Wow: Apple's MobileMe going third party?!

Stephen Withers
Monday, 18 August 2008 09:58

Opinion and Analysis

Salesforce.com has shaken up the cloud computing market by providing a true platform for running third-party apps that integrate with the core software. Could Apple be planning something similar for MobileMe?

While MobileMe - the successor to Apple's .Mac Internet services - failed to get off to a smooth start, and people are still complaining about synchronisation issues, the MobileMe applications themselves (web-based versions of Mac OS X's Mail, Address Book and iCal software) do seem to run nicely, even if they don't offer 100 percent feature equivalence with their desktop equivalents.

The idea of hosting third-party apps on MobileMe was floated late last week by AppleInsider's Prince McLean.

Just as Apple sells third-party software for the iPhone and iPod touch through the App Store, it could offer MobileMe add-ons that were created outside the company, in a continuation of the new third-party-app friendly policy.

Why? Because through MobileMe, Apple already has a billing relationship with the customer.

This make a lot of sense to me. As McLean points out, it would require the publication of the currently private APIs that Apple's using for MobileMe.

What sort of applications might we see? McLean suggests a web version of Quicken as one possibility, along with an expenses app running on an iPhone, plus data synchronisation with the desktop version of the software. Make that QuickBooks, and I'd definitely be interested.

What else might sit comfortably on MobileMe? See page two.