Apple Reportedly Storing Over 8 Million Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers
Apple has dramatically increased the amount of iCloud user data it stores on Google Cloud, according to The Information.
The report claims Apple now has over eight million terabytes of data stored on Google's servers. As of mid-May, Apple was reportedly on track to spend around $300 million on Google cloud storage services this year, which would represent an increase of roughly 50% from all of 2020. Apple is said to be the largest corporate client for Google Cloud, dwarfing other high-profile customers like Spotify.
Google Cloud staffers have apparently even given Apple an internal code name that hints at its size as a customer: "Bigfoot."
Apple relies on a combination of its own data centers and third-party cloud storage services, such as Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services, to store iCloud user data like photos and messages. Apple does not provide third-party cloud storage providers with the keys to decrypt user data stored on their servers, ensuring a strong level of security.
The report speculates that Apple's increased use of Google Cloud suggests the company's rising cloud storage requirements have outpaced its ability to develop and operate its own data centers needed to handle the resulting data.
Popular Stories
Apple has unveiled a whopping nine new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, AirPods Max 2, and now the Nike Powerbeats Pro 2.
iPhone 17e features the same overall design as...
iOS 26.4 isn't the major update with new Siri features that we hoped for, but there are some useful quality of life improvements, and a little bit of fun with an AI playlist generator and new emoji characters.
Playlist Playground - Apple Music has a Playlist Playground option that lets you generate playlists from text-based descriptions. You can include moods, feelings, activities, or...
Apple has unveiled nine new products this month, but the wait continues for the next-generation Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini models.
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said new versions of the Apple TV and HomePod mini have been "ready" since last year, but he reiterated that Apple has held off on releasing them until the more personalized version of Siri and other...
