.MAC/Mobile.Me/iCloud–Free For Now - Again

The more things change, the more that they stay the same.  Back when OS X first came out, it included a service called .MAC which allowed one to sync contacts, mail settings, bookmarks etc. between Apple computers which were running OS X.  Apple gave this to us at no charge as “a thank you for running OS X”.

Of course, a year or two later, once we’d all gotten used to the service and had our yourname@mac.com vanity email addresses out there, Apple dropped the bomb that “Oh by the way, we aren’t thankful any longer, now you have to pay $99 a year to keep using the .MAC service.”

And of course most of us paid.

Then, Apple decided to remake the .MAC service and changed the name to Mobile.Me.  Nothing really changed except the name and that the email addresses changed to yourname@me.com.  Thankfully, the mac.com addresses continue to work to this day.

Today, Steve Jobs admitted at WWDC that basically, Mobile.Me and $99 a year for the .MAC service was a flop for Apple.

So… introducing yet another rebranding of the same service… iCloud!  Free! (For now) Again.

There MAY be some new features coming to the .MAC err I mean Mobile.Me err I mean iCloud service.  That is assuming that Apple can get the music labels to go along and let Apple do what Amazon and Google are already doing, letting you store your music on their cloud.

In other news from Steve at WWDC, IOS 5 has no groundbreaking features… just things to make it more like Android.  Considering that about a year ago, Mr. Jobs was sneering as he pointed out that Apple OWN3D the Smartphone market and that a year later Android phones outsell iPhones… it is probably a good thing for Apple to try to catch up to Android.

And some good news though for folks waiting for Apple OS X 10.7 Lion.  As the rumors stated, it’ll be available next month, via the Apple App Store only and for just $29.  The price point is interesting as 10.6/Snow Leopard was $29 because Apple considered it to be an incremental upgrade rather than a major release.  Lion though, has more than enough new features for Apple to justify a $89 price tag.

Not that I’m complaining.