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MobileMe to Become a Free Service?

mrzippy said:
I joined Mobile Me (.Mac) in 2003 and haven't looked back.

What I like:
1. Amazing SPAM filtering (less than 25 SPAM emails since 2003)
2. Keychain sync between my 3 Macs
3. Calendar sync between my iPhone / Mac
4. Bookmark sync between my iPhone / Mac
5. Preferences sync between my 3 Macs
6. Secure iChats
7. Disposable email aliases
8. Find my iPhone / Remote wipe (could be very handy)

What I don't like:
1. iDisk whenever I have used is painfully slow and unreliable
2. iPhoto album publish is slow and unreliable
3. Price

Just my opinion and I intend to pay again this year if it's not free, if it is free I hope they maintain the good points and improve the bad points.
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mrzippy you bring up a great point. I've only got one Mac so my sync is generally going to my iPhone and iPad. If you've got a couple of Macs then

Keychain sync
Pref sync
Dock items sync

Would be a godsend. In fact I am getting a second Mac soon and thus I will enable those features to be sync'd.
 
I'd get it if it were free!!

gmail is free... so why can't mobile me?

Now I start thinking about it, I've never paid Google a single cent, but I use
*Gmail
*Google search engine
*Google maps
*Google Earth
(*And I used Picasa for a short period of time)

Maybe some orther stuff but the point is... its all free!:)
 
me just up graded older mac books out of the loop

now mac 10.4 512 we have to pay multitudes
to have access to the mac mail we bought

with cox cable slower than h3ll high speed internet
CONSTANTLY RELOADING
JUST TO SEE AND WRITE an EMAIL
ON WHAT LOOKS LIKE A CHEEZY FREE EMAIL PLATFORM
IS MADDENING.

MULTI DISABLED AND TYRING TO AVOID HOMELESSNESS
again
- another help to slow me down or give up food income to fix isn't what i needed.
 
I agree, nuckinfutz. I signed up for the old, free, iTools during Steve's MWSF 2000 keynote (and got a great email address.) Basic services could easily be made free again, advanced services could cost a little. Apple makes most of their money from hardware sales, so it's possible that the free MobileMe component could add enough value to generate more hardware sales for Apple.

Even if the extra initial cost to Apple outweighs the increase in hardware sales, it could be beneficial for Apple in the medium to long term. Because there's another potentially huge long-term benefit for Apple. If all or nearly all Apple customers join MobileMe, they will create a larger MobileMe market to sell into. By 'sell' I mean iAds. It's entirely possible that MobileMe could become completely free if you and I and other users are willing to put up with the fancy new iAds that Apple is working on.

So what would make us put up with the iAds? Great content. We could stream movies, TV, and even audio when we're away from our Macs. Apple may not want to go 100% "cloud" since the "cloud" may never be 100% reliable. Apple no doubt wants to avoid the kind of disaster that Microsoft / Danger users experienced if at all possible.

But if Apple does a few more deals in Hollywood, I wouldn't be surprised if MobileMe gets renamed to "The Apple Channel" or something like that. As internet media streaming becomes more popular, Apple will be able to use its MobileMe infrastructure to become even more of a media powerhouse. iAd commercials and all.
 
Snowcat001 said:
I'd get it if it were free!!

gmail is free... so why can't mobile me?

Now I start thinking about it, I've never paid Google a single cent, but I use
*Gmail
*Google search engine
*Google maps
*Google Earth
(*And I used Picasa for a short period of time)

Maybe some orther stuff but the point is... its all free!:)
Click to expand...

It's free if you think giving Google all of your privacy and identity is worth the 'price' :p
 
I must say that mobileme is essential for me. Laptop, desktop, media centre mini, iphone and one day an ipad- i need a way of syncing contacts/ email/ calendars/ documents and settings that no one else offers so easily.

I do not like google as a company. I simply don't trust them and don't like their business model.

Both back to my mac and the iphone locator have beed precious tools for me.

there is a lot there but I think they could upgrade the service for us.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
One question it raises: How will Apple handle paying customers' subscriptions that expire after the point this takes effect?
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If this happens I'll bet only very limited number of features will be free. MobileMe subscribers will be getting another upgrade on iDisk space etc. I'll bet when iWork on-line document share is finally released you have to be paid MobileMe subscriber to use it.

Anyway, regarding the current price I think its too high when you look at the feature set. Then again I've been using it for over five years and never paid the full price...
 
iansilv said:
Honestly, I am about to not renew. It's just not that useful. The only thing I would keep it for is the online idisk, and with dropbox or novadrive coming up with better and cheaper alternatives, I see no reason to continue to use it. However, if Apple makes it free, then they can use that as another feature of their products in general. They could sell the idisk storage, or give away 5 gigs or something, like drop box does.
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Exactly how I feel about it. Google Docs does the same thing for free, and if you need extra storage, you can get four TIMES the storage for less annually than a mobileme subscription.

I'll keep it free. Otherwise come the renewal I'm gone.
 
ValSalva said:
It's free if you think giving Google all of your privacy and identity is worth the 'price' :p
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I'm not giving anything, all names etc. can be fake, no real info is needed.
The only thing they really know is the IP-adress I most often use to get on the net. :)
 
Oh man! That would be great... but I have a hard time seeing Apple do this. I'd be happy with like a "basic" version that'd be free... and for those who want the whole package, some sort of fee... but not $99 per year. Only time will tell I guess.
 
I do not see MM going free. I could see them lowering the price or adding some more features, but it isn't going to be free. I am ok with that. It has always worked for me. I know it hasn't for everyone, and that there are other free services, but I have liked how it works across all my Apple devices. And is worth it simply for the Find My iPhone feature.
 
Well, iAds are all HTML5 so its natural that they'd expand to the web. What better test than Apple's own fledgling web service?

A free, ad-supported model is just what they need, and the better integration with iDevices and Macs continues the subtle push to switch.

Makes total sense. Hope it happens soon. I'll reclaim my old MobileMe account.
 
I've had the service for over 4 years and I have never paid full price.
I would not mind if they lowered the price to say $49/annually or even tiered pricing, but all out free scares me a little.
 
This would be great. I cancelled my home phone a couple years back and also cable TV. These cuts saved me close to $100 per month. To save an additonal $69 per year, the amount I paid last year on Amazon for MobileMe, would be another great savings.
 
It would make sense for this to be free. Google syncs with Gmail, calendar, etc for free. I think Microsoft is creating an companion internet service for WiMo. If Apple made MobileMe free, it would make its adoption explode. If MobileMe was free, I could see myself getting a me.com email address.
 
that would be awesome, free is good! i'd sign up and use it as honeypot for all useless mail and spam (same as my gmail and yahoo) :D
 
nuckinfutz said:
The problem with this idea is that it's based on the assumption that Apple wants to be like Google and suddenly become an advertiser.

They purchased Quattro and developed iAds because it represents a mutually beneficial deal for developers on the app store and Apple. Apple designs the ads and runs them on their servers and developers get to deliver free or .$99 apps that can actually be profitable. Quid pro quo...Apple gets more apps hopefully that don't suck and the developer gets to reap the rewards of the success of the app store.

That same play doesn't come into effect with Mobileme. It's not dependent on 3rd party developers delivering content so thusly you will not see iAds in Mobileme.
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It's no assumption at all that Apple's getting into the advertising game. They announced iAd loud and clear as part of the iPhone's new OS. Your assuming these ads won't make it into any thing other than apps and I'm saying you're mistaken.

Why would they limit a massive profit opportunity and a chance to deliver a huge financial blow to their new arch enemy? They wouldn't. Google's laid the groundwork for how these free services work. Apple's may just put their spin on it.

I do think that a paid, ad free version would exist. They'll continue their current service uninterrupted. But to offer it free, well, "Ain't nothin' free, baby." They'll generate revenue off it with their new ad system. It wouldn't make any sense not to. It's just the world in which we live.
 
The only future for MobileMe is to adopt the DropBox model. Which is a shame really, because Apple was so close to it years ago with iDisk but never put it all together.

Have your home folders automatically backup to MobileMe and access them anywhere, iPhones, iTouchs, iPads, other Macs, you name it. It would also put the downright draconian file sharing implementation of the iWorks apps on the iPad out to pasture.

It would be smart to make part of OS X itself and offer it for free, then sell extra disk space at a modest premium to get people to backup their iTunes and iPhoto libraries to the cloud.

Most of all though, it all has to be transparent. Anything I save to the Home folder is automatically backed up to the cloud in short order so I can have almost immediate access to it elsewhere. No need to mount iDisk as a separate volume, just connect to a MobileMe account in the System Preferences and your home folders are automatically synced with the cloud.

It's just makes too much sense for Apple to pass up.
 
Having used MobileMe to keep my iPhone, iMac, Macbook and work iMac in sync, I pretty much can't live without it.

With it, I know if I plug something into my calendar with an alert on it, it will definitely pop up (multiple times and in multiple places, often to my annoyance). I can also quickly keep all my dashboard widgets, bookmarks and everything else in sync. Walking into the Apple store, upgrading my iPhone and having practically my whole phone (minus the apps) synced up by the time I get back to the car is definitely nice as well.

Of course, I know people's individual mileage may vary.
 
Is the size of Apple's NC Data Center overkill for just delivering MobileMe services? Or is that the type of facility they would need to bring it in-house with current subscribers?
 
nuckinfutz said:
Most people don't understand the fundamental differences between iDisk and Drop Box. If Apple was to build a front end to iDisk that stored the file locally and then sync'd over WebDAV in the background they'd be able to offer the same performance.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Eh... iDisk is stored locally then synced in the background. When you work on your iDisk files you edit the local file on HD which is then synced to the cloud. Sorry mate but I guess you fall into category of people who don't understand the fundamental difference between iDisk and Drop Box. iDisk file transfer speed is dead slow and Drop Box is fast...
 
Free sounds good to me. I mean, it could be like Apple's Windows Live only everyone says Mobile Me is better and does other things. I would like to have a .me or .mac (whatever) email address like PC users have .live or .hotmail addresses for free.

And syncing will probably be something my dad will use... even though I think he already pays for mobile me anyway o_O
 
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