It's End-Of-Life For MobileMe, But When And How Will The Transition To iCloud Take Place?
June 6, 2011
Those of us who have been enjoying MobileMe -- for the most part -- still found ourselves very curious about the rumored iCloud service and what it would mean for syncing, storage, and more. Well, we now have further details about the transition that will take place later this year.
After being outlined today, iCloud sounds pretty good. Some wishes came true and some not so much. The upcoming evolution to Apple's online synchronization has some new and exciting features to utilize, but what about the current ones?
In a recently posted Apple Knowledge Base support document, Information about the MobileMe transition, the company states that current data will automatically be moved to the new service once a MobileMe customer agrees to become an iCloud user.
You'll be able to keep your me.com or mac.com email address and move your MobileMe mail, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks to the new service.Will this simply be clicking Upgrade and Agree? We don't yet know.
When iCloud becomes available this fall, more details and instructions will be provided on how to make the move.Suffice it to say, my best guess is Apple is planning on doing quadruple checks and re-checks this time to avoid another MobileMe-type launch disaster. Even though most MobileMe customers will transition immediately to iCloud, Apple is automatically extending the subscriptions for all current MobileMe customers through June 30, 2012. I'm certain some will use that extra time to observe just how smooth the path is before they take a walk down it. As you probably could have guessed, all MobileMe purchases are now suspended indefinitely as clearly noted on the MobileMe information page and previously referenced support article. The suspension does include expansion upgrades, such as increased storage space and While the upcoming system enhances the syncing components of the service, some features will be taken away to bring that price down to zero. The obvious change is dropping from 20GB of included storage to only 5GB. Apple does claim more storage will be available at an additional cost, however, no price tags have yet been posted. Another question is if iFile is a true iDisk replacement or trimmed down. I'm looking forward to the answers of these and other questions sooner rather than later.
