Apple's Google Cloud spending has increased by 50% over last year as iCloud+ readies launch

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What you need to know

Apple's Google Cloud spending has increased 50% on last year.
The company now has more than 8 exabytes of storage.

Apple continues to rely heavily on Google Cloud as a new report claims the company is now spending 50% more than it did last year. Google's cloud-based storage solution plays host to iCloud and all the data kept within it.

According to a new report by The Information, Apple is now Google Cloud's biggest customer and is on track to spend around $300 million on Google Cloud storage this year.

This comes as Apple is readying iCloud+, a rebranding of its paid-for iCloud tiers that allow users to take up more cloud storage — including expanded HomeKit Secure Video camera recordings. As Apple continues to allow iPhone, iPad, and Mac users to push more data into the cloud it stands to reason that it would need more cloud storage. With photo and video quality improving with every iPhone and file size growing, simply enabling iCloud Photo Library is enough for every user to eat into Apple's storage by the gigabyte.

Google is one of the biggest cloud players on the planet and running services of that ilk has never been Apple's forte. It's little surprise that it partners with Google, or other companies, in this way. It's always better to pay something to do something they do well than to do it yourself, poorly, for free.

For those who prefer not to use iCloud, there are tons of other options out there. We've rounded up the best cloud storage apps for iPhone and iPad, and they'll work equally well with your Mac as well.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.