It looks as though former MobileMe users are about to lose their generous helping of iCloud storage. Effective September 30, iCloud subscribers who saw their cushy MobileMe limit of 20GB grandfathered in will see that number reduced from a combined total of 25GB to a paltry 5GB.
MobileMe, Apple's 2008 take on device synchronization, had its lingering existence officially snuffed out on June 30 of this year. It's interesting to note that up until June 30, @mobile.me accounts remained functional and were even used to score free Mountain Lion upgrades back in April. The company decided to deprecate the pock-marked service in favor of its new iCloud offering, an arguably more robust, cloud-based service introduced nearly a year ago.
Despite MobileMe's troubles, one thing it did have going for it was a whopping 20GB of online storage – a benefit which ex-MobileMe subscribers retained after the transition to iCloud. Well, until now, that is.
For some iDevice owners, syncing all of their goodies to a single iCloud account may prove to be a tight squeeze. Five gigabytes, after all, isn't much space to work with anymore when it comes to photos and music. This is especially true for iPhone 5 and 4S owners, two devices which are equipped with 8-megapixel cameras and produce correspondingly larger photos than older devices.
Apple may be counting on this conundrum though, seeing as they sell 10GB of additional iCloud storage for $20 per year. Current iCloud plans include 10GB, 20GB and 50GB increments, each being added on top of the 5GB everyone receives for free.