Josh Ong
Apple has sent an email to current MobileMe subscribers notifying them of the extension "at no additional charge," iLounge reports. According to the note, MobileMe will "no longer be available" after June 30, 2012.
In recent months, the Cupertino, Calif., company had begun drawing down the $99 MobileMe product from online and brick-and-mortar stores. Resellers told AppleInsider in February that the MobileMe Single User and Family Pack products had been declared "End of Life" by Apple.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs candidly admitted on Monday that the MobileMe launch was not Apple's "finest hour." Last month, an "Inside Apple" report noted that a furious Jobs berated the MobileMe team after a shaky launch, allegedly disbanding most of the team and appointing a new executive to be in charge.
"You've tarnished Apple's reputation..." Jobs reportedly said. "You should hate each other for having let each other down."
Jobs took the wraps off the much-rumored iCloud on Monday during a keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. The free service, which will ship this fall alongside iOS 5, will store iTunes, App Store and iBook purchases, as well as provide backups of iOS devices independent of a computer.
Though Jobs took care to identify the iCloud service as a completely new product, it will also incorporate services from MobileMe, such as Contacts, Calendar and Mail, with a completely redesigned architecture. As such, Apple recommends that MobileMe users make the switch to iCloud and promises “more details and instructions on how to make the move†this fall.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Oliver Haslam
85 Comments
I just got this email from Apple about MobileMe going away by next summer. My big question is what will happen after that with my me.com email address. I will start moving away from it if they are shutting down the email service also.
That was my first reaction. I've had the same address since iTools.
I just got this email from Apple about MobileMe going away by next summer. My big question is what will happen after that with my me.com email address. I will start moving away from it if they are shutting down the email service also.
It will move to iCloud. I want to know what happens to iWeb and iDisk?
my impression from the keynote was that not only would it not be shut down, but anyone with an iOS5 device or lion gets a free .me address.
the real question (at my house) is will the .mac accounts my kids used for messaging only still be in their names when they upgrade to iOS5.
i suspect iDisk is history, for good or ill. if you have documents in an app that supports icloud, then for good, they are still there but easier to manage. if they are other file types, they may go the way of the dodo...