iCloud.com Live for Developers, Pricing Info Released

[Phillip Swanson]

Apple officially launched iCloud.com for developers and inconspicuously announced the pricing of extra storage for those who need more than the free 5GB given to every user.

The web-based front-end of Apple's iCloud service adopts the iOS look and feel completely, going as far as using the iOS notification bubble design to inform users they don't have a developer account when denying them access during login. The only new app for the service appears to be a Web app for iWork that outlines users iCloud-stored Keynote, Pages and Numbers documents.

Also, Apple finally unveiled the pricing of extra storage for users who need to go beyond the free 5GB everyone is allotted. Users will be able to get a full refund on their extra storage purchase if their order is canceled within 15 days of upgrading, or 45 days after an anual subscription is renewed.

• $20 a year/10GB extra storage (total 15GB)
• $40 a year/20GB extra storage (total 25GB)
• $100 a year/50GB extra storage (total 55GB)

MacStories.net put together the nice graphic below comparing Apple's iCloud to Dropbox and SugarSync's cloud storage pricing. Apple's pricing is nearly identical to Dropbox and SugarSync offers 30GB and 60GB plans that are $10 more than Apple's 20GB and 50GB offerings. However, this isn't really comparing Apples to Apples though. iCloud is much more than an online hard drive though. It syncs contacts, music, email, documents, photos, and other documents across a users full array of desktop and mobile devices.



However, iCloud is still more expensive than Amazon's Cloud Drive. Cloud drive offers incremental storage upgrades of 20GB, 50Gb, 100Gb, 200GB, 500GB and 1000GB, all for a $1/GB or half the per GB cost of iCloud.

Source: Macstories

[Donnutt]

Sweet! So much cheaper than mobile me! I like it a lot.

[baskie]

But without a lot of the service of MM, no?

[feidhlim1986]

What happens to your @me/@mac email accounts? Will these email accounts work indefinitely? I don't have much actually tied to my @me account, but I have my gmail to forward to my @me account which then gets pushed to my iPhone.

[Donnutt]

I guess we won't have to subscribe to keep them any more. I'm paying $150 a year for mine though, so it will be welcome.

[jbardi]

What happens to your @me/@mac email accounts? Will these email accounts work indefinitely? I don't have much actually tied to my @me account, but I have my gmail to forward to my @me account which then gets pushed to my iPhone.

What is the point of that? Your iPhone natively works with gmail through IMAP, so why even bother with the @me account. Never understood people that paid for MM and actually used the email address. Same kind of people that not only used an AOL email address, but tried to run a business with an AOL or ME email address. LOL what a joke.

[Megaorange]

You can get a @me account on iCloud

[feidhlim1986]

What is the point of that? Your iPhone natively works with gmail through IMAP, so why even bother with the @me account. Never understood people that paid for MM and actually used the email address. Same kind of people that not only used an AOL email address, but tried to run a business with an AOL or ME email address. LOL what a joke.

Yes and Gmail doesn't do push, which is the reason I forward my email to MobileMe. I use every feature of MobileMe not just the email, especially Photo Gallery and Web Hosting.
How is it a joke to use a MobileMe email for business over a free service like hotmail, yahoo or gmail? I would consider it no more professional to use Gmail over MobileMe.

[SkyMuffin]

Will iCloud support backing up app data?

[Poseidon79]

Will iCloud support backing up app data?

No that's what a backup in iTunes does. iCloud will save which apps you have purchased and push new apps purchased to all devices if you select that option.

[cmwade77]

Honestly, I am rather disappointed in these prices. Amazon's version is cheaper and works better. (You can stream audio, so you get virtually unlimited storage space on your devices).

[Treeml]

Yes and Gmail doesn't do push, which is the reason I forward my email to MobileMe. I use every feature of MobileMe not just the email, especially Photo Gallery and Web Hosting.
How is it a joke to use a MobileMe email for business over a free service like hotmail, yahoo or gmail? I would consider it no more professional to use Gmail over MobileMe.

gmail, does do push, you just need to set it up as an exchange account. Also you can use gmail to forward professional domain names (which you can purchase for about 20 bucks a year including hosting) there are a million free photo synching sites. people paying for a mobile me service are mobile lazy IMHO. using a mobile me account for business, actually demonstrates a lack of understanding far beyond using a gmail account. Although I wouldn't use the gmail.com domain in a business email either. I'd use my professional domain, that I can forward for free, and have in sync with all my devices.

[Mysterion]

iCloud come out already

[brandyn baker]

What happens to your @me/@mac email accounts? Will these email accounts work indefinitely? I don't have much actually tied to my @me account, but I have my gmail to forward to my @me account which then gets pushed to my iPhone.

when making your icloud account you get the option to merge your existing @me account

[hurd300403]

Will iCloud support backing up app data?

It does for me in beta.

[The.Sniper]

Right of the Interwebs. For those of you who have a paid MobileME account. here is the skinny.

All existing MobileMe services will continue to be available through June 30, 2012, although some such as syncing of Mac Dashboard widgets, keychains, Dock items, and System Preferences will become unavailable if users transfer their existing MobileMe accounts to iCloud before that deadline. Other MobileMe services not transitioning to iCloud such as iWeb publishing, Gallery, and iDisk will continue to be available until June 30, 2012 regardless of whether users maintain their existing MobileMe accounts or transition them to iCloud.

The.Sniper

[hybirdd]

Funny how they are trying to support android devices with this new iCloud thing.

[charliebee]

However, this isn't really comparing Apples to Apples though. iCloud is much more than an online hard drive though. It syncs contacts, music, email, documents, photos, and other documents across a users full array of desktop and mobile devices.

Actually, this is exactly what Sugarsync does... and quite well I might add.