Apple Increases Storage for iCloud Key Value Store – Developer News

Apple has increased the storage limits for iCloud Key Value Store, a component that allows developers to share small amounts of data with other instances of a given application running on a user’s other devices.

In a fresh post over at the News and Announcements section for developers, Apple is informing its army of third-party programmers that they’ve increased the storage limits for iCloud Key Value Store, “so you can provide an even better experience in your app.”

“Now, the total Key Value Storage limit is 1 MB per app, the single key limit is 1 MB, and the total key limit is 1024,” the Cupertino computer giant explains. “Key Value Store also updates devices faster than ever,” it adds.

Applications use the iCloud key-value store to share small amounts of data with other instances of themselves on the user’s other platforms that are capable of running them as well.

In the Preferences and Settings Programming Guide, Apple explains that “the key-value store is intended for simple data types like those you might use for preferences.”

“For example, a magazine app might store the current issue and page number being read by the user so that other instances of the app can open to the same page when launched,” says the Mac maker, advising programmers not to use this storage for complex data types, or for large amounts of data.

“Key-value data in iCloud is limited to simple property-list types (strings, numbers, dates, and so on),” says the company run by Tim Cook.

The guide further offers “Strategies for Using the iCloud Key-Value Store,” methods for “Configuring Your App to Use the Key-Value Store” and “Accessing Values in the Key-Value Store,” as well as ways to define the scope of key-value store changes.