MobileMe subscription about to expire? Don't renew it just yet

If you've already paid the US$99 for Apple's MobileMe service, but your account is due for renewal within the next ten days or so, it might be a good idea to hold off on renewing it for now. Apple's rumored to be heavily revamping its MobileMe service this year, and we expect to hear announcements about the service upgrades at WWDC on June 6. Some rumors even suggest that parts of MobileMe may be available at no charge after the update.

It's been a perennial rumor that Apple will stop charging $99/year for much of its MobileMe service. The rumors have always suggested Apple will offer basic services (like email and over-the-air device syncing) for free, while paying subscribers will have access to things like website hosting, online photo galleries, storage options through iDisk, and now potentially wireless streaming of music via the rumored iCloud service. Year after year this rumor has failed to come to fruition, but many are hoping this is the year Apple will finally split MobileMe into two services: free/basic and subscription/full access. There's already precedent for making certain parts of MobileMe free. Find My iPhone/iPad used to be a service for MobileMe subscribers only, but last November Apple made it free to anyone with an iPad, iPhone 4 or current-gen iPod touch.

The bottom line is that if you're only making limited use of MobileMe's services right now and your account is set to expire within the next couple of weeks, wait to see what's in store at WWDC before you shell out another $99 for another year. You may or may not lose access to some MobileMe features as soon as your account expires; we've been hearing conflicting reports about this from some readers, suggesting the service is indeed due for an overhaul relatively soon. You'll still have access to email services for up to two weeks after your account expires, at which point Apple will supposedly throw the switch and delete all of your MobileMe data. That means if your account hasn't expired already, you're in good shape until WWDC.

Speaking only for myself, if MobileMe's email and device syncing services do indeed become free-to-all after WWDC, I'm not likely to pay for access anymore. I've made very limited use of iDisk -- it's absolutely terrible compared to Dropbox, especially the way iDisk behaves in the Mac OS X Finder -- and MobileMe's gallery service is cumbersome compared to other photo sharing services I've used. As for iCloud, I have pretty much zero interest in what I've heard of it thus far, because I don't believe the internet infrastructure where I live can handle the types of services iCloud will supposedly offer. On the other hand, if Apple knocks it out of the park with the MobileMe upgrade, I may still happily drop some cash on the service. It all depends on what we hear at WWDC.

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If you've already paid the US$99 for Apple's MobileMe service, but your account is due for renewal within the next ten days or so, it...

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ViktorCode

Could you please elaborate on "terrible" iDisk behaviour in Finder? So long it looks and works just like an external drive for me, from Finder perspective.

May 31 2011 at 6:34 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Sasha

Read the TOS:

Apple shall refund the applicable fees paid by you upon initial online sign up or renewal of the Service provided Apple receives such refund request within forty-five (45) days of the billing date for any such fees. To request a refund as described herein go to http://www.apple.com/support/mobileme/ww for more details.

May 30 2011 at 10:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

donmontalvo

MobileMe was my favorite service, until the service became unreliable and I lost data. I switched to GMail and never turned back. I decided the $99 annual price was better spent on GoDaddy domain and hosting service (heck, even had money left over!). If Apple offers MobileMe for free, I may re-activate my email account again...but to be honest, I'm at the point where I just want to stick to one email account so my friends and family can find me.

Don

May 30 2011 at 8:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

abmark

Mine is up on June 6! I've already ordered a boxed renewal through Amazon (actually through an Amazon affiliate). I'll wait until WWDC before I open it...

May 30 2011 at 7:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mark

I'm looking forward to WWDC. I feel Apple has some catching up to do this year with NFC and syncing.

May 30 2011 at 6:55 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mark

Wireless syncing would be great. With 2 iPhones and an iPad 2, it's a pain to sync all of them frequently. I make use of Google Sync for my Calendar and Gmail, but I do not sync my contacts that way because when I click sync contacts I lose the "thumbnail" pictures that I have associated with each contact in Outlook. Does anyone know how to work around this? I'd love wireless sync of my contacts, but I choose to do it via cable when I sync iTunes with my iPhones/iPad. Thanks!

I hope MobileMe is free. Unless there are huge changes, I don't see myself using the features enough to warrant $99. I love Dropbox and I've used Amazon to back up some of files.

May 30 2011 at 6:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

uzerzero

I briefly had iTools back when it came out, until my Tangerine iMac died and it was six years until I got my next Mac. I liked it, although it was difficult to use on a dial-up connection. I haven't purchased MobileMe in the four years since I returned to Mac, but if Apple were to make it free, I would probably sign up. I'm not a big fan of cloud-based anything, so I wouldn't care if iDisk or iCloud was included or not. I'd mostly just be interested in the email account and OTA syncing (although I already use WiFi Sync for that).

May 30 2011 at 6:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Douglass Davidoff

I just have to add a +1 somewhere in the Internet for my hopes that the June announcement will be about iTunes in the cloud and upgrade MobileMe services.

I've used MobileMe since the .Mac days in 2006, when I switched from Windows to Mac and never looked back. But iDisk is indeed sorry compared to DropBox, and after the iCal "upgrade" got rid of calendar groups, I had to switch to Google calendars -- well, for that, and to accommodate a Mac-phobic family. I'd gladly pay $99/yr for premium MobileMe and iTunes services in the cloud if everything just worked the way Mac users know it should.

Make us happy, Apple! iTunes and MobileMe have become the two biggest drags on the Apple user experience.

May 30 2011 at 6:24 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

SIP

I have been using my ISPs email services for years now, but recently the ISP transferred all mail handling to Google, but using the ISPs own front end. My account has always been set up to delete all emails from the ISP's servers once downloaded to my HD -- Google over rode my settings. I found literally thousands of emails that I thought had been permanently erased from the ISP's servers, and I went about re-setting preferences via the ISP front end.

Six months later, I again found that Google had over-ridden my settings again and was storing my emails. To say that I am p*ssed-off is an understatement.

So, I decided to go MobileMe, and I am slowly moving over all my stuff across to my @me.com email address. My account comes up for renewal in July and I will stump up the annual subscription just to avoid Google storing my emails against my wishes.

BTW, I use Transmit to access iDisk instead of the Finder, and access is super fast.

May 30 2011 at 4:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

iPhone user

I've been on MobileMe since before it was even called .Mac. Signed up (for free) the instant I heard Steve Jobs mention "iTools" in the January 2000 MWSF keynote. I was streaming the keynote on my Tangerine iBook.

Anyway, I've said it before on other forums, and I'll say it again here:

iPv6 + VPN + MobileMe2.0 = iCloud.

May 30 2011 at 3:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply