Apple first announced 5 GB of free iCloud storage in June 2011. Steve Jobs announced it. It has been eleven years, and a lot has changed. Our iPhone cameras have got a lot better and now take images that are much bigger than the iPhone 4 that was for sale in June 2011. Indeed, everything on our phones now takes more storage and is more cloud-friendly.

In the interim years, Apple has increased the amount of storage you can buy and lowered the price of that storage. Nevertheless, Apple has held the line at 5GB now for longer than the Beatles existed.

I just finished reading After Steve and one of the book’s themes is why services are so crucial to Apple now. At this point, I can’t think of any reason why Apple is keeping that limit at 5 GB other than a way to increase that line on the spreadsheet. I understand there is such a thing as Wall Street and investors. But I also understand there is such a thing as customers, and as we buy these thousand-dollar phones, 5GB is not enough.

Heading into WWDC this year, I would love to see Apple raise the free tier of iCloud storage to something more reasonable.