MobileMe is Apple’s $99 per year service (it can be purchased for less) that keeps your email, contacts, and calendar information in the “cloud” and uses push technology to keep everything in sync across your iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC, and the web automatically. MobileMe also offers MobileMe Gallery for sharing your photos, Find My iPhone and Find my iPad, which helps you locate your lost (or stolen) device, Remote Wipe, which allows you to remotely delete your personal information and restore devices to their to the factory settings, iDisk, for storing, accessing, and sharing files online (starts at 20GB), Me.com, a suite of ad-free web applications — Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Gallery, iDisk, and Find My iPhone — all accessible from a browser on any Mac or PC, Back to My Mac puts any Mac OS X Leopard- or Snow Leopard-based Mac you use within easy reach from anywhere, Secure iChat, which lets you protect your chats with robust, 128-bit encryption, the free iDisk app which lets you view files on your iDisk right on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, share content from iPhoto, iMovie, QuickTime, and Aperture, seamless iWeb integration, personal domain name hosting, and more.
MobileMe was originally launched on January 5, 2000, as “iTools,” a free collection of Internet-based services for users of Mac OS 9. iTools was relaunched as “.Mac” on July 17, 2002, when it became a $99 per year subscription service. .Mac was relaunched as “MobileMe” at WWDC 2008 on July 9, 2008.
No timeframe was given for MobileMe to go free, other than: “sooner than later… depends on certain facilities going operational.”
That’s all we have at this time.
Again, this is an unconfirmed RUMOR.
I dunno, but cheaper would be nice. Say $20/yr or something.
(1st Cmnt)
Interesting… I would welcome it.. I have had MobileMe from day one.
I’ve got a rumor – unconfirmed, of course. Apple are going to pay people $99 dollars to use MobileMe!
I’ll believe it when I see it. Unless Apple is that pissed at Google. (Maybe Eric Schmidt didn’t pay for his coffee.)
(5th Cmnt)
I doubt this will happen.. but cheaper would be sooo much better.
It’d be nice but I doubt it!!
I just signed up for my 60 day Mobile Me trial, and despite the fact that I can’t seem to figure out how to EASILY sync all of my email accounts, I like it a lot. If I could get it for free that would be fantastic!
Would love to see it, and I bet we would see the abilty tobuse your iPad independtly of syncing with a computer
With that new data warehouse they built it North Dakota, I think the timing is just about right 😀
Where did the rumor start? How many different sources? I just bought 50 more shares of Apple. Seems like the right thing to do on a otherwise gloomy day.
would be nice but can i get a refund for my purchase then atleast a $50 itunes card or something
At $99 still a bargain! It ties everything together so seamlessly that it’s an integral part of the Apple platform. With the new server farm, Apple should be able to offer more and faster. Best of all, I basically trust Apple … unlike some of the other clouds (think G).
About time. Now can I get a $500 refund please? Or a complimentary iPad?
This would be a big shift and I tend to doubt it, but if you consider the direction of “cloud” computing coupled with Apple’s iAds, it could be possible. iAds on MobileMe? Microsoft has lost the could game, maybe Apple will be the real competitor for Google there.
@Rike
Shoulda bought yesterday when they dropped to 199
@aCe
North Carolina
With Quattro, apple is sure able to make money with a free mobile me website.
But they better not piss the loyal apple fans off by supporting windows.
They need to make it clear, by saying that Mobile me is for only Apple computers. If they have a PC they need to pay for it.
This simply has to happen. iPhone and iPad are competing with products powered by Google’s free online services. Therefore they have to offer the same cloud-based services that Google does. It is imperative for the survival and evolution of these respective platforms. App developers simply cannot assume that their users will have access to MobileMe unless Apple makes it mandatory for all its customers. And the only way for that to happen is for it to be totally free. I for one am glad that Apple realises this now and not in a year or two from now.
@HotinPlaya
Did you type your msg on your new iPad?
@bioness
That would most likely get apple sued somehow.
(not bundled iLife software when you buy a new Mac because if you upgrade to the next version, you pay for the stand alone product at the store). But…
Has Apple offered a stand alone product or service for free? Ever??
I think we have our answer to this rumor.
I’d rather pay a reasonable price, as I have been for a number of years, than get something free that every Tom, Dick and Harriet has gotten. Also, nothing is free, so I’d assumed ads will be part of the free fee – if this ever happens!
“depends on certain facilities going operational” sounds like the BILLION DOLLAR SERVER FARM that is up and running in NC!
Someone should look into this Maybe I should take a day or 2 off and go see for my self. Could send you all iPhone photos from there.
Apple will add much more features to the 99 Dollar level and maybe offer a free entry version with some basic functionality.
The original .mac was free.
And yes, a simple price cut from $99 to $49 would be very, very welcome.