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.
Slowly but surely tie the noose tight around the neck of Google.
I’d like to see it added to xServe so that we apple host can offer the service to our clients too. There are a number of handy apps, however having the full functionality of .me as well would be great!
Have had a .mac account from day one, I only pay $49 to $69 per year max.
Would not want to see it free. You need to charge something to keep the trash away.
The problem with making it free is all the cockroaches will come out of the woodwork and will screw it up. These are the ones that will bitch the most and cause the most problems.
Charge at least $30 per year.
If you get something for free that is what it will be worth, nothing.
Of course this makes TOTAL SENSE, as the other shoe dropping. With their new server farm up and running, Apple will now make it simple for everyone with an iPhone, iPod touch and iPad to sync thru the cloud in addition to syncing thru USB to their home computer.
wow – too bad I just renewed for $99 !!!
Actually, this would be a game changer and would further propel Apple into deeper and deeper customer integration
Good idea
We wondered what that big new data center was for!
People need to really take a step back and realize how cheap MobileMe already is. It’s $99/yr, just over $8/month, for a really great service imo. The Find My iPhone feature alone is worth that much. It’s even cheaper, just over $5/month if you buy it when you get an iphone or ipad. Really, why do people think that’s expensive?
I’m concerned that it’ll be free to tie into the iAd business. Why do you think Google’s free? because they sell ads. I don’t want to start getting a bunch of iAds because Mobileme is free.
so that’s what the huge datacenter in NC is for…
Free, but with cost upgrades, much like Dropbox?
The new price would be the right one. It will hit the sweet spot.
No matter how good the service might be, it makes no sense to shell out a Franklin, since you can get a fairly good service for free from Google or Yahoo.
Of course! You want “cloud computing” to lift off? Sure you’ll have to make it free to brake resistences!
Considering that the iPad has no provision whatsoever for any kind of backup without a computer, it would be supremely clever of Apple to offer their soon-to-be billions of iPad customers a slick, free way to synchronize everything and backup files away from home.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind at all if MobileMe reduced storage space from 20GB to 2GB—if the service was free, that is.
“When I can access DropBox for free, why renew?” —Mr. Reeee
Because MobileMe gives you a shitload of other benefits in the bargain. Duhhhh???
I used to think mobileme was a ripoff but then I started using its syncing features. That’s really the majority of what I use it for now; the iDisk is nice on occasion and the e-mail is clean but the syncing features across multiple machines (even Safari in Windows) do it for me. If Apple allowed push e-mail on your own domain name, that would be icing on the cake.
Having all your bookmarks, application preferences, etc. the same across multiple Macs is fantastic. I’ll bookmark something for later at work and check it out later at home or vice versa. Or I make a preference change in the Finder or a system preference and that change can be reflected across multiple machines, laptop, desktop, work, etc.
There’s probably other (free) solutions that do all of this but not as elegantly and integrated as Apple’s solution.
I have multiple accounts and would greatly appreciate Apple lowering or eliminating the annual fee.
i could see it going free with iAds showing up as we use it. Also, the facility referenced in the rumor is certainly the place down in N. Carolina.
No timeframe was given for MobileMe to go free, other than: “sooner than later… depends on certain facilities going operational.”
This means the humongous server farm in Maiden, NC, due to go on line between now and the EOY.
Apple is doing a great job with MobileMe. It is fast and 100% reliable.
It’s just a shame about the name.
the money doesn’t even matter, but the perception is that Apple makes you pay for something with MobileMe that you can get for free from other companies.
Seriously Apple, charging for email?
If Apple did include MobileMe with our iphones (family) for free I would then be motivated to buy upgraded operating system software for my desktop computer. That is the only reason that would make me buy the upgraded Leopard system software which is necessary for mobileme.
It barely works now. How much worse will it get when it’s free?
I’ve never seen a benefit of mobile me considering my day to day email and calender are already easilly synced being that they are IMAP gmail, ical google calender and I have a pro Flickr account. Having this for free though and the ease of having everything in one place would be great, I really don’t see how the can justify charging for something that if you do a bit of leg work you can get for free using other services.
Do you want an MobileMe full of iAds???
Me no.
If it doesn’t become free, which I doubt it would happen, then I think Apple should include a 1 year membership for free with every Mac/iPhone/iPad/iTouch sold, kind of like the free iLife they include with a new Mac.
It should be free after shelling out $2500 for my Macbook Pro.
I have it, but $99 hurts like a rabbit punch.. Show me the love for loyalty Apple!