Apple could be planning to make MobileMe free. If you’re not familiar with the service, MobileMe (formerly .Mac and iTools) is a subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by Apple.  Originally launched on January 5, 2000, as iTools, a free collection of Internet-based services for users of Mac OS 9, Apple relaunched it as .Mac on July 17, 2002, when it became a paid subscription service primarily designed for users of Mac OS X. Apple relaunched the service again as MobileMe at WWDC 2008 on July 9, 2008, now targeting Mac OS X, Windows, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch users.

Essentially, MobileMe is Apple’s $99 per year service 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.

There was not a timeframe given for MobileMe to change to “free” status, other than: “sooner than later… depends on certain facilities going operational.”  This will more than likely happen, in light of Google’s efforts to offer comparable stuff and more at no cost to the consumer. Nice move Apple…..if it happens.

Published on  May 14, 2010