MobileMe for free?

Stephen Withers
Monday, 10 May 2010 15:33

Your IT - Home IT

According to a rumour, Apple is preparing to drop the $A119/$US99 annual subscription for its MobileMe Internet-based services.

MacDailyNews says it has received a tip that Apple is planning to stop charging for its MobileMe online service.

The site stresses that it has been unable to confirm this suggestion. Corroboration from another source would add credence, but the idea does make some sense.

MobileMe's history can be traced back to iTools, which was a free set of Internet services for Mac users. And a frequent criticism of MobileMe (and .Mac, as it was previously known) is that most, if not all, of the features it provides are available elsewhere for free.

For example, any number of providers offer a free chunk of online storage (with the option of paying for more). MobileMe's iDisk does offer the convenience of WebDAV access and an easy way of sharing selected files with other people.

The obvious competitor for MobileMe's mail service is Gmail, which provides POP and IMAP access, and over 7GB of storage at no charge.

The MobileMe Gallery for photo sharing goes up against Picasa Web Albums (1GB of free space), Flickr (free accounts limited to 100MB of uploads per month), and others. Similar comparisons can be made with free web hosting facilities - and the service included by most ISPs is enough for some people anyway.

What could be the justification for making MobileMe free? See page 2.