Apple “is exploring a major revamp of its MobileMe online storage service, the people familiar with the matter said,” Yukari Iwatani Kane And Ethan Smith report for The Wall Street Journal. “The service, which lets users store data in a central location and synchronize their calendars and contacts among computers and other devices, currently has an individual annual subscription fee of $99.’
Kane and Smith Report, “Apple is considering making MobileMe a free service that would serve as a ‘locker’ for personal memorabilia such as photos, music and videos, eliminating the need for devices to carry a lot of memory, the people familiar with the situation said.”
MacDailyNews Note: Maybe our source was right after all! If true, you heard it first on MacDailyNews on May 7, 2010 (RUMOR: Apple to make MobileMe free. If not, we still believe Apple was seriously considering it last May.
Kane and Smith Report, “MobileMe, part of an industry wave known as cloud computing, also could become a focal point for a new online music service that Apple has been developing for more than a year, the people said. Social networking would be another key component, one of the people said.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
The Apple never sleeps.
This is one huge advantage that will develop in typical Apple fashion over time to be another unbeatable iTunes type hub.
Remember…Apple is first and foremost a software company.
The problem with MobileMe is that it simply isnt worth any amount of money. iDisk is a veritable joke. Just read the discussion forums about how S L O W iDisk is. The problems with Mail and Sync are legendary.
Apple, with all their billions, should FIX MobileMe.
iDisk works much better with a 3rd party App such as Transmit or CyberDuck, but I agree the performance through the Finder is abysmal.
I don’t think a free Mobile Me will attract that many more customers into buying apple products who weren’t before, especially since they can’t make enough iPhones as it is. Take into account the loss of revenue from existing customers and I just don’t see it being that beneficial to them. I don’t have any numbers of course, maybe it would work. A reduction in price and/or increase in offering would certainly be welcome though.
And yes, MobileMe needs serious fixing first.
I would have thought the major selling point of Mobile Me was the web interface to email on the me.com domain. But how many people actually use that as their main email address? The main reason I used it was for synching contacts / calendars with my iPhone and Macs, however my company has moved to Google Apps for the main email, which means I can sync my calendars with google and that works a treat. No need for Mobile Me, as good as it is.
MobileMe’s premise and potential is huge but notched close to fully realized, it’s support has much to be desired, but Google has proven that it is never to be trusted with personal data.
Notched= not yet
Perhaps Kane and Smith are so busy they are just now “researching” past MDN stories.
Pay it forward, apple!
With sufficient online storage, one could in theory drop any need for a desktop PC to sync and backup an iPad or iPhone. This is where the future of MM lies – in eliminating the PC altogether from the equation. Grandma can buy an iPad and never need to be tethered to a desktop dock for storing her photos…
Bingo! We have a winner. I agree with you wholeheartedly. This is the direction and future of Mobile Me and iOS
I love MobileMe, even with the occasional glitches. Personally I don’t mind paying for it, I like to pay for things that have value to me.
Ditto.
I use it everyday.
I am a big Apple fan and I have been a MobileMe user for since 2007. I kept waiting for the service to break out of its shell and become a real powerhouse. But for $99 a year I don’t even get enough space to backup my iPhoto library, much less my iTunes library. Its just too much for too little and it has not improved that much over the past few years.
This is one area in which Apple has fallen far short of the mark. MobileMe is not even close to “insanely great.”
I will happily pay for MobileMe knowing that Apple isn’t using my data to advertise to me. My Gmail account is riddled with Spam and advertising. Just think what Google is doing with that treasure trove of data called Google docs. Kind of makes my stomach turn. Especially when you hear of companies using Gdocs. If a company has to use a free service to have their employees collaborate perhaps they shouldn’t be in business.
How about making it work right, as in make it fast. I’m loving Dropbox way more than iDisk right now.
MobileMe is pretty good–I use it all the time–but could definitely be “insanely great”! In addition to consumers who value quality, it should target small business. Imagine if you could colaborate live as well as run a souped up version of Bento online using MobileMe! Small businesses without programmers (98%) would just eat it up.
S Jobs has stated that mobile me is having a big change this year. I’m hoping like everyone else for more capacity. Like some, I have google, but I dread having the thought of what they would do with my private info, can’t trust them! With mobile me it’s a different story. Safety is big at apple.!
About time Apple made that piece of turd free. I’ve always thought it was worth nothing. In fact Apple should pay me to use it as a freaking beta tester.
RIP MobileMe.
I purchased MobileMe, but have yet to really use it. Since, I’ve installed DropBox. Granted, I only have 2GB (free account), but its speed is superior to iDisk and I have had no problems with it.
I just wish Apple would just do whatever it is they’re gonna do to MobileMe soon. I’m tired of seeing these rumors followed by inaction.
I’d also love to have enough space to back-up my entire iPhoto library. I’d also like the damned photo gallery to post newer pix in the upper left and not the bottom right.
The contact duplication bug from two years ago has caused me an untold amount of agita.
I can see them offering the syncing of the contacts, emails, and calendar for free (along with the Find my iPhone/iPad which is already free). They would probably include 2-5GB of storage that could be used for both the syncing and iDisk. That type of service I can definitely see as a free option. Getting 20GB of storage and web hosting would probably be an upgraded package.
It should be free, just like it started out back in the day.
The biggest advantage of making MobileMe free would be the ability to integrate MobileMe functionality into the operation of the basic OS (Mac OS and iOS). This could be a marriage made in Heaven if Apple did it right.
free or paid, no mobile for me as long as it does not support my own domain name for the full service.
Free?
It’s about time, since it is sooooo BROKEN
A free MobileMe would be nice. It’d stop my wife for bit hing each year when my membership renews.
Currently I’m a bit peeved about MobileMe web mail. I’ve not been able to access it thru a browser for about 3 days.
iDisk is the only portion of MobileMe I don’t use because it is so freaking slow. Dropbox kicks its ass in this regard, but the other features of MobileMe I do find value in and use everyday.
I still find it funny that people bitch over about 8 bucks a month for the service, assuming you paid the long price. You can get it for about half that pretty easily. If 8 bucks a month breaks the bank, what the hell are you doing with Apple products?!