“Don’t Let Me Go” and iCloud Storage Tiers

Re: back up to a Mac or PC manually. For a long time Image Capture had stopped being able to remember the state of previous imports, so you had to painstakingly compare dates in the download folder to see from which date onward to import new photos. But now finally, I think since 14.4, it works again! So when you connect your iPhone via a cable, Image Capture shows the green checkmarks for already imported photos, like it's supposed to.

It seems to me that the purpose of the 99c subscription is to get people over the hump of being willing to pay Apple for services.

"But this commercial made me want to yell at my TV each time it came on: “The problem is iCloud storage, not on-device storage!” […]"

Is the real problem, with the "Don't let me go" ad, that the marketing message is, like in any other ad, mainly bullshit?
Isn't it more that this ad is just creepy?

The only thing really amazing about this Apple's ad is that it's even worse than the one where a dad uses an iPhone to record its kid repeatedly trying to break a brick or plywood (or whatever this is) and it's supposed to prove that the battery of the iPhone is great.

I still find it strange today people keep all their photos on device.

They’re not given many choices. They can pay Apple a monthly fee to host photos for them, or store them locally. Or delete them.

NAS kind of works, but Photos doesn’t work well with it, and it’s utterly impractical for 90% of people.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m reasonably satisfied with iCloud Photo Library, but ultimately, I’m paying Apple for a service that instead they should make easier to let users run themselves.

@Sören Agreed, they really should, along with backup. iCloud Photos is simply a first-party integrated service with first-class advantages; other options simply can't deliver the same reliability or coverage.

And to make things totally perfect, iCloud Backup is basically non-optional if you connect to a computer with a cable or over Wi-Fi, because of that stupid "Enter your passcode to trust this computer and start a backup" prompt that appears when doing local backups, which makes syncing automatically basically impossible without third-party software. Apple simply doesn't give a shit unless you're generating ongoing revenue for them through services.

The Photosync app is pretty easy to use and is useful for backing up to a computer.

Manually managing our family photos is a no go. I tried it and it sucked.

Having a shared searchable collection is fantastic.

Forget photos. Think about the videos and all those 4k - 1080p - 60hz options turned on. My wife’s storage is 1.8TB for 8 years of usage now.

"They’re deferring the full amount for each device purchase, not a fraction based on how many users have multiple devices?"
It would be a pretty interesting equation if they are, @Michael! I have closely followed Apple earnings reports ever since Apple started promoting their Services silo earnings (since Apple itself emphasized how important Services earnings were to its core business) for -any- analyst to ask the question as to how Apple handles calculating deferrals… and not -one- has yet! In my mind, if Apple is diverting the same amount from each device sold, regardless of the buyer's current iCloud status, it is something that both shareholders (because of how artificially "juiced" the Services silo could be) and iCloud consumers (who are indirectly paying for a service they are not receiving) should be interested in being aware of.
Given the sheer number of devices Apple is selling, and their extremely high percentage of repeat customers, I find it odd that no analyst has asked, as it would seem that Apple could have a "magic slider" that can juice revenue silos as they see fit: want to juice Services, to show growth there? Can do! Because they have a fairly large pure-profit slush fund at hand. Sure, it would always be at the expense of hardware sales revenue, but in a quarter or period where they've pre-forecast slumps, and the market has already priced that in, highlighting "growth" in Services has often bounced their share price!
As for customers, if a repeat customer is paying the same amount for another device as a customer new to the Apple ecosystem, why WOULDN'T they want the same amount of the sales price deferred to provide them with additional cloud storage?? For many customers that I encounter, 10GB of iCloud storage would save them $1 a month, $24 over the deferral period of an iPhone! Right now, that's $24 that Apple gets and does nothing to deserve.

@Scott Do you know whether they’re still deferring revenue based on the idea that there will be two years of iOS updates that add new features?

And not to belabor, but I should clarify: I have heard analysts ask about the *mix* of the deferral revenue, trying to get the percentage and where it all goes, so they can better calculate delta between device sales growth and organic sector growth… and Apple always demurs, as "the 'mix' is proprietary". However what I have -never- heard asked (directly or indirectly) is how deferral for devices sold to repeat customers already with iCloud storage was being handled, ie if Apple was calculating that specifically differently. And I would think it matters, significantly.

@Michael: I do not know that. I would *assume* they are, but, again, haven't heard that specific question asked in earnings calls! Would be a good one to ask! (Should be asked.)

It has long been my assumption that Apple is selling so many devices at this point that all of their accounting is rather "slushy"… they can "juice" whatever they want, with "magic sliders"; enough of it is black box accounting that they'll never get caught. I mean, they're way beyond Enron numbers. They're in defense contractor area now… beyond. The only thing that will hurt Apple is a straight out dive in iPhone sales in a country like China (which has happened, is happening). Or getting caught lying about earnings (being very stupid, involving the SEC).

@Scott Interesting. I hand’t thought about it in terms of juicing. I figured they just wanted to defer taxes and smooth out any temporary declines in sales.