Apple notified its former MobileMe customers on Friday, Oct. 5, that it was extending a complimentary storage upgrade for another year.

Originally, the storage upgrade was set to expire on Sept. 30, 2012. The announcement on Friday comes in the wake of an apparent glitch, which allotted 25GB of free storage to both iCloud and MobileMe users until 2050. While the 38-year extension is obviously not real, Apple has increased temporary storage for MobileMe users until Sept. 30, 2013.

Context

When Apple launched its new iCloud service, it provided just 5GB of online storage, compared to the 20GB offered in its previous MobileMe service. The company offered a temporary 20GB of additional storage for existing MobileMe users to help them during the transition.

Apple originally intended to keep this additional storage for the first month of iCloud, but later extended the offer to Sept. 30. When this date came around, however, users noticed an apparent 38-year extension of their current storage levels instead of a downgrade. Apple did not immediately address this glitch, and in the past few days increasingly more users started reporting an expiration date of 9/30/2050 displayed in their iCloud settings.

Apple eventually addressed the issue on Friday and sent an e-mail to affected iCloud users:

"Dear [iCloud User],

When you moved your MobileMe account to iCloud, we provided you with a complimentary storage upgrade beyond the standard 5GB that comes with an iCloud account to help you with the transition. Originally, this storage upgrade was set to expire on September 30, 2012," reads the e-mail from Apple.

"As a thank you to our former MobileMe members, we will continue to provide you with this complimentary storage upgrade at no charge, for an additional year, until September 30, 2013. No action is required on your part. For complete details please read this article.

Thank you again for using iCloud,

iCloud Team."

It remains unknown what caused the initial 38-year extension, but everything seems clearer now. If you want to check how much storage you have with iCloud, you can look in the corresponding settings for your device. On an iOS device go to Settings/ iCloud/ Account. On a Mac, go to System Preferences/ iCloud/ Manage/ View Account. Lastly, on a PC open the iCloud Control Panel for Windows/ Manage/ View Account.