{"slug": "apple-hints-at-higher-icloud-storage-tiers-for-ai-power-users", "title": "Apple hints at higher iCloud+ storage tiers for AI power users", "summary": "Apple CEO Tim Cook said during the company's Q3 2026 financial call that Apple will offer \"upgrade possibilities\" on iCloud+ for users who want to use Apple Intelligence heavily, hinting at higher storage tiers. Cook's comments came in response to a question from Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Ng about compute costs and recovering them through iCloud+. Apple is expected to announce the new iCloud+ plans alongside iOS 27 and the iPhone 18 Pro in September.", "body_md": "Apple doesn’t make formal product announcements or discuss future product plans during its quarterly financial results announcements. But every once in a while, it shares some details that offer a peek at what’s coming.\n\nDuring Thursday’s [Q3 2026 financial call](https://www.macworld.com/article/3203105/apple-posts-record-june-quarter-but-higher-prices-loom-large.html), Apple indicated the higher iCloud+ tiers could be on the way. While it has already said it will offer some kind of iCloud+ tie-in to accommodate heavy AI usage, when Goldman Sachs’ Michael Ng asked about Apple Intelligence and “compute costs and the ability to recover some of those costs through iCloud+,” Apple CEO Tim Cook [had this response](https://sixcolors.com/post/2026/07/one-last-time-this-is-tim-transcript-of-apples-q3-2026-financial-call/):\n\nIn terms of what it means for compute cost, it’s obviously early going for us, and so I don’t want to say that we have a complete plan for that. We do believe there will be people that want to use it a lot, and so we will have some kind of upgrade possibilities on iCloud+ where people can buy up the stack on iCloud+, and we’ll see how the pickup for that is. But we could not be more excited about where the product is.\n\nDetails about the “upgrade possibilities” weren’t provided, but Apple’s plans aren’t a surprise. At WWDC26 last June, Apple demonstrated several AI features and noted that there would be daily usage limits, which expanded access available through iCloud+. But at that time, no further details were provided.\n\nApple is expected to officially release [iOS 27](https://www.macworld.com/article/2986799/ios-27-new-iphone-features-release-date-beta-compatiblity-apple-intelligence-siri.html) in September, around the same time the company unveils the [iPhone 18 Pro](https://www.macworld.com/article/2953687/iphone-18-pro-2026-release-date-design-specs-rumors.html) and [iPhone Ultra](https://www.macworld.com/article/2629813/iphone-ultra-folding-design-display-specs-release.html). Apple will likely announce these new iCloud+ plans at the same time. It’s unclear as to what Apple will offer to accommodate AI usage; iCloud+ currently offers 5GB of free storage, with upgrade plans up to 12TB, though other AI companies offer storage up to 100GB. It sounds like Apple will explore these higher storage options for iCloud+ plans primarily built for AI use.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/apple-hints-at-higher-icloud-storage-tiers-for-ai-power-users", "canonical_source": "https://www.macworld.com/article/3203878/apple-hints-at-higher-icloud-storage-tiers-for-ai-power-users.html", "published_at": "2026-07-31 15:57:42+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-31 16:11:07.766878+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-products", "ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["Apple", "Tim Cook", "Michael Ng", "Goldman Sachs", "iCloud+", "Apple Intelligence", "iOS 27", "iPhone 18 Pro"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/apple-hints-at-higher-icloud-storage-tiers-for-ai-power-users", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/apple-hints-at-higher-icloud-storage-tiers-for-ai-power-users.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/apple-hints-at-higher-icloud-storage-tiers-for-ai-power-users.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/apple-hints-at-higher-icloud-storage-tiers-for-ai-power-users.jsonld"}}