If you’ve bought a new iPhone within the past five years or so, you likely haven’t thought about My Photo Stream, Apple’s original photos syncing service that launched with iCloud back in 2011. But if you’ve been a My Photo Stream user and you’ve been dragging your feet on switching to iCloud Photos, Apple has started the countdown clock and it runs out on July 26.
The main draw for My Photo Stream is that it’s completely free with no storage size limit unlike iCloud Photos, which uses your iCloud Drive and charges for storage after 5GB of total space has been used. However, My Photo Stream has several drawbacks, including the inability to stream videos or support Live Photos and a 30-day/1,000 photo limit on storing images.
With backups, files, videos, and higher-resolution photos, it’s almost impossible to stay under that limit. Apple sells additional storage starting at 50GB for $0.99 and includes several additional iCloud+ features. In light of My Photo Stream shutting down (which Apple seemingly has been planning to do for some time now), maybe Apple will announce an increase in the free storage tier at WWDC, but we’re not holding our breath.
