Former subscribers to Apple’s MobileMe service, which shut down in June 2012, are to lose the free iCloud storage they were given as consolation for the offering being canned.
The closing down of MobileMe, one of Apple’s earliest cloud products, was announced in August 2011 and the service was finally axed at the end of June 2012.
As a peace offering, users with paid subscriptions were given free iCloud storage of up to 25GB per month, which was initially due to last until June 2012. However, the company extended this period to 30 September 2012 and then again to 30 September 2013.
But the prospect of any further extensions has been extinguished after Apple began emailing users telling them the complimentary period is finally coming to a close.
In a statement on its support website, Apple said: “Former MobileMe members received a complimentary storage plan after moving to iCloud between October 12, 2011, and August 1, 2012.
“On September 30, 2013, the complimentary iCloud storage plans will expire and will be automatically adjusted to the free 5 GB plan. If you already purchased a storage plan, no further action is required.”
If users are storing more than 5GB worth of data on the service, they will either need to reduce the amount they are using or purchase a plan with a larger amount of storage than they are currently using, the company said.
If not, iCloud Backup, Documents in the Cloud and iCloud Mail will temporarily stop working until they reduce the amount of storage they use or purchase a larger plan.
