Apple managed to pull off one more surprise during its media event today which officially launched the iPhone 15 and the Apple Watch 9, among other products. At the very end of the conference, it announced two new higher cloud storage plans for its iCloud+ subscription service.
Previously, the service offered 50GB, 200GB, and 2TB storage tiers. Apple, in their press release announcing the iPhone 15 Pro smartphones, revealed that it would add two more higher tiers: 6TB and 12TB.
Apple stated:
The new plans are great for users with large photo and video libraries or those using Family Sharing, and will provide access to premium features, including Private Relay, Hide My Email, Custom Email Domains, and HomeKit Secure Video support.
Apple says the 6TB tier will cost $29.99 a month while the 12TB storage tier will cost $59.99 a month, Both of these plans will go live on Monday, September 18. There are apparently no plans to to offer these new storage tiers at discounted annual prices.
By contrast, Google Drive offers 2TB of stand-alone cloud storage for $9.99 a month, 5TB of storage for $24.99 a month, 10TB of storage for $49.99 a month, and 20TB of storage for $99.99 a month. It also lets you pay annually for the 2TB plan at the same monthly price, and the 5TB plan for the discounted price of $249.99 a year.
Microsoft offers 100 GB of OneDrive storage with a Microsoft 365 Basic subscription at $19.99 per year. It offers 1 TB of storage with Microsoft 365 Personal for $69.99 a year. The company also offers 1 TB of OneDrive storage for each person, up to six users, who are part of a Microsoft 365 Family Plan at $99.99 per year. The company does not offer any stand-alone OneDrive plans anymore.