Consumer group Which? has started a legal fight against Apple claiming british iPhone users paid too-much for iCloud storage (the case could result in £3bn compensation)
The group filed their claim to Competition Appeal Tribunal saying Apple keeps its users in a closed system: since the service started about 13 years ago the free storage stays at 5GB even though modern-day phones need way more space
Appleʼs pricing structure makes users pay monthly fees that range from 99p to £54.99; last year they increased prices by almost 30% for some plans. Here are the current storage options and costs:
- 50GB costs 99p monthly
- 200GB plan is £2.99 per-month
- 2TB storage costs £8.99 monthly
- 12TB option costs £54.99 each month
Anabel Hoult who leads Which? says Apple pushes its iCloud service on customers while blocking other options; this hurts competition and makes people pay more than they should
Even though iPhone owners can backup data through a computer or use different apps for photos Appleʼs system makes this hard. A similar case started in US earlier this year but Apple called those claims “implausible“
Apple doesnt agree with these claims saying: users dont have to use iCloud and about half of them dont pay for it. The company also said they make it easy to move data between services and will fight against these legal claims in court