Apple launches $20/mo 2TB iCloud storage plan ahead of iPhone 7 event
Apple has launched a new 2TB iCloud storage tier a little over a week out from the iPhone 7 launch event. The new 2TB plan, which is its largest plan available, will set users back $19.99 a month.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's new top-tier iCloud plan lands a week before the iPhone 7 event and dovetails with reporting that the next entry-level iPhone will jump from 16GB to 32GB of base storage — together signaling that Apple wants device capacity and cloud capacity to move in lockstep rather than forcing buyers to pay hardware premiums for every extra gigabyte. The $19.99/month 2TB tier is the largest plan iCloud has offered, giving power users somewhere above the existing 1TB ceiling for the first time.
The move also sets up the pricing arc that follows: within a year Apple cuts the effective cost of that capacity in half by doubling its $10/month plan to 2TB, so this launch is the opening position in a ladder that keeps getting cheaper per terabyte.
First-order effects
- Users who had maxed out at 1TB finally have a higher rung, and anyone buying an iPhone 7 at the September event can now pair modest onboard storage with a premium cloud tier instead of paying up front for larger flash.
Second-order effects
- Rival consumer cloud services face direct price anchoring at $19.99 for 2TB from the vendor that controls the default backup path on iOS devices, pressuring them to match capacity-per-dollar or differentiate on features. The subsequent month-long free trials of the paid tiers show Apple then working the conversion funnel from the free 5GB base.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — top tier introduced, then repriced downward (free 200GB for students, SMB bundles via Business Essentials) — iCloud shifts from a convenience upsell into a structural services-revenue line where Apple monetizes storage across consumers, education, and business separately.
The trend: Consumer cloud storage is becoming a tiered subscription ladder that hardware makers use to decouple device prices from capacity, with per-terabyte costs ratcheting down over time.