What is an Apple ID?
When we get an iPhone, iPad or Mac we must create an Apple ID.
Think of an Apple ID like a PAN number. All of our bank accounts, investments, etc. are linked using our PAN number. That’s how the Income Tax Department recognises us.
In the very same way, Apple recognises us by our Apple ID. Everything inside the world of Apple is linked to our Apple ID.
The Apple ID can be our existing email address.
Apple also offers a free ID which ends with “@icloud.com”.
So we can create an ID like “[email protected]” or “[email protected]”.
The Apple ID can be anything we like!
What is iCloud?
iCloud is a cloud storage service offered by Apple.
To learn more about cloud storage, please check out my post here.
Apple automatically provides us with 5 GB of iCloud Storage free!
They also provide iCloud Backup to back up all of our important data to iCloud. This includes our Photos, Mail, Messages, Contacts, Calendars, Reminders and Notes.
This means that when we get a new device (iPhone, iPad or Mac) we just need to sign in with our Apple ID and all of our data is available! Pretty cool right?
Certain apps also automatically backup their data to iCloud. The most common example of this is WhatsApp.
What happens most of the time is that 5 GB is simply not enough space to backup all of our data. This typically happens if we have a lot of photos and videos or a large number of apps installed. Even WhatsApp data can be huge!
Once we reach the 5 GB limit, it’s time to upgrade. Apple has provided many options depending on the size of our data and our budget.
The monthly prices are as follows:
I strongly recommend that you upgrade depending on the size of your data.
You can check this by:
- Launching the Settings App
- Tap your Apple ID banner
- Tap iCloud
Do we need to Upgrade?
Yes!
Our data is extremely important to us and we wouldn’t want to risk it.
It’s an extremely small cost to pay for peace of mind.