Catch Up with iCloud Changes

If you’ve been using iCloud for a while—and especially if you read the previous edition of this book—the bits that have changed recently will be of most interest to you. This chapter highlights major changes to take advantage of, points you to chapters where I discuss those features in detail, and offers a suggestion about managing your iCloud data storage.

iCloud Feature Changes

Although Apple makes changes to iCloud whenever it suits them, significant changes most commonly appear with new versions of Apple’s operating systems—particularly macOS and iOS/iPadOS. Since the previous edition of this book, Apple has made the following major changes to iCloud:

• Find My: The new Find My app on macOS, iOS, and iPadOS combines the features of Find My Friends with Find My Device, though the two are still separate on icloud.com. You can also now be alerted when a friend is not at a specified location within a given time frame. See Find My Nouns.

• System Preferences and Settings changes: On newer operating systems, Apple replaced the iCloud category in System Preferences and Settings with an Apple ID category, while iCloud settings were demoted to a subcategory of Apple ID. See Set Up iCloud.

• iCloud Drive folder sharing: Folder sharing, a long-promised feature that finally appeared in macOS 10.15.4 and iOS 13.4, lets you give other people read-only or read-write access to an entire folder on your iCloud Drive. See Share Files and Folders on a Mac or PC.

• iCloud website: Although the features available on icloud.com are mostly the same as they were for the previous edition of this book, Apple refreshed the user interface in a variety of ways, including moving some controls around. See Use the iCloud Website.

Note: Apple made some smaller changes to iCloud, too. For example, HomeKit Secure Video, a new feature, uses iCloud Drive storage to save recordings from supported cameras. I don’t discuss that feature further in this book, but Take Control of Home Security Cameras by Glenn Fleishman covers it, as does Take Control of Apple Home Automation by Josh Centers; you can also read Glenn’s TidBITS article Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video Leverages iCloud Storage and Preserves Privacy.

Storage Checkup

Some iCloud features (especially Desktop and Documents folder syncing) eat into your iCloud storage quota quickly, but the cost of extra storage is low enough that it shouldn’t be a hardship for most users to store as much data as they want. If you’re still trying to make do with the 5 GB Apple offers for free, my professional advice is to give up! It’s no longer worth the effort to avoid what could be as little as a 99-cent monthly charge (for 50 GB).

A backup of a single iOS or iPadOS device can easily surpass 5 GB, after all, and by the time you add saved email, files in iCloud Drive, and other smaller bits of information, you’re in for some frustration if you try to whittle the figure down to avoid paying a dollar a month. With upgraded storage, you can freely back up your iOS and iPadOS devices, add files to iCloud Drive, and so on, without worrying that you’ll bump into your limit.

Apple has gradually dropped the price of and increased storage at its higher tiers, and its top offering, 2 TB, is now an affordable $9.99 per month. If you have that much space available, you may find interesting uses for it that hadn’t occurred to you before.

Note: I talk about what data Apple includes in your iCloud storage ahead, in About iCloud Storage. I cover how to buy more storage in Manage Your Storage.

In addition, if you and one or more other family members currently pay for storage, you can simplify your lives, and save a few bucks a month, by combining that storage at the 200 GB and 2 TB tiers. For example, if you and your spouse each pay for 2 TB of iCloud storage but your combined data storage is less than 2 TB, you can cut your monthly costs in half by sharing a single 2 TB plan. See Share Storage Space for details.

Apple One

The Apple One bundles, which became available in late 2020, are three combinations of Apple’s paid subscription services that offer a discount off purchasing three or more separately. There are three tiers:

• Individual: Apple Music, Apple tv+, Apple Arcade, and 50 GB of iCloud storage for $14.95 per month

• Family: Apple Music, Apple tv+, Apple Arcade, and 200 GB of iCloud storage for $19.95 per month

• Premier: Apple Music, Apple tv+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, Apple Fitness+, and 2 TB of iCloud storage for $24.95 per month

Note: Fitness+ wasn’t yet available at the time of the Apple One release, but was slated for later in 2020.

The Family and Premier plans all work with Family Sharing (see Use iCloud Family Sharing), allowing the subscriptions to be shared with up to five family members.

If you sign up for an Apple One plan, you can still buy even more storage—for example, you could purchase the Premier plan and also buy 2 TB of storage for an additional $9.99 per month to get a total of 4 TB of storage, all of which can be shared with family members.