Your iPhone Photos Could Be Permanently Deleted on July 26—How to Save Them
Aleksandrs Muiznieks/Shutterstock
The old saying goes that the best camera is the one you happen to have with you. These days, this adage certainly applies to the smartphones in our pockets , which are always within reach whenever you need to take a few snaps. But if you’re concerned about keeping your special digital memories intact, you might want to take note—Apple just announced that some of your iPhone photos could be permanently deleted on July 26 if you’re not careful. Read on to learn how you can save them from getting wiped out.
READ THIS NEXT: Your iPhone Could Call 911 by Mistake Thanks to a New Feature, Users Report .
grinvalds/iStock
Your digital picture archives have the built-in benefit of always being on hand when you want to show them off or peruse them. But according to Apple, a set of upcoming changes might mean that some of your iPhone photos could get deleted in a few weeks if you’re not careful.
The tech giant recently announced that it would be permanently winding down the My Photo Stream feature on July 26, which has been offered as a free form of cloud storage for pictures taken on Apple devices since 2011. The temporary safe-keeping space was intended to make it easy for users to access photos taken on their devices across their other gadgets, such as iPads, laptops, desktop computers, and Apple TVs by storing up to 1,000 image files for 30 days, according to Mashable.
fizkes/Shutterstock
Even though there’s still time to act, Apple has already begun the process of winding down the free service. The company says that it already stopped uploading new images to My Photo Stream on June 26 as part of the transition. That means anyone who hasn’t backed up their image library elsewhere after deleting them from their iPhone—or perhaps has recently changed devices and hasn’t updated their settings—could see a lapse.
“Any photos uploaded to the service before [June 26] will remain in iCloud for 30 days from the date of upload and will be available to any of your devices where My Photo Stream is currently enabled,” Apple wrote in its notice. “By July 26, 2023, there will be no photos remaining in My Photo Stream, and the service will be shut down.”
Kicking Studio / Shutterstock
Fortunately, the upcoming changes won’t wipe any of your images off your phone or other devices—even if they’re not backed up elsewhere.
“The photos in My Photo Stream are already stored on at least one of your devices, so as long as you have the device with your originals, you won’t lose any photos as part of this process,” Apple explains in its service notice. “If a photo you want isn’t already in your library on a particular iPhone, iPad, or Mac, make sure that you save it to your library on that device.”
To check which iPhone photos are in your stream and save any images at risk of disappearing, open the Photos app and tap the “Albums” button. From there, tap “My Photo Stream” and then the “Select” option before choosing which images you want to save before pressing the “Share” button and selecting “Save Image” to stash them on your device.
Shutterstock
Of course, users who already back up their devices’ pictures using Apple’s iCloud digital storage service won’t have to worry about safeguarding their photos. The company said that users with the popular feature enabled “don’t need to do anything else” as their images are already stored remotely, calling it “the best way to keep the photos and videos you take up to date across all your devices and safely stored” moving forward.
Anyone looking to activate iCloud storage on their devices can do so by going to Settings, clicking on their name, and then tapping iCloud to see if the feature is switched “on” next to photos on their devices. Users get five gigabytes of storage space for their pictures and can then opt to increase it for a fee, 9to5Mac reports.
While the changes might seem inconvenient for some users looking to shore up precious hard drive space on their iPhone or iPad, switching to iCloud has some noted benefits. According to 9to5Mac, My Photo Stream never saved high-quality versions of photos at their full resolution and only worked with certain file formats.
Apple Will “Aggressively” Price Your Next iPhone, Leaked Report Reveals
Shutterstock
As one of the biggest names in the tech world, Apple has an endlessly loyal following. These are the customers willing to line up for just about any new product that Apple is dropping—even if it’s just an upgrade of something they already have. But if you’re planning to buy the next iPhone, whether right away or a little down the line, you should be aware that it’s not going to come cheap. Despite expectations of prices going down, a leaked report has revealed Apple’s plans to “aggressively” price its next iPhone. Read on to find out more about the tech company’s next move.
READ THIS NEXT: Apple Under Fire—Lawsuit Claims This Product Caused “Significant Injuries.”
Shutterstock
The iPhone 15 is expected to hit markets this fall. According to Mac Rumors, the newest iPhone collection is likely to be released in Sept. 2023, “if Apple follows its traditional September launch timeline.”
The news outlet said that the upcoming iPhone reportedly entered its early trial production stage on Jan. 9—but that doesn’t mean rumors and leaks haven’t already started flying. Based on the latest intel, the iPhone 15 models are “expected to feature USB-C instead of Lightning, solid-state volume and power buttons, new camera technology, and more,” Mac Rumors reported.
But alongside these features, there’s another big change coming to the price
Shutterstock
The most recent leaks on the iPhone 15 indicate that its price tag is set to skyrocket, Forbes reported on Jan. 9. At the start of the month, “historically reliable” industry insider yeux1122 posted a blog post implying that Apple will be “aggressively” pricing some of its upcoming collection, according to the magazine. And now, notable anonymous leaker LeaksApplePro has written a report for HowToiSolve corroborating cost concerns.
According to the leaked report, Apple will raise the price of the iPhone 15 Pro after choosing not to hike the cost for customers with the release of the iPhone 14 collection.
“Unfortunately, it is high time for the Pro models to go up in price. It’s something that was expected last year and that Apple decided not to do,” LeaksApplePro wrote on Jan. 6. “But rising production costs, inflation and shrinking profit margins are already starting to take their toll on the Californian company’s revenue reports, and this pricing strategy to encourage sales of the upcoming iPhone 15 Plus seems like the perfect time to implement a price hike that hasn’t happened since the launch of the iPhone X in 2017.”
Best Life has reached out to Apple for a comment on a potential price hike for the next iPhone, but has not yet heard back.
Shutterstock
Apple just launched its iPhone 14 models last fall. The collection included four new smartphones : As “budget options,” the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus were released on Sept. 7, while the “premium” iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max were made available on Oct. 7, according to Insider. Since then, sales for some of these newer phones have struggled.
According to yeux1122, sales of the iPhone 14 Plus have fallen “far beyond” even the lowest estimates from Apple, MacWorld reported. This may be because the Plus model and the Pro Max model in this collection are too close in price.
“The iPhone 14 Plus starts at $899 while the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which has the same screen size, costs just $200 more with numerous extra features: A16 chip, ProMotion display with the Dynamic Island, telephoto camera, and stainless-steel design,” MacWorld explained.
Shutterstock
It might not seem unusual for Apple to raise the price on new products, but expects were actually expecting the opposite for the iPhone 15 amid disappointing iPhone 14 Plus sales.
“This iPhone, which Apple launched in September 2022, has failed to meet the California company’s sales expectations,” LeaksApplePro wrote for HowToiSolve. “It has probably been the model that has sold the least of this year’s four models, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better.”
As Apple is expected to launch the same structure of smartphones for the iPhone 15 collection—the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max—many assumed that the tech giant would slash the price of the iPhone 15 Plus to avoid sales flopping similarly to those of the iPhone 14 Plus. But LeaksApplePro said that the price of this model “will be the same,” while the iPhone 15 Pro price will go up to “provoke more sales.”
“The biggest problem of the iPhone 14 Plus has been, and is, that many customers find it worth paying $100 more and buying the iPhone 14 Pro instead of the Plus,” LeaksApplePro noted. “The solution is simple: raise the price of the iPhone 15 Pro. This way, buyers who want the iPhone 15 Pro will buy it anyway, and those undecided between the Plus and the Pro will likely opt for the Plus.”
