MobileMe to Become a Free Service?

[kdarling]

And that's also the worst thing about Google or any web based tool. There's a layer of abstraction with a web based tools versus native.

You're confused about how Google sync works on phones. It's not just for web based access, although that's available too.

Google licensed ActiveSync, so calendar / contact / email data automatically syncs back and forth between all your phones and your free Google account.

In address book or iCal that data is part of a systemwide API that any 3rd party developers can access. ... (snip)

That's exactly how it works on every phone with Google sync. The data comes down and is available to all the native apps, whether the phone is based on iPOS, WinMo, WebOS, Blackberry, Android.

Which is why I'm asking, since I don't know: does MobileMe also use a version of ActiveSync that can work on any phone?

It is worth spending money to decentralize where all my information is stored. Yes.

I like that too. It's free to do so on Google. At least as far as email, contacts, calendar info, and some free picture storage via Picasa. I'm just curious as to what else MobileMe gives for $100 over what Google gives for free.

 

[cjmillsnun]

And what happens to the email address after people don't renew for a paid subscription.
I think for free they should just include a shell acct where you can manage your files (2gb), but you get no email

If they don't renew they go to free ad supported (similar to gmail)

 

[Nuvi]

There are changes coming to MobileMe, but I can't say anymore due to an NDA.

LOL, if you were under NDA you wouldn't tell that there will be a change in the first place.

 

[GregA]

It's illogical to think they will. Apple sees iAds as a way for developers to deliver free or $.99 apps on the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad without going broke. iAds are not something that Apple wants to push beyond their mobile offering and app store. They have no history looking to leverage advertising.

If Apple targets the ads towards people more likely to be interested - the value of the ad (to the advertiser) goes up. More money. Even happier users.

I personally am deeply hoping that Apple can change advertiser mentality. The networks (& advertisers) are just cramming more ads in. It's just as realistic to offer fewer ads - they'll be seen more easily, stand out more - and if they also better target the ads that's also good. Of course that's TV, but the same principles apply to iPhone ads - force fewer ads and their value can go up.

I've always thought MobileMe should be a free service that comes as a benefit of owning a Mac. The usefulness of MobileMe just doesn't justify the $99 pricetag -- especially when other services offer something similar for free.

And back on topic yes I think mobileme should be free when owning a Mac. The rumour just says "MobileMe Syncing" - but I'd hope for something broader for Apple owners.

My hope is that Apple allows a full sync of my iPhone to the cloud. Apps are the same for everyone - so won't need multiple backups of course, nor will purchased music or TV. Photos WILL take space (but will link to galleries quite nicely?). Music ... well if Lala's technology can identify a song I ripped myself that is identical to someone else's and store it just ONCE that'll reduce overhead too (that's one feature Lala did have).
... take it a step further and just sync my whole home folder on my Mac.

 

[muxbox]

Would this be in response to google?

I would imagine that if this rumour is true then it is Apples well timed response to Google and its android platform.

It makes sense to offer MobileMe for free when in direct competition with googles sync features and free email accounts etc as it eliminates users from having another reason to switch to the android platform.

If Apple do this then well done. You certainly read my mind about possible switch to Android due to lower running costs.

www.gzero.com

 

[twoodcc]

making it free wouldn't bother me. or add more features to the current pricing

 

[InfoSecmgr]

It's naive to assume that Apple won't use MobileMe data in the future to serve you ads.



Given the [lack of acceptable] performance of the current service, all of these things are just going to be painful to use. If they can devote some more bandwidth to them, I could see it being a hit.

I'm a happy mobile me customer...how does it not suit your needs? Or...are you just saying it sucks without backing it up?

 

[TheAppleGeek]

I actually enjoyed the trial. I'd love if it was free.

 

[GregA]

I actually enjoyed the trial. I'd love if it was free.

Best deal at the moment is to get the family pack for 5 logins. 1 user gets more storage, but everyone can sync etc on their accounts.

But I really should check out the online sales deals (amazon).

 

[IFailedShapes]

I actually believe this one. My wife just lost a few contacts that were stored on MobileMe, and they gave us a free family pack subscription for a whole year. I was only expecting to receive a month when I asked them for a credit.

 

[Nuvi]

Honestly, I don't think it will happen anytime soon. Why? Because of the lack of Data Centers for a operation like that. First of all that new single massive data center will do only little in the big perspective. If there will be news about multiple data centers being built around Americas, Europe and Asia then free MobileMe would more likely coming sooner then later. With very limited number of data centers one would get very bad service if masses jump on free MobileMe. Anyone know where current MobileMe data centers are located?

EDIT: Then again if free "MobileMe" is just a free sync client without email, storage or any other MobileMe service then Apple could get away with far fewer data centers but even then there would have to be a spread of centers in order to guarantee a smooth service. Unfortunately there is no way of centralising a global high quality cloud service.

 

[2992]

yep, I'll subscribe and start using MobileMe as soon as it will cost as much as my gmail & related services costs.

Bring it on, for FREE!

 

[scottness]

What they need is tier level pricing. Those who wish to only use the features of say Find My iWhatever can choose just that, storage + e-mail, e-mail, etc.

Yep. Or just reduce the price by 70% or something. If it's free, I think performance will really suck because everyone would subscribe.

 

[aegisdesign]

No Brainer

This seems like a no brainer.

Google already does most of MobileMe for free plus a few of it's own unique solutions.

Nokia with it's Ovi Services already do it too for free. Ovi is Ad free through. Ovi is also growing at a huge rate, especially Ovi Mail which is picking up users at 1 million a month. http://www.ovi.com/services/

DropBox and numerous others do part of the MobileMe thing too.

The other mobile companies are using free services as key reasons to buy their gadgets. Apple is bucking the trend somewhat with expensive gadgets and expensive services.

 

[Mac21ND]

Haven't read the thread, but I'd guess:

Free basic service and paid premium, like most "cloud" sites that store data. As a currently subscriber, I'd be interested in seeing what all the options are.

I just doubt they'd go in all free. They'd be leaving money on the table unless they're integrated ads like Google.

 

[aegisdesign]

Haven't read the thread, but I'd guess:

Free basic service and paid premium, like most "cloud" sites that store data. As a currently subscriber, I'd be interested in seeing what all the options are.

I just doubt they'd go in all free. They'd be leaving money on the table unless they're integrated ads like Google.

That depends on if they see their services as sufficiently a big enough selling point that differentiates their iDevices from the competition.

For example, Nokia ship Ovi Maps with free turn-by-turn satellite navigation on pretty much all their Symbian handsets and some S40 handsets. eg. you can buy a Nokia 5230 with that with no contract - just Pay-as-you-go - for about £80. It's cheaper than most dedicated Sat Nav units even. It's maybe a significant enough service that people would be prepared to buy a Nokia to get the free service. It's certainly the case when it's Nokia v SonyEricsson/Samsung/LG.

Same goes for Nokia's free push email service or free sync service or free Ovi Mail service or free 10GB file sharing/BackToMyMac style service.

Nokia are betting that services will sell more devices. There's no advertising on them.

You perhaps at this point might wonder why Symbian phones never come up high in AdMob's stats.

So far Apple charges more for their phones, charges again for services (MobileMe) that are free elsewhere and better implemented and looks likely to introduce advertising too.

 

[robertcoogan]

Finally, they'll be charging what the service is worth!

It's worth every cent of the price now - I use it often and frequently. But one can't argue with free!

 

[coyote]

What mobileme is worth

Finally, they'll be charging what the service is worth!

Perhaps to you, but I find the service worth far more than the $100 Apple charges me every year.

 

[jdechko]

I find it useful and would continue to pay for it, but if Apple makes it free, that wouldn't bother me one bit. (As long as I can keep my @mac.com email address)

 

[rwilliams]

Google, Dropbox, Teamviewer. Good enough for me and free.

Absolutely. All three of those services are outstanding and a big part of my everyday online life.

 

[garylapointe]

I used to love MobileMe.

I used to use .Mac and MobileMe to sync between my computers and it did an awesome job with the iDisk, Calendar, Contacts and bookmarks (even with my windows machines).

But I keep having problems with syncing properly to my iPhone and iPod Touch, it works fine for a while then becomes intermittent.

To fix it I need to disconnect my laptop (from the settings level) and repush (after reconfiguring) everything out to the cloud (10 GB of stuff) and then maybe it works for a while, and then it hangs again. Very frustrating

If they move to the new data center, I'll try again. But until then, I don't think I'm renewing come September...

Gary
http://GarySaid.com/

 

[kingtj]

Yep.. this is exactly what I could see them doing, too!

The basic functionality of MobileME has been rendered largely worthless, thanks to all the new products out there that offer similar features for free (at least for their most basic levels of service). EG. You can use DropBox to store at least 2GB of data for you, and just by inviting others to join, they let you earn 512MB bonus storage per sign-up too. You can store something like that on Evernote's service too, and it can even do OCR on images containing text that you clip and upload to them. Backup services like Mozy offer a certain amount of free backup storage space too. If you need a place to post photos, you can do so with a Flickr or a Photobucket account, and plenty of people offer free web hosting for basic sites. Want free email? You can go with one of the "giants" like Google GMail or Hotmail, OR one of the little guys out there (www.mail2world.com for example).

It'd be another good selling point of OS X, though, if all the basic MobileME functionality was free for every OS X user.... It's integrated a lot more tightly than trying to use multiple other services to accomplish the same tasks. Then, they could charge fees for upgraded amounts of storage space and other enhancements.

Mobileme is certainly worth more than free. Apple doesn't scrape your emails and other data to target adds at you a la Google.

I could see Apple making some features of Mobileme free. I don't think they're just going kill a revenue stream but they could offer a basic free Mobileme account which gives you.

A me.com email address with 5 aliases.
Sync features
"Find my damn iDevice"
Calendar, Contacts, Bookmark sync
Web page
Gallery
iWork.com

Then roll out Mobileme Pro


Make iDisk more like Drop Box.
Enhance the sync
Online Backup
Cloud Music (Lala style)
iWork.com Pro (adds collaborative editing)
Whatever other cool stuff they can deliver

 

[nuckinfutz]

It certainly appears like the problems with MobileMe are regional. I haven't had many issues crop up that I couldn't get rid of quickly but that doesn't mean I'm going to deny that others are having issues.

I don't mind paying for MobileMe. If Apple were to have a subset of the features for free that would still help me because more application developers would use the free services and I'd still have the premium features that I like.

I have a Dropbox account and Evernote but I do like being able to do a single sign on and having everything right there. We'll see what kind of integration Apple will be able to do with future versions of iDisk.

 

[nuckinfutz]

wow,it couldn't be true!
But it should be free sooner or later!
Cheers!

LOL the ole c*nt punt.

I want to know how Apple can speed up iDisk and add more features. Cloud storage companies have upped the ante and from my perspective it seems like WebDAV was the wrong technology to bank on. I wonder if Apple will be making drastic changes to the iDisk architecture in the future.

 

[HamishInsanish]

Then they better improve the performance first. If they offered it free then more users would really bog down the current MobileMe

If Apple's any better at server management than Tapulous is when they roll out a new product (late, and still unprepared for the network load consequences), it should be a walk in the park. Thenagain, when MobileMe first came out it was a long anticipated facelift for the .Mac service, but the web service was pretty shotty (though this has nothing to do with server load). Maybe with the server facility Apple just built not long ago they can utilize a bunch of Xserves and pull together some server power that would put even the Iron Man's Tony Stark to shame