Apple on Tuesday added a new 2TB storage tier to its iCloud options. The new tier doubles the previously available high-end option of 1TB. The new option will cost users $19.99 per month.
Apple will keep its other plans unchanged at 99 cents a month for 50GB, $2.99 a month for 200GB and $9.99 a month for 1TB. Also unchanged is the free 5GB amount of storage automatically offered to all iCloud users.
The new option comes just one week ahead of Apple’s September 7th event, where the company is expected to announce a new iPhone 7 Plus handset with a dual-lens back-facing camera. The camera, if it materializes, would theoretically produce much larger, high-resolution photos, resulting in a need for more storage space for users who store their images in iCloud. (Users who keep their photos on their iPhone will be pleased if the much-rumored 256GB iPhone rumors also prove to be true.)
An increase in iPhone on-board storage to a high of 256GB, while offering welcome elbow room to users who enjoy having everything on their devices, will also require more iCloud room for backups to the cloud. This is also believed to be an addiitonal reason behind the increase in the amount of storage for the top iCloud tier.
Also eating up storage space in iCloud will be Mac users who make the move to the upcoming macOS Sierra operating system, which will offer the ability to automatically store all the files that are on the Mac’s desktop, or in its Documents folder in the cloud, syncing them automatically, as needed in order to make them available across all of a user’s Apple devices.
