“Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is working on a ‘major revamp’ of MobileMe, including a ‘locker’ that will stream movies and TV shows to iPhones and iPads,” Leander Kahney reports for Cult of Mac. “We’ve learned that Apple is going far beyond this. The company is looking to add a ton of ambitious cloud computing features to MobileMe — possibly in anticipation of a streaming-only iPhone.”
Among the many services Apple is working on are:
• A live video-streaming service like Ustream
• A location-based check-in system like Gowalla or Foursquare
• A geo-tagging system codenamed ‘Tokens’ that tags real-world locations, like Facebook Places on steroids.
Kahney reports, “‘The concept is that you would have you[r] own website that’s dynamic, all based on what you are doing at that moment,’ said our source. ‘Apple thinks of it as having a webserver in your pocket… everything will be dynamically updated to MobileMe.’ …Tokens (the name is temporary) allows users to tag GPS locations with information, tips and interesting photos. Users can see what tokens others have left behind. The information could be restaurant reviews, meal recommendations, special deals offered by retailers, or photos of events that took place there.”
Much more in the full article here.
Will these MobileMe services be iOS-only?
I’m looking forward to all of these. The sooner I get away from Google, the better.
I think Apple has missed the boat. They SHOULD have offered a Mozy type backup/storage thing for MobileMe. Or a DropBox like functionality for MobileMe.
I mean, if you had say Time Machine doing backups of essential files pretty much instantly (like word docs or something) to a cloud like thing sorta like a Mozy/Dropbox in which you could then use your Laptop or iPad or iPhone or iPod to look/edit the doc. It syncs back to the cloud. When you come back to your Mac, turn it on, it updates that file. PLUS, you’d still be able to use Time Machine to go BACK to the old version if you want.
Imagine……they could easily keep charging $99 for that if it was wrapped up in an easy, intuitive Apple package.
I like your thinking. Make it so!
We can all agree that Apple has not done all they might have done with MobileMe. But “missed the boat”? In what alternate universe has the most wildly successful high-technology company on the planet missed the boat? Only in your dreams.
Have you ever heard of iDisk? You have access to all your files on any Mac or i-product including backup. MobileMe has the same functionality as DropBox between desktops and laptops yet on the iPod, iPad, Iphone it’s not editable on all files yet. Yes Time Machine is still local…
Bisse, I have had .Mac turned MobileMe for several years. iDisk is somewhat useful. It’s great for synchronizing files across multiple macs (and now the iOS devices as well). However, it is the sloooooooooowest service of its type. If I am in a hurry, I tend to just default to dropbox.
iDisk is TERRIBLE. Seriously. After using DropBox for 20 minutes you’d know it is terrible. And DropBox is editable NOW…..Apple has had YEARS to add that to iDisk.
They have had a dropbox like system for over 5 years now. I used iDisk extensively since 2006. If you turn on active syncing, you have the identical service to dropbox.
Unfortunately, it does not work as well as dropbox (in my experience). This is especially true on older slower machines where it can be pathetically slow. On my G5 system I had to turn off auto-sync and do it manually because it would bog down so bad. Even on a brand new MBP i7, it occasionally bogs, especially tripping on open files – which never stops dropbox.
But it IS there and HAS BEEN there for over 5 years, and overall works pretty well. It saved me from worrying about the possibility of losing all my files if my laptop were to be stolen while traveling. Never would have been an issue with my work in the cloud.
See, that is the point. They missed the boat. Sorta like Microsoft and tablets. They had something that sorta worked, but not well enough that anyone really used it a lot (like iDisk).
See, it would be smart of Apple to say that part of the $99 a year is a remote Time Machine backup to MobileMe. In fact, you could take it further and say that if you had a TimeCapsule, it could handle the initial backup while it connected to the internet and uploaded/updated the MobileMe archive. And, if you had an iOS device, MobileMe would sort of function like the BackToMyMac is supposed to work, where you could get access to your files, make changes, etc, and then save them and when you come home, power on the Mac it would look at the MobileMe/TimeCap version, and update any changes.
It is totally something that Apple could do, it has all the pieces already…..
Hope you can turn off or opt out of the location services…
Too Much Personal Information
I would much rather the home page on an IOS device be able to keep a live feed of news, weather, music playing, active contacts across IMs and MyTwitFaceSkype whatever, new voicemails and emails without having to dig into an app for each function.
And for God’s sake, why can’t Apple add a shortcut button with options for power savings in one click? Be able to turn off Locations, Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, adjust resolution all in one place.
“Apple missing the boat”????
Since Apple usually IS the Boat, that would be hard to imagine. But I say for Apple to go slow and do it right. Make it a growing and improving thing.
Just a thought,
en
If you consider how long MobileMe (.Mac) has been around, it has been very slow in developing. I was considering dropping MobileMe after several years, but I might hang onto it if the additional features justify the cost.
For instance, I would stay onboard if MobileMe included a remote data backup capability with some useful capacity (at least several hundred GB).
I still anticipate that Apple’s goal will ultimately be to eliminate the desktop PC entirely from the iOS equation. No need to backup & sync via desktop iTunes; the MobileMe cloud and local hard drives will provide all backup services and storage.
I currently have a mobile me account, if Apple moves my personal info to the cloud you can count me as a former mobile me user even if they make mobile me free.
Isn’t this going to be a HUGE bandwidth slurp. Or am I missing sumpin’.
Huge band with Slurp? Guns and Roses?
No, wait, that was Slush…
Slush?
You mean Slash?
Yeah, I was thinking about how his guitar sounds…
But now that you mention it, Huge Band With Slurp is the name of that Tommy Lee/Pam Anderson tape, right?
Yeah, I sure want everybody on the web to be able to spy on (or market to) me at any time. That sounds almost as cool as living in East Germany, North Korea, Iran.
Oh wait…
I have MobileMe and i have music on it and let me tell u something its absolutely pointless to have music on their ok mabey if u want music that u rarely listen to so it wont take up space on your iphone however as it is right now the 3g isn’t always so fast to instantly start the song the second you touch it, secondly once the song is done you must select the next one if the song finishes and you want to listen to it again it may have to re-buffer all over again and if your connection isn’t great well its a waste of time. they could probably fix this but the one thing they cant fix is if you are a commuter as i am in NY the second you go into a subway station you have no internet thus you have no access to your cloud music!!!! they will always have to provide memory in the phone thats y i do not see an iphone cloud only phone as dumb. i do not get what’s with wanting everything in the cloud to begin with I see where its useful like when i update contacts its great but i dont want to be paralyzed the day i do not have internet and really wish I had that file on me locally. and the internet is not blazing fast for everyone at this point in time nor will it ever be in the foreseeable future.
Look at apple as the CPU of a computer, unfortunately the wires that connect everything together are run down and out of date. The innovation is 10 years ahead of the speed of the telco’s. For us in NZ, mobile me and streaming services have an archiles heal…. the speed of our internet
Hope Apple takes seriously the SMALL BUSINESS segment in their Mobile Me update, not only the “consumer” side. There is SOOOO much potential for Mobile Me serving small business needs. For example, imagine an easy to use, upgraded Bento database running hosted off of Mobile me!! Businesses without coders or server admins could do a lot with that. Many other possibilities…
I agree with those who point out that file synchronizing on MobileMe is sickeningly slow. Drop two exact files in MobileMe and Dropbox and in the wink of an eye, Dropbox updates. MobileMe takes a virtual eternity.
The only reason I will renew my account is the calendar/contacts sync.
Me too, and the fact that having my name @me.com is kinda cool. But you can do everything MobileMe does via Google….
I started with .Mac, it was free, which became MobileMe. The syncing, Find My Phone, and iDisk are features that I most use as I have two Macs and 2 iPhones. However I am having major sync problems currently (only minor ones before) and gave up after waiting 45 minutes to “text chat” with Apple support yesterday. I went to an Apple store and they sent me home to wait for Apple support’s chat again.
I agree with most: give me more or charge me less (free). Pull the trigger Apple!
What I would love to see is something like Google Docs or Microsoft Office online that can tie into iWork 11! That would be a game changer. 🙂