Rumors are that MobileMe may become a free service soon.
The $99/year cloud based service from Apple currently provides 20GBs of online storage, a me.com email address, syncing across different Apple devices, calendaring and contact syncing, file sharing and remote iPhone tracking.
Changing MobileMe into a free service could be a smart move. A lot of MobileMe’s features can be had for free with Google or other services and removing the admission fee would definitely boost adoption rates.
Apple could monetize the service using their new iAd platform and open up sections of it to developers to increase the feature set.
My first questions when hearing this was, “What about the person that just renewed their subscription for $99?” Would Apple issue prorated refunds based on the remaining days you’ve paid through? If it turns out to be true that MobileMe is going free, I guess we’ll find out.
[MacDailyNews]
Apple has released the MobileMe iDisk App for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
This free app is for MobileMe users (subscribers) and allows them to view and share files on their MobileMe iDisk from their iPhone.
The iPhone can view MS Office files, PDFs, and multi-media but usually I just email myself files if I need to see them on my iPhone.
Where iDisk comes in handy is when you want to (securely) share large files with others. This app allows you to email a password protected link to any file on your iDisk from your iPhone.
You can also access other MobileMe users public folders which can make on the fly file sharing easy.
So how useful is this app? If you currently use iDisk on your Mac, this application is a must have. If you don’t really use iDisk very often, there are no new features here to get exited about.
[ MobileMe iDisk App ]
Apple’s iDisk makes securely sending large files easy as email.
Included with the MobileMe service, iDisk is an Apple hosted storage service that allows you to backup, sync and share files using 20GBs of online space.
Here’s how it works:
1. Upload your file (any size up to your storage limit) to iDisk.
2. Log into MobileMe from any computer’s web browser.
3. Select the file and click the “share button.”
4. The pictured drop down will allow you to send a link to the file via email. You can password protect the file and have the link expire after a set number of days.
While there are other online services like GigaSize to transfer large files, the iDisk interface is fast and easy for the recipient to access. If you have MobileMe, this is a great way to securely share files.
[ MobileMe ] [ iDisk ]
