Apple Intelligence for Home’s iCloud+ Requirements
macOS 27 Golden Gate Beta 3 Release Notes:
Apple Intelligence for Home requires an iCloud+ subscription starting at 2TB.
Via Rajesh Pandey:
As part of the upgrade, the Home app uses AI to generate summaries of motion alerts from compatible HomeKit Secure Video cameras.
[…]
Apple likely requires the 2TB iCloud+ tier because HomeKit Secure Video already relies on iCloud+ storage tiers. The 2TB plan supports a larger number of cameras, and AI-generated video descriptions would add to Apple’s cloud processing costs.
That makes sense, but it seems odd because the iCloud tiers are named based on storage amounts, yet the feature isn’t tied to how much space you’re actually using. A lower iCloud plan with tons of free space doesn’t get the features, yet a nearly full 2 TB plan does. There are already restrictions where supporting more cameras requires higher plans, but that is at least quasi related to storage.
I reluctantly upgraded to a 2 TB family plan within the last year or so. We don’t store many files in iCloud, messages are set to auto-delete after a year, and I manually offload photos older than a year (except for hearted favorites). It’s hard to believe given how I remember the original 5 GB free tier once being sufficient, but staying under 200 GB became untenable without a lot of extra work. It doesn’t help that Live Photos sometimes gets inadvertently turned on, so that we’re storing all these little videos without realizing it.
Previously:
- “Don’t Let Me Go” and iCloud Storage Tiers
- Limiting iMessage’s Disk Usage
- The Missing iCloud Storage Bump
3 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
It *kinda* makes sense if you remember that the camera video storage doesn't count against your storage tier. So Apple is using the storage tier payments to subsidize camera video storage, and now AI summaries of that. Or don't think of it that way, else someone will sue citing unfair competition or something.
Now that you're on the 2TB tier, you can probably stop worrying about Live Photos getting turned on. ;-)
@DJ No, I still need to get rid of Live Photos so as not to bog down Lightroom and fill up my photos drive and backups.
