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MobileMe (branded iTools between 2000 and 2002; .Mac until 2008) is a discontinued subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...
All services were gradually transitioned to and eventually replaced by the free
iCloud iCloud is the personal cloud service of Apple Inc. Launched on October 12, 2011, iCloud enables users to store and Data synchronization, sync data across devices, including Apple Mail, Calendar (Apple), Apple Calendar, Photos (Apple), Apple Ph ...
, and MobileMe ceased on June 30, 2012, with transfers to iCloud being available until July 31, 2012, or data being available for download until that date, when the site finally closed completely. On that date all data was deleted, and email addresses of accounts not transferred to iCloud were marked as unused. Originally launched on January 5, 2000, as
iTools iTools or ITools may refer to: * iTools, an online service from Apple (later known as .Mac then MobileMe, before evolving into the current iCloud service) *ITools Resourceome iTools{{cite journal, vauthors=Dinov ID, Rubin D, Lorensen W, Dugan J, ...
, a free collection of Internet-based services for
Mac OS 9 Mac OS 9 is the ninth and final major release of the classic Mac OS operating system for Macintosh computers, made by Apple Computer. Introduced on October 23, 1999, it was promoted by Apple as "The Best Internet Operating System Ever", highlight ...
users, Apple relaunched it as .Mac on July 17, 2002, when it became a paid subscription service primarily designed for
Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
users. Apple relaunched the service again as MobileMe on July 9, 2008, now targeting Mac OS X,
Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
,
iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...
, and
iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...
users. On February 24, 2011, Apple discontinued offering MobileMe at its retail stores, and later from resellers. New subscriptions were also stopped. On October 12, 2011, Apple launched iCloud to replace MobileMe for new users, with current users having access until June 30, 2012, when the service was to cease.


Services

iTools and .Mac were designed primarily to provide Internet services for
Mac Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...
owners. All members of iTools and .Mac received a @mac.com
email address An email address identifies an email box to which messages are delivered. While early messaging systems used a variety of formats for addressing, today, email addresses follow a set of specific rules originally standardized by the Internet Enginee ...
, showing the services tied to the Mac hardware. However, with the release of the
iPhone 3G The iPhone 3G is a smartphone developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the List of iPhone models, second generation of iPhone, successor to the IPhone (1st generation), original iPhone, and was introduced on June 9, 2008, at the WWDC#2008, W ...
in 2008, the renamed service, MobileMe, began providing Internet services for OS X,
iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
, and
Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
. Members of MobileMe were given a @me.com email address (though users of the current @mac.com email address could also continue to use those, with both domains being interchangeable with the same email account), were also no longer restricted to OS X software such as
Mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...
and
iCal Calendar is a personal calendar app made by Apple Inc. for its macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS and visionOS operating systems. It offers online cloud backup of calendars using Apple's iCloud service, or can synchronize with other calendar service ...
, and they could access personal data from any computer connected to the Internet using the web interface a
me.com
or a number of supported applications, including
Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft 365 software suites. Primarily popular as an email client for businesses, Outlook also includes functions such as Calendari ...
, as long as the user used version 2003 or later. Apple support for MobileMe was available via chat and telephone (the latter restricted to US/Canada users only).


Backup

Backup was a
backup In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "wikt:back ...
utility made by
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
for
Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
. It was available through Apple's MobileMe (formerly .Mac) collection of
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
services. Backup can be used in connection with either a user's online MobileMe
iDisk iDisk was a file hosting service offered by Apple Inc. initially to all Mac OS 9 users, and later to .Mac and MobileMe subscribers that enabled them to store their digital photos, films and personal files online so they could be accessed remote ...
or the
Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
's
CD-RW RW (Compact Disc-Rewritable) is a digital media, digital optical disc data storage device, storage format introduced by Ricoh in 1997. A CD-RW compact disc (CD-RWs) can be written, read, erased, and re-written. CD-RWs, as opposed to CDs, r ...
or
DVD-R DVD recordable and DVD rewritable are a collection of optical disc formats that can be written to by a DVD recorder and by computers using a DVD writer. The "recordable" discs are write-once read-many (WORM) media, where as "rewritable" discs a ...
drive to make safe, archival copies of critical files and folders. With the release of iCloud, Backup is no longer available, and, with the release of macOS Sierra, it no longer works. The initial versions of Backup were regarded as feature-sparse and frequently unstable. However, on November 5, 2003 Apple released Backup 2.0, which added new features and offered greater reliability than its predecessors. While Backup 2 allowed for the creation of archive copies of important data, overall it only had a basic feature set for
backup software In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is " back up ...
. Apple introduced Backup 3 at the Paris Expo on September 20, 2005 along with other upgrades to .Mac. This version offered more backup settings, such as the ability to back up mail databases. At the 2006
Worldwide Developers Conference The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...
, Apple announced the development of
Time Machine A time machine is a fictional or hypothetical device that allows time travel. Concept A time machine is a device that makes time travel possible. The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' distinguishes between two different types of time ma ...
, a new backup application which is included in
Mac OS X v10.5 Mac OS X Leopard (version 10.5) is the sixth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Leopard was released on October 26, 2007, as the successor of Mac OS X Tiger, and is available in two ed ...
"Leopard". Time Machine is a complete backup solution, thus it has the ability to completely replace Backup as a general backup solution for most Mac users.


Find My iPhone

MobileMe allowed users to track the location of their iOS devices via the web portal at me.com. A user could see the device's approximate location on a map (along with a circle showing the radius of inaccuracy), display a message and/or play a sound on the device (even if it is set to silent), change the password on the device, and remotely erase its contents. An app was also released by Apple which allowed users to locate their iPhone from another device running
iOS 4 iOS 4 is the fourth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iPhone OS 3. It was announced at the Apple Special Event on April 8, 2010, and released on June 21, 2010. iOS 4 was the first ...
. The feature was first announced on June 10, 2009 and was included in iOS 3.0 as a feature for MobileMe users. Find My iPhone was made free of charge with the release of iOS 4.2.1 software update on November 22, 2010 for devices introduced in 2010.


Storage

MobileMe had two different plans. The ''Individual'' plan included 20 GB of email and file storage and 200 GB of monthly data transfer. The ''Family Pack'' plan included 40 GB of storage split among one 20 GB individual (primary) and four 5 GB sub-accounts, each sub-account having its own email address, online storage, and being able to use all the MobileMe features. Family members also had a Shared folder in their
iDisk iDisk was a file hosting service offered by Apple Inc. initially to all Mac OS 9 users, and later to .Mac and MobileMe subscribers that enabled them to store their digital photos, films and personal files online so they could be accessed remote ...
with which they could share access to data among themselves. Both the primary account and sub-accounts had read/write access to this folder and were limited to the free space available in the primary user's iDisk. ''Individual plan'' was priced at $99, ''Family Pack''—at $149. Members could buy additional storage in 20 GB or 40 GB allocations, however, sub-account storage could not be upgraded. In a family account, the amount of storage is designated per account. Notes (from the Mail app on a Mac computer, and the Notes app on the iPhone) were synced via the MobileMe service, however were unable to be viewed or edited online. To Do lists (controlled from the Mail app and the iCal app on a Mac computer) were viewable and editable through the MobileMe website (under the Calendar tab), but were not viewable or editable on an iPhone. With the announcement of iOS 4 the sync for Notes over IMAP (including MobileMe) was implemented.


Address book and calendar

MobileMe maintained a synchronized address book and calendar feature using
Push Push may refer to: * A type of force applied to an object Music * Mike Dierickx (born 1973), a Belgian producer also known as Push Albums * ''Push'' (Bros album), 1988 * ''Push'' (Gruntruck album), 1992 * ''Push'' (Jacky Terrasson album), 201 ...
functions. When a user made a change to a contact or event on one device, it was automatically synced to the MobileMe servers and, by extension, all the user's other devices. Supported devices included the iPhone,
Address Book An address book or a name and address book is a book, or a database used for storing entries, called contacts. Each contact entry usually consists of a few standard fields (for example: first name, last name, company name, address, telephone numb ...
and iCal on OS X, or Microsoft Outlook 2003 or later on Microsoft Windows. Subscription calendars in iCal on a Mac computer were not viewable on the online MobileMe service (although "Birthdays" was viewable online; as it gathered its information from
Address Book An address book or a name and address book is a book, or a database used for storing entries, called contacts. Each contact entry usually consists of a few standard fields (for example: first name, last name, company name, address, telephone numb ...
, rather than
CalDAV Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV, or CalDAV, is an Internet standard allowing a client to access and manage calendar data along with the ability to schedule meetings with users on the same or on remote servers. It lets multiple users in differe ...
or iCalendar (.ics) subscription calendars). Conversely, on the iPhone "Birthdays" from Contacts on the iPhone were not viewable on the Calendar app (nor any other method; except looking them up individually in Contacts. Birthdays Calendar was added on iOS 4.3), but subscription calendars were available to view in Calendar by adding them through Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendar>Add Account.


MobileMe Gallery

MobileMe had a public photo and video gallery feature. Photos and videos could be uploaded in the
web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...
at me.com, synced by
iPhoto iPhoto is a discontinued image editing software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It was included with every Mac computer from 2002 to 2015, when it was replaced with Apple's Photos application in ...
or
Aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...
on OS X, or uploaded from the iPhone and iPod Touch. Users could also upload movies from within applications available on the Mac, including iPhoto and
iMovie iMovie is a free video editing software, video editing application made by Apple Inc., Apple for the Mac (computer), Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad. It includes a range of video effects and tools like color correction and image stabilization, b ...
. MobileMe also provided the user with an email address that is used only for uploading photos and videos. All uploads by viewers of the Gallery (either by the iPhone or iPod Touch, me.com, or sent by the dedicated email address), were synced back to iPhoto or Aperture. Galleries could be made public or private, or could be password protected (but only through iPhoto or iMovie on OS X).


iDisk

MobileMe featured iDisk, an online storage repository accessible via a web browser at me.com, Finder on OS X, various apps for iOS devices, or as a remote disk in Microsoft Windows. It also allowed sharing of files by selecting a given file using me.com/iDisk or the iDisk iPhone app, and then clicking a Share button that generated a unique link to this file, protected by password, that could then be shared by email. Another way to use iDisk to share several files easily was by placing them in the iDisk Public Folder, which could also be password protected.


iWeb Publish

Users of Mac OS X v10.5 or later could use the iLife '08, iLife '09, or
iLife '11 iLife is a discontinued software suite for macOS and iOS developed by Apple, Inc., Apple Inc. It consists of various programs for media creation, organization, editing and publishing. At various times, it included: iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, ...
application
iWeb iWeb is a template-based WYSIWYG website creation tool developed by Apple Inc. The first version of iWeb was announced at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 10, 2006, as part of the iLife ’06 suite of digital lifestyle applications. i ...
to publish websites hosted on their MobileMe account, either to a
domain name In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services, and more. ...
that they controlled or to a page on the me.com website. Users without iWeb could also publish websites by placing files to the Web/Sites folder in iDisk. However, the web host didn't support any server-side language such as
PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...
.


Web applications

MobileMe used
Ajax Ajax may refer to: Greek mythology and tragedy * Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea * Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris * Ajax (play), ''Ajax'' (play), by the an ...
and
Dynamic HTML Dynamic HTML, or DHTML, is a term which was used by some browser vendors to describe the combination of HTML, style sheets and client-side scripts (JavaScript, VBScript, or any other supported scripts) that enabled the creation of interactive ...
to simulate the look and feel of desktop applications within the user's web browser. Applications on me.com included Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Gallery, Find My iPhone, and iDisk access, plus an Account section. Most of the me.com web applications were built on top of the open source
SproutCore SproutCore is an open-source JavaScript web framework. Its goal is to allow developers to create web applications with advanced capabilities and a user experience comparable to that of desktop applications. When developing a SproutCore applicatio ...
Javascript framework. Users could also configure features such as email aliases or
domain name In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services, and more. ...
s for the
iWeb iWeb is a template-based WYSIWYG website creation tool developed by Apple Inc. The first version of iWeb was announced at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 10, 2006, as part of the iLife ’06 suite of digital lifestyle applications. i ...
Publish feature. Supported browsers for me.com on both Mac and Windows were Safari 3.1 or later, and
Firefox 3.5 Mozilla Firefox 3.5 is a version of the Firefox web browser released in June 2009, adding a variety of new features to Firefox. Version 3.5 was touted as being twice as fast as 3.0 (due its TraceMonkey JavaScript engine and rendering improve ...
or later, while
Internet Explorer 8 Windows Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is a web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on March 19, 2009, and was the default browser on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It is the first version of IE to pass the Acid2 test, the last ...
and
Internet Explorer 7 Windows Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) (codenamed Rincon) is a version of Internet Explorer, a web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on October 18, 2006. It was the first major update to the browser since 2001. It does not support ve ...
were Windows-only. Safari 3.0, and
Firefox 3.0 Mozilla Firefox 3.0 is a version of the Firefox web browser released on June 17, 2008, by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox 3.0 uses version 1.9 of the Gecko layout engine for displaying web pages. This version fixes many bugs, improves standards ...
would run the web applications, but were not fully supported. MobileMe was accessible from
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
using Firefox 3 despite a warning that would be presented to the user upon entry. Success was also reported using the
Konqueror Konqueror is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source web browser and file manager that provides World Wide Web, web access and file viewer, file-viewer functionality for file systems (such as local files, files on a remote FTP ser ...
browser on Linux, however this was not confirmed by Apple.


iChat/AIM

MobileMe users could connect to the
AIM AIM or Aim may refer to: Computing * AIM alliance, an Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance * AIM (software), AOL Instant Messenger * Fortyfive, a Japanese software development company previously known as AIM Military * Abrams Integrated Management, an ...
service with their @mac.com or @me.com accounts. MobileMe connections were secured by SSL encryption. In addition,
iChat iChat (previously iChat AV) is a discontinued instant messaging software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It supported instant text messaging over XMPP/Jingle or OSCAR ( AIM) protocol, audio and video ...
users using a MobileMe account could encrypt their chats with other MobileMe members using iChat. Users could also access the MobileMe Chat account on iOS devices using the free or paid-for versions of the
AIM AIM or Aim may refer to: Computing * AIM alliance, an Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance * AIM (software), AOL Instant Messenger * Fortyfive, a Japanese software development company previously known as AIM Military * Abrams Integrated Management, an ...
app provided by
AOL AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. The service traces its history to an online ...
, or any other iOS app that supported the AIM protocol.


PC syncing

Users who wished to sync their MobileMe data with a PC had to download and install Apple's MobileMe Control Panel. To install, the user first had to download and install the latest version of
iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...
, and then install MobileMe Control Panel. After installation, the user signed into the control panel using their username and password, and could control sync settings for contacts, calendars, bookmarks, and iDisk settings such as public folder access, in a similar manner to the MobileMe preference panel built into .


MobileMe Mail Beta

The MobileMe Mail Beta was released on May 13, 2010. It included many new features such as photo inserting, font changing, wide screen views and much more. It was released as a final version on June 18, 2010.


MobileMe Calendar Beta

MobileMe Calendar Beta was released on July 6, 2010. MobileMe Calendar Beta included a new web application at me.com with redesigned day, week, and month views, as well as a new list view to make scanning events easier. Performance was also improved. It also featured new sharing options that allowed invited users to edit a shared calendar. It supported invitations through RSVPs, which sent an email to invited persons, which they answered by clicking a simple link (they didn't have to be MobileMe members). It also supported CalDAV standard for compatibility with multiple devices. However, with these updates came some decreased functionality. The capability to publish iCal calendars as publicly viewable web pages was removed. Users wishing to view a public calendar had to then manually subscribe with a CalDAV compatible calendar device. Compatibility with Microsoft Outlook suffered too, since Outlook users could not sync their primary Outlook calendar to a MobileMe calendar anymore; the only way to integrate MobileMe with Outlook was then to have a MobileMe calendar linked in through CalDAV. This meant that a MobileMe calendar was always seen by Outlook as a secondary calendar, and alarms and notifications did not work.


Pricing

The table below illustrates the pricing structure previous to Apple discontinuing purchases on June 6, 2011 as part of the move to iCloud. Current users were encouraged to use MobileMe services inside iCloud (account migration happening automatically anyway), but could continue to use their MobileMe services and access the me.com website until it was shut down on June 30, 2012 (although limited access beyond that date was available to download content). Users wishing to cancel MobileMe—thus immediately end all services—could gain full refunds if purchased within 45 days of June 6, 2011, or partial refunds if purchased 46 days or more; however, it was unclear whether this refund policy applied when the iCloud service launched in Fall 2011.


Integration


Mac OS X

MobileMe, like .Mac and iTools before it, was closely integrated with . Having a MobileMe account extended the functions of many programs, mostly within the
iLife iLife is a discontinued software suite for macOS and iOS developed by Apple Inc. It consists of various programs for media creation, organization, editing and publishing. At various times, it included: iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iWeb, an ...
suite. Most notably, any
iDisk iDisk was a file hosting service offered by Apple Inc. initially to all Mac OS 9 users, and later to .Mac and MobileMe subscribers that enabled them to store their digital photos, films and personal files online so they could be accessed remote ...
could be mounted as any other volume on the desktop. Furthermore, it was possible to mount the public portion of another user's iDisk. This mechanism was one of the early ways to receive free software as part of .Mac. It was possible to queue files for upload to an offline iDisk, though they were only uploaded when the iDisk was mounted. iDisk commands were located in the "Go" menu of the Finder. Additionally, any Address Book entries, iCal events and to-do entries, Safari bookmarks and keychains, mail accounts, mail rules, mail signatures, and smart mailboxes could be synced with the iDisk, allowing easy synchronization between multiple computers. iWeb allowed users to create web pages that could be uploaded to iDisk and published.
iPhoto iPhoto is a discontinued image editing software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It was included with every Mac computer from 2002 to 2015, when it was replaced with Apple's Photos application in ...
could be used for one-click web-publishing of photo albums. iCal could be used to publish calendars to the web. Also,
Backup In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "wikt:back ...
software could be used to make backups to
iDisk iDisk was a file hosting service offered by Apple Inc. initially to all Mac OS 9 users, and later to .Mac and MobileMe subscribers that enabled them to store their digital photos, films and personal files online so they could be accessed remote ...
or local media. With the prior .Mac service, the iPhoto, iMovie,
GarageBand GarageBand is a software application by Apple Inc., Apple for macOS, iPadOS, and iOS devices that allows users to create music or Podcast, podcasts. It is a lighter, amateur-oriented offshoot of Logic Pro. GarageBand was originally released for ...
and iTunes libraries could easily be uploaded to any iDisk (subject to various licensing agreements).


iOS

MobileMe integrated with various applications on
iOS devices The iPhone, developed by Apple Inc., is a line of smartphones that combine a mobile phone, digital camera, personal computer, and Portable media player, music player into one device. Introduced by then-CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, the iPh ...
. This included iCal syncing with
Calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A calendar date, date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is ...
, Address Book syncing with Contacts, Mail syncing across devices, Safari Bookmarks syncing across devices. Apple later introduced the MobileMe iDisk app on July 29, 2009, the MobileMe Gallery app on January 14, 2010, and the Find My iPhone app on June 18, 2010, that allowed mobile access to the Find My iPhone feature (initially only available for MobileMe users, later made free to all iOS device users). While initially only iPhone and iPod Touch apps, following updates, they were made ''universal'' app (compatible for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad). In August 2010, Apple introduced a feature that allowed users to stream music that's stored on their iDisk in the background from their device.


URL access points

There were
subdirectory In computing, a directory is a file system cataloging structure that contains references to other computer files, and possibly other directories. On many computers, directories are known as folders or drawers, analogous to a workbench or the t ...
(private) and
subdomain In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a subdomain is a domain that is a part of another (main) domain. For example, if a domain offered an online store as part of their website it might use the subdomain. Overview The Domain Name System ...
(public) access points to each MobileMe user's individual account functions. These provided direct web access to each MobileMe user's account, via links to each function directly. See list: Private: *''www.me.com'' – user login. *''www.me.com/gallery'' – user photo/video Gallery albums. *''www.me.com/mail'' – user Mail access. *''www.me.com/contacts'' – user Contacts access. *''www.me.com/ical'' – user Calendar access. *''www.me.com/idisk'' – user iDisk folders access. *''www.me.com/find'' – user Find My iPhone access. Public: *''gallery.me.com/'' – user's photo/video Gallery albums access (used with
iPhoto iPhoto is a discontinued image editing software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It was included with every Mac computer from 2002 to 2015, when it was replaced with Apple's Photos application in ...
and/or
iMovie iMovie is a free video editing software, video editing application made by Apple Inc., Apple for the Mac (computer), Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad. It includes a range of video effects and tools like color correction and image stabilization, b ...
). *''public.me.com/'' – user's Public folder (in iDisk) access. *''web.me.com/'' – user's Website access (used with
iWeb iWeb is a template-based WYSIWYG website creation tool developed by Apple Inc. The first version of iWeb was announced at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 10, 2006, as part of the iLife ’06 suite of digital lifestyle applications. i ...
). *''homepage.mac.com/'' – user's file sites access. *''ical.me.com//'' – user individual calendar publishing. (Originally, many calendars could be published at the same time, but the later final iteration of MobileMe removed calendar publishing.)


History


iTools

The original collection of Internet software and services now known as iCloud was first called iTools, released on January 5, 2000, and made available free of charge for Mac users. Services offered by iTools included the first availability of @mac.com email addresses, which could only be accessed through an email client (e.g. the Mail app); iCards, a free
greeting card A greeting card is a piece of card stock, usually with an illustration or photo, made of high quality paper featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthday ...
service; iReview, a collection of reviews of popular web sites; HomePage, a free web page publishing service; the first version of
iDisk iDisk was a file hosting service offered by Apple Inc. initially to all Mac OS 9 users, and later to .Mac and MobileMe subscribers that enabled them to store their digital photos, films and personal files online so they could be accessed remote ...
, an online data storage system; and KidSafe, a directory of family-friendly web sites. iTools was primarily a Mac-only offering and provided only limited, discussion board-based technical support. A Mac was required to create an account, although some features of iTools were accessible via non-Mac platforms. For example, modifying HomePage content was possible using a web browser on Windows or Linux. Additionally, although the original version of iDisk used
AppleShare AppleShare is a discontinued product from Apple Computer which implements various network services. Its main purpose is to act as a file server, using the AFP protocol. Other network services implemented in later versions of AppleShare included a ...
IP for transport and required , it was eventually updated to use
WebDAV WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is a set of extensions to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which allows user agents to collaboratively author contents ''directly'' in an HTTP web server by providing facilities for conc ...
technology and therefore opened up access to non-Mac operating systems, including
Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...
.


.Mac

As costs rose, most particularly due to iDisk storage space, the wide demand for @mac.com email accounts, and increasing support needs, iTools was renamed .Mac on July 17, 2002, as a subscription-based suite of services with a dedicated technical support team. .Mac offered several tools to subscribers, including upgraded versions of HomePage, the personal web hosting service; iDisk, the online disk storage service; @mac.com, the email service provider offering both POP and IMAP protocols; and iCards, the online greeting card service. New services offered by .Mac included Backup, a personal backup solution that allowed users to archive data to their iDisk, CD or DVD; and
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Virex, a
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given to .Mac subscribers until June 15, 2005. Apple announced on September 17, 2002 that more than 100,000 people had subscribed to .Mac since its launch earlier that year. Existing iTools accounts were transitioned to .Mac accounts during a free trial period that ended on September 30, 2002. This move generated a mixed reaction among Mac users, some believing .Mac was overpriced. .Mac occasionally received new features. In October 2006, Apple launched an update to its .Mac Mail service whose interface was close to that of Mac OS X Mail. The new functionality was built on top of Ajax and provided drag-and-drop, a live-updating three-way split view, and the ability to resize panels. v10.5 Leopard used .Mac to provide
dynamic DNS Dynamic DNS (DDNS) is a method of automatically updating a name server in the Domain Name System (DNS), often in real time, with the active DDNS configuration of its configured hostnames, addresses or other information. The term is used to desc ...
services for its
Back to My Mac Back to My Mac was a feature introduced with Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) that used Wide-Area Bonjour to securely discover services across the Internet and automatically configure ad hoc, on-demand, point-to-point encrypted connections between comput ...
feature, a
remote desktop In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely from one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a sma ...
service. On August 7, 2007, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs announced new features for .Mac, including a new Web Gallery feature, similar to a combination of the features of
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and
YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
. Each .Mac account now came with 10 GB of storage space that could be divided between email storage for an @mac.com email address and the user's iDisk. An account preference allowed the user to decide how much storage space to allocate to either service as they see fit. Users who wanted additional storage capacity could buy up to a total of 30 GB for a higher annual fee. The storage space for both email and an iDisk could be used in any way the user wanted, subject to the terms of the .Mac
license agreement A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...
. .Mac was also offered in a boxed version, available at stores and online (as a physical product). The box contained an activation code that was entered when registering or renewing a subscription.


MobileMe

Initial speculation about a new service to replace .Mac came in early June 2008, when Apple bought the me.com domain name. On June 9, 2008, Apple announced that .Mac would be replaced by MobileMe, which was launched on July 9, 2008: mac.com was taken offline from 08:00 to 12:00 that day, and the MobileMe service went live between 20:00 and 02:00 (both
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). MobileMe was taken offline a short time later, leaving customers redirected to the MobileMe information page, where there was no option to log in. After several hours of infrequent service, MobileMe officially went live during July 11, 2008. Several .Mac features were removed after the transition to MobileMe: *Support for Mac OS X 10.4.10 or earlier (some features require
Mac OS X 10.5 Mac OS X Leopard (version 10.5) is the sixth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Leopard was released on October 26, 2007, as the successor of Mac OS X Tiger, and is available in two ed ...
or later, such as iLife integration). *iCards. *Web-access to
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. *.Mac slides. *.Mac Groups (with files uploaded to Groups being transferred to group owners' "Group Archive" folder). The launch of MobileMe was plagued by various issues. MobileMe, as a .Mac successor, was initially criticized during its launch for being unstable and for having syncing problems. There were reports of users being unable to access any of the Mail functions of MobileMe. This was suspected to be related to the .Mac to MobileMe switch-over. The free trial of MobileMe inadvertently charged some Australian and European customers’ credit cards, leading Apple to issue refunds and extend the free trial to four months. Because of the problems with switching over .Mac accounts and other issues, Apple created a status news page and revamped their support page. Initial versions of the Windows MobileMe Control Panel allowed synchronization of corporate Outlook accounts with MobileMe. A mid-2008 update to the Control Panel removed the ability to synchronize Outlook to MobileMe when Outlook is using
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Calendars and Contacts. According to Apple Support, this is by design and is not a bug that will be fixed. There was no support for synchronizing even standalone Outlook Tasks and Notes to MobileMe. In May 2011, ''
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'' magazine reported that during the summer of 2008, after MobileMe had launched to mostly negative reviews, Apple's
CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
summoned the MobileMe team to a meeting in the Town Hall auditorium at 4
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. After asking them "what MobileMe is supposed to do", when someone answered, Jobs reportedly shot back, "So why the fuck doesn't it do that?" In an internal email sent to Apple employees on August 4, 2008, Jobs admitted that MobileMe was launched too hurriedly and “not up to Apple’s standards”. He wrote that “it was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software, and the
App Store An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not i ...
”. On August 18, 2008, it was announced that MobileMe subscribers would be offered a 60-day extension in addition to the one-month extension previously offered.


iCloud

From early 2011 onwards, MobileMe retail boxes began being removed entirely from sale at all
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, with stock slowly being discontinued from other stores, and from June 6, 2011 users were prevented from subscribing or renewing to the MobileMe service via Apple's website. On June 6, 2011, at WWDC 2011, iCloud's release was announced for sometime in fall 2011, entirely replacing the MobileMe service which would be discontinued, however both would continue to be run concurrently for current MobileMe subscribers through June 30, 2012. Because of MobileMe's perceived public failings, Steve Jobs anticipated skepticism to his claim that iCloud "just works", and asked rhetorically, "Why should I believe them? They're the ones that brought me MobileMe!". On October 12, 2011, alongside the release of
iOS 5 iOS 5 is the iOS version history, fifth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 4. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 6, 2011, and was released ...
and iPhone 4S, iCloud was released to new users, with current MobileMe subscribers being able to move over to iCloud either immediately or anytime before June 30, 2012 when MobileMe would be permanently discontinued (except for limited download abilities). In addition to MobileMe's email and calendar services, iCloud syncs files across multiple devices. As promised at WWDC 2011, Apple began the service during fall 2011, giving every user of either or both iOS 5 or
Mac OS X Lion OS X Lion, also known as Mac OS X Lion, (version 10.7) is the eighth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. A preview of OS X 10.7 Lion was publicly shown at the "Back to the Mac" Apple Speci ...
5 GB of
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data storage for the basic service free at the point of usage, with additional paid-for tiers for more data storage also being available. @me.com was retained as the default email domain address for new iCloud users. A year later, around
fall Autumn, also known as fall (especially in US & Canada), is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( Southern Hemispher ...
2012, Apple started to sign-up new users to free @icloud.com email addresses, with previous @me.com users also able to continue using that email domain concurrently; as done on previous service changes.


Discontinuation

As a first step, Apple sent "30 days left" emails to all existing users of MobileMe on June 1, 2012, which they then followed with "7 days left" emails on June 23, 2012, advising users "Download your photos and files. MobileMe ends June 30. Remember to download your Gallery photos, iDisk files, and move your iWeb sites before that date." Then as previously advertised by Apple following the announcement of iCloud a year earlier, the main MobileMe service was discontinued on June 30, 2012, as most services were moved to iCloud and users were expected to have moved themselves over to the new service already by then, given they had a year's notice to do so. One exception was for MobileMe's Gallery and iDisk services, which still had limited downloading abilities remaining, with the online portal showing the banners "MobileMe has ended", with either "You can still download your files for a limited time." (on the iDisk page), or "Download your photos now." (on the Gallery page). The complete shut-down of MobileMe occurred on July 31, 2012, with a "MobileMe is closed" banner showing on the homepage, and a redirect link to iCloud. The iOS apps for Gallery and iDisk also ceased operating from June 30, 2012. MobileMe was later removed from the System Preferences in OS X on release of
OS X Mountain Lion OS X Mountain Lion (version 10.8) is the ninth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mountain Lion was released on July 25, 2012, for purchase and download through the Mac App S ...
on July 25, 2012.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:MobileMe Apple Inc. services Calendaring software Cloud applications Cloud storage Webmail File hosting Internet properties established in 2008 Personal information managers Image-sharing websites Internet properties disestablished in 2012