phone is a good chance to reset, only install apps that I specifically still use, etc.

But in the past, I've always replaced a phone because the old one was so old the battery couldn't get through even one day, so I had plenty of time to manually back up and take care of any specific data I really needed to be sure about. Recently, I had to get a new phone prematurely after I crashed and landed directly on the old one. So I did use the Pixel's restore functionality as I upgraded from the broken Pixel 6 Pro to the new Pixel 7a. And it was completely seamless. Kept me logged in to apps that I never thought would stay logged in, remembered wifi passwords, everything.

Of course, all of that was only possible because I casted my screen to my TV and plugged in a mouse and keyboard. The screen was too broken to approve the transfer otherwise.

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[–] NOT_RICK 15 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Does android offer free storage for cloud backups?

[–] itwasawednesday 21 points 8 months ago (9 children)

Drive is 15 GB

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Can't iPhone users use Drive?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

What abuse?

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

What!? the company that weaponizes vendor-lockin the most is overcharging for their service!?!?!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (8 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (2 children)

“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)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

This is Apple's face falling brick my brick. The app store was just the start

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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...

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago (11 children)

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

[–] Evotech 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The ddg browser on my phone just kinda does it automatically

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[–] cheese_greater 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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 :(

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[–] reddig33 13 points 8 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] CM400 6 points 8 months ago (5 children)

You get a free computer with purchase of an iPhone? Neat!

[–] homesweethomeMrL 6 points 8 months ago

What’s a “computer”?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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!”

[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

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

[–] stoly 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You can still do backups to your desktop like you used to do, it's just not usually necessary.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Amazon Photos works. Dropbox works. NextCloud works. What service are they blocking?

[–] AProfessional 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

iCloud backup is core to the OS, all user settings and app data is there. You can manually do it on a Mac apparently but no other service.

[–] Somethingcheezie 6 points 8 months ago

I paid for a MacOS app to do it. Works great

Syncios or something

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[–] reddig33 6 points 8 months ago

The article is wrong.

[–] Brkdncr 12 points 8 months ago (9 children)

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.

[–] IamAnonymous 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] simplejack 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] sebinspace 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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..

[–] cheese_greater 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

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)

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[–] stoly 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

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