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.]
I have had my Mobile Me account since day one of iTools… When it was promised to be “free for life.”
Apple has added functionality over the years, but competition has also gotten stiff.
For example, the Photobucket app is free, and easy to use, but iDisk can’t even be used on an iPhone for easily publishing photos online. There is probably a way to do it, but I sure wasn’t able to figure it out. I was using Photobucket within seconds.
Is it worth $99 a year? Probably not. I buy renewals on eBay for nearly half price.
I will continue to do so, if need be, but Apple will gain a lot of good will with me if they make it free.
I hope the rumors are true, and I hope my playlists will soon be in the cloud.