Twenty-four hours after Apple released iOS 5 and accompanying iCloud storage offering, Box has announced that they’re offering iPad and iPhone users 50 gigabytes of free storage starting tonight. It’s also increasing file upload limit from 25 MB to 100 MB.
To get that amount of storage from iCloud, users have to fork over $100 per year to Apple. Of course, one thing third parties like Box and Dropbox cannot provide is the seamless, cross-device syncing of things like contacts, calendars, reminders and Web bookmarks, nor can you easily use it to remotely back up your entire device in the cloud, as iCloud allows. Instead, Box has its own iOS app from which cloud-based files and folders can be managed.
“The future of mobile is about being free of storage restrictions and closed systems,” reads a post on the company’s blog, in a not-so-thinly veiled dig at Apple.
More directly, the move can be seen as a shot across the bow against Dropbox, the popular, consumer-oriented file-sharing and backup service whose free plan stores up to 2 GB of data. For a 50 GB plan, Dropbox customers have to pay $10 per month, or they can double that storage for double the price.
Box’s promotion is good for the next 50 days, but once redeemed, the data is good for life. To activate it, simply download the latest version of Box for iOS and log into (or create) your account.
