Mobileme

Apple's botched MobileMe launch and the failure of fear-based management

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Apr 19, 2013 a 7:04 pm

MobileMe launched in 2008 as a replacement for .Mac and ended up being replaced itself just three short years later by iCloud. So terrible was its launch, so tarnished was was the perception of its service, that Steve Jobs reportedly walked the halls of Apple with a flame-thrower, dressing down the troops and handing over responsibility for the service to his fixer, Eddy Cue. But was MobileMe's failings the fault of the engineers, or of the managers in charge of the project? Former member of the MobileMe team, Erin Caton believes the latter:

Apple alerting users to reserved iCloud email addresses

By Rene Ritchie, Wednesday, Nov 7, 2012 a 8:59 am

Apple has begun sending out emails to inform iCloud users that @icloud.com email addresses have been reserved for them. These seem to be directed towards previous MobileMe users who had @me.com (or legacy @mac.com) addresses. I don't recall email addresses being reserved following the mac.com to me.com transition, and icloud.com, and there's no additional information or context provided.

Apple extends complimentary iCloud storage upgrades until September 2013

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Oct 5, 2012 a 7:45 pm

Apple has been emailing previous MobileMe customers, including iMore's own writer-at-large, Chad Garrett, informing them that complimentary storage boost they received during the iCloud transition has been extended again, this time until September 2013. Here's the email:

MobileMe: 2008 to 2012. Or, the deconstruction of failed sync

By Rene Ritchie, Wednesday, Aug 1, 2012 a 3:08 pm

This is how MobileMe ends, swallowed in iCloud but not in darkness.

Our information and documents will live on -- the stored and pushed and streamed content of our iPhones and iPads and Macs, unto the next generation.

Apple has created the service we would have wished for MobileMe.

And now its servers spin down for the last time.

(With apologies to J. Michael Straczynski)

Apple reportedly begins to transition me.com email addresses to icloud.com

By Rene Ritchie, Monday, Jul 16, 2012 a 11:07 pm

What began life as mac.com email address and became me.com with iPhone OS 2 will now be transitioning again, this to time to icloud.com, and reportedly Apple is starting with the just-released iOS 6 beta 3. This according to information obtained by MacRumors. The notice, supplied to developers by Apple, reads in part:

icloud.com email addresses are now available for iCloud mail users. Users signing up for new Apple IDs, or enabling Mail on their iCloud account for the first time, will automatically receive an @icloud.com email address instead of a me.com email address.

MobileMe now closed, still time to quickly recover your data

By chrissyboy6969, Sunday, Jul 1, 2012 a 8:06 am

As expected, Apple has now closed its MobileMe service and if you haven’t already retrieved any outstanding information stored on MobileMe, now is the time to get it out of there. Apple has already closed down the syncing service and the iDisk and MobileMe Gallery apps have now vanished from the App Store.

Apple stealthily extends free iCloud storage bonus for MobileMe users from June to September, 2012

By Rene Ritchie, Sunday, May 6, 2012 a 11:22 am

When Apple announced their free iCloud service at WWDC 2011, users of the previous, paid, MobileMe service were given a temporary boost in storage. The extra storage was previously set to expire in June of 2012. According to a recent change in Apple's MobileMe to iCloud transition FAQ, however, that's now been extended until September.

Apple encouraging MobileMe users to switch to iCloud with free Snow Leopard upgrade offer

By chrissyboy6969, Thursday, Apr 19, 2012 a 9:16 am

Apple is trying to encourage users of its MobileMe service to switch over to iCloud by offering a free Snow Leopard upgrade DVD. Snow Leopard usually costs $29 from the Apple Store. In order to use iCloud on your Mac, it has to be running Lion. Apparently, some percentage of MobileMe users are still running on Leopard and haven’t upgraded to Snow Leopard which is needed before you can upgrade to Lion.

Apple to pay Motorola for push e-mail patents relating to iCloud

By Simon Sage, Friday, Apr 13, 2012 a 2:28 pm

Apple is going to owe Motorola damages for infringing on push e-mail patents currently being used by iCloud and Mobile, so sayeth the Mannheim, Germany regional court.

Motorola lawsuit forces Apple to disable iCloud and MobileMe push email in Germany

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Feb 24, 2012 a 10:24 am

Unfortunate and possibly infuriating news for German iCloud and MobileMe users today, as Apple has apparently been forced to turn off push email as a result of a lawsuit by Motorola Mobility.