Existing MobileMe subscriptions extended, service ends June 2012 - Page 2

This page (which contains the same information as the e-mail we all received) says nothing at all about what happens to MobileMe customers who do not upgrade to Lion. All we know for certain is that MobileMe is going away in a year, and Apple has made no commitments whatsoever to support iCloud, in whole or in part, in Snow Leopard.

If this turns out to be the case, then it is a blunder of a magnitude that we haven't seen from Apple for a long time, possibly since the mid-90s.

If you are a current MobileMe customer you either sign up for iCloud or lose the services you've come to rely upon. And, apparently, to sign up for iCloud requires upgrading to Lion, and upgrading Lion means giving up all of your PPC apps, whether they can be replaced or not.

I'd prefer to have my arm twisted. This is worse. Much worse.

Exactly the conclusion I reached earlier this afternoon.

My account auto-renewed on 4/20. I went to the MobileMe support web-chat and was given a pro-rated refund (since it's been more than 45 days). My Apple ID is still intact along with other verified email addresses tied to it. The only thing I lost (as of now) is the ability to upload to iDisk. My picture galleries are there and my .mac and .me accounts are still working.

My subscription to MobileMe just renewed in May. They say they will extend to the end of June 2012, but that doesn't give parity to the people that will be getting it for free when it comes out. What I would like to see is being auto-enrolled in iTunes Match so at least there's some benefit for those of us who had to renew recently.

I read the link about MobileMe transition, which say it is "available this fall and free for iOS 5 and OS X Lion users." Does this mean we must be running OS X 10.7 to use iCloud for our computers? Or does this mean it's free for Lion users, but others must pay for it?

Also, I now use the MobileMe disk to backup my documents. There is no mention of using iCloud for general backups, as MobileMe now provides. "Need more input."

I will miss the ability to publish web pages in iWeb to my .Mac account. I guess Mac is really moving away from content creation for consumers and toward content consumption. I'll finally have to quit being lazy and figure out how to publish websites to some third party option.

it's a pity, though. Being able to create websites and publish them very quickly to .Mac was awesome.

It was also great in 10.5.8 to be able to sync my calendars among my MBP, iPhone and iPad. Now I can't do that, unless I want to risk losing all my calendar information that goes back years.

It was also great to be able to drop any kind of file to my iDisk and share it easily, even very large multimedia files.

Can I use third party solutions? Yeah, but...

I feel like Apple is saying: upgrade now, do things the new iCloud way, and stop relying on Apple to do things you used to do the old way.

I guess every company has to move forward, and obviously I'm not the typical consumer they're trying to please.

Yeah, I still run Quicken 2007. I guess I'll be booting from a Snow Leopard disk occasionally.

Oh well.

That's also one of my irreplaceable apps. We use it for all of our company accounting and check writing. We also use an older version of FileMaker for our invoicing, among other things. This is going to be the most expensive "free" service Apple has ever offered.

I still run PPC applications so my plan is to leave Snow Leopard on my mini permanently and not move to Lion until Apple releases an Ivy Bridge based iMac next year. The June 30, 2012 deadline to move to iCloud or lose my @mac.com email fits perfectly into that plan.

Before anyone asks: (1) I can't afford a new Mac this year and (2) I buy storage when I need it. USB 3.0 is both inexpensive and pretty much everywhere these days whereas Thunderbolt peripherals don't exist yet.

A 5GB iCloud drive for documents created by a few select applications isn't going to help me much. I already have a 19GB iDisk sitting mostly empty because uploading is unbearably slow and the file I most want backed up is my iPhoto library. It currently weighs in at 26GB.

iCloud will keep copies of recent photos which is great for sharing, but terrible for backup. Unless you're on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation right now you could probably replace a lot of photos in your current roll, but how would you replace your kids' baby pictures if your computer and backup drives were stolen or destroyed in a natural disaster?

After about 1hr wait I finally had a Text Chat with Mobile Me Tech Support... That guy never caught my referring to 6/30/11 when I asked that same Q:

"My question would be what happens between June 30 and this fall?"

How silly... But, I was told that my .mac email will continue to work as it did... I guess I just won't be able to View it on Mobile Me Site online, cause it will be closed!!!



Between Office 2004, Entourage, Quicken 2004, Palm Desktop -- I'll have my headaches transitioning!!! Maybe I'll buy a spare PB G4 to "Freeze My Past?"


Hopefully there will be a way to get Quicken 2004 into Lion with the latest Version of Quicken... Does anyone have any suggestion about that?

I wonder if the Missing Sync will get to "Play a Hero" in this situation... I wasn't too thrilled with their Support Online... No Phone Support...

Maybe there will be a way to get my Palm Desktop Calendar Exported and Re-Imported into iCal so I can have my Calendar from the Past on the New Macbook Pro and Next iPhone which I'll buy when the Next iPhone comes out!!!!

Getting from Entourage 2004 POP to Mail IMAP between PB G4 and the New MBP might be a headache!!! I heard good things about Mail Steward http://www.mailsteward.com/ only it Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or greater (Leopard and Snow Leopard) -- and I want to keep my PB G4 Frozen at 10.4.11, but, it'd be nice to Import Entourage 2004 POP to Mail IMAP in Lion... Only it would make that it into 6GB File... Maybe Mail Steward will have a Lion Version... They don't seem to have even EMAIL SUPPORT!!! Or maybe I missed it!!!! Does anyone here know about that?

And what happens to my website that I made with Dreamweaver 8, hosted by GoDaddy? Will there be iWeb, or iWeb Pro? Or is Apple telling us to make Pages on Facebook in lieu of having websites? iWeb was not even mentioned in 200 New Features on Apple's site... Maybe it was mentioned in the Keynote? Except I didn't see it yet because:

BTW, with my Safari 4.1.3 under OS 10.4.11 on my PB G4, I couldn't watch the Lion 6/6/11 Keynote... Hope my iTunes 9.2.1 will Download it, so I can watch it...

Good luck to all with this Lion Upgrade!

Does anyone know what will happen to family member email addresses? I suspect that each email address will be offered the chance to create their own iCloud account but I can't find anywhere where that is confirmed.

As a Mobile Me Customer and iDisk user, here's what I got to say to Mr Jobs. I'm very disappointed in how Apple has committed an egregious foul to it's MobileMe customers in removing key features without a documented migration path that will not force YOUR loyal customers into having to manually move large amounts of data from iDisk to a 3rd party service such as Dropbox. A year of "free" service for that which I already paid for and some kind of refund for MobileMe activations that I haven't used yet is NOT acceptable - it's an insult.

Mr. Jobs, you may have laughed off the the poorly executed launch of MobileMe but you're repeating the mistake in spades with iCloud. How on earth can you launch this so called "iCloud" service and have it only allow for storage of files from your proprietary office suite plus stuff purchased on iTunes? That's not a post PC era cloud service - it's a joke and a slap in the face to those customers who have have paid for true cloud storage and have spent copious amounts of time and effort to use it. Is Apple going to send an employee over to manually move all the files from my iDisk folders to another service, or are you going to pay me to do it?

I will be looking forward to expressing my grave disappointment by telephone to the appropriate executives in Cupertino.

The dumb-asses in the MobileMe team have sent an email saying that MobileMe won't be available after a certain data, but have not said whether the email addresses will still be valid, etc.

It may be that the email addresses continue under iCloud, but they need to say that in the same email, not leave people sifting through the iCloud websites to figure out if they'll still have an email account.

Ignorant and unprofessional - every time they do this, people in enterprise take a step back.

I think Apple have been screwing this up ever since the release of MobileMe. During this time they have managed to delete every kind of data from some people's accounts. They are great in hardware and in the media sector, but as a person who runs business package implementations, it is clear to me that their isolation from enterprise has left them weak in data processing, which is what email/contacts/calendars/etc is all about. They lack the attitude, the approach, the skills and the computer languages to do this professionally.

Migrate to Dropbox. It's a superior product anyway.

iWeb can use FTP very well to post to any host server. So assuming iCloud doesn't migrate the web feature of MobileMe it is very easy to relocate a web site or even multiple web sites.

I will miss the MobileMe Gallery feature if that isn't migrated. I'm still hoping these two features are part of the 5 GIGs we are being offered in some form but as others have said the Gallery may have been dumped because of FaceBook. That however, is hardly a replacement for an Aperture user that uses the Gallery for professional portfolios or client previewing.

I am assuming each .me or .mac account regardless of family or single plan would continue on under iCloud.

Can I drop an image file into Drop Box, and then include a URL of that hosted image file inside an [img] tag on these and other forums?

I don't think so...

My MobileMe family pack just renewed on May 29th. If I buy Lion and use iCloud, mobile me basically becomes useless to me. Shouldn't Apple be issuing a refund for the unused months?

yes you can, and mind i tell you my 3yr old knows also. dropbox is amazing.

Dropbox might be a superior product but who is going to MANUALLY move every individual file that I stored on iDisk over to Dropbox? Is Apple going to do that or will I be spending days and weeks to do it myself? THAT IS AN UNACCEPTABLE migration plan from Apple Inc. and to call the the new service iCloud when there no is provision for iDisk is an INSULTING slap in the face.

Exactly. I only use MobileMe for syncing contacts and calendars. I was just billed for another year last month. Their idea of compensation is an extra year of something that I can get for free later this year. WTF?

My hope is that Apple just did a crappy job communicating here. Existing MobileMe subscribers appear to be getting hosed.

If I upgrade to Lion, the fees for my 11 unused MobileMe months should be refunded.

If I choose not to upgrade to Lion and continue to use MobileMe until they finally pull the plug, then fine keep my money.

I expect that Apple has plans for how this will all work, they just haven't explained it.

Your choice not to use the MobileMe service you choose to pay for.

I'm not sure what people expect from Apple. Steve Jobs to personally give you a call and let you in on the changes and rebranding of MobilMe even though you're getting your MobileMe service for no less than the amount of time agreed upon?

I like others am very concerned as to what will become of iDisk and Galleries. I rely heavily on iDisk for web hosting, sharing work files, and general image hosting. And I use galleries to host and share my photography. To my knowledge there is no other service out there that can come anywhere close to matching these services. I tried Flickr once; the upload experience was awful and it took over 30 days before my photos would show up in a search. A web hosting service as elegant as drag-and-drop iDisk, built right into the Finder's Go menu? I very much doubt one exists.

Even if Apple rolls out similar services that utilize iCloud, my current iDisk storage is 20GB, where-as iCloud gives you 5GB. That's not going to work. Thankfully I saw a "purchase more storage" button in iOS 5 video walkthru. So should Apple move galleries and iDisk to the iCloud, the amount of storage one has should be addressable. It'd just be nice to get a confirmation from Apple as to whether or not they intend to provide these missing features that many MobileMe users depend upon.

As stated, more details will appear after iCloud is out but you can be assured you still have the same services through June 30th, 2012. They were smart to extend it to just over a year when they could have let users just run to the end of their accounts naturally. This way no one should be surprised by the end date. Still, thought that just bought the service can probably complain and get there money back (and likely still get the service through 2012). They are only a few gnats on the Serengeti.

I didn't see the slide regarding paying for more service. I as hoping there would be some premium offering for iCloud and expected email not to be part of the deal. I thought Apple would use whatever email already had as your ID and have your CC as your unique identifier. I did predict no iCloud email addresses in lieu of the cleaner @me.com domain. Imagine how much like Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo that domain will become. I'm glad I already have mine now I started using for my primary account this year.

After getting off to a rocky start, the kinks were worked out and MobileMe has been fine for most people. I've really come to rely upon it.


And very possibly nothing after that date, unless you upgrade to Lion.

That's a start.

I suspect a lot of folks are in this boat and am hoping that they allow you to merge accounts so that everything is under one id.



I wouldn't be so sure about that. I can't imagine that Apple would want to lose everyone to DropBox, Blogger, GoDaddy etc. I suspect that there is something in the air for the whole iDisk thing. They probably aren't releasing it at the same time to avoid another MobileMe launch disaster. But it is likely there in the works. After all, they say "you only have to upload the music iTunes can't match" but where are you doing that. I can't see them wanting that in the same system. And some folks have more than 5gb. So some kind of adding storage would be needed. If it was priced well and is seamless with your old idisk (and seamless with any new interfaces etc) then I think folks would stick around or even jump on.

ANd perhaps we'll see a new iweb that is on par with Wordpress, Blogger etc in terms of customizing, add ons etc.

I currently use MobileMe to remotely sync calendar, contacts, and email for two Macs (which I will update to Lion), one iPad, and three 2G Touches. It looks like iCloud will not work with my 2G iPod Touches. Does that mean that I will lose the ability to remotely sync their calendar and contacts?

Wow, boo hoo.

You make it sound like it's so painful to move your files of iDisk and onto something like Dropbox.com.

It would be as simple as *dragging* files from one folder to another, going to bed, and waking up in the morning with a completely synced Dropbox.

iCloud is not intended to be the be-all end-all cloud storage solution. Eventually, maybe they'll add a Dropbox.com-esque service on top of iCloud (or buy Dropbox), but for now what iCloud is intended to do is eliminate the need for a file system on an iOS device. iCloud is more of a way to get everything you do on the go back on your desktop at home. All the photos you take, bookmarks you make, documents you create, etc. will automatically be synced to all of your desktops.

If you need a way to sync large amounts of third party data, you can use Dropbox.com. Also, isn't Lion adding the ability to publish WebDAV folders?

Companies end services all the time. You have a year to migrate everything, or learn to use the new system.

Dropbox is an actual folder on your computer that is synced to Dropbox.com.

Just drag the files from iDisk into the Dropbox folder. It will start syncing automatically.

Done.

Apple should really use that cash and buy Dropbox. I've tried other "similar" services and none work as effortlessly or smoothly.

Actually, Dropbox seems like something Apple would create. Everything you think it should do, it does. We use it for a small business, and it keeps everybody synced. We even had a person accidentally delete a key file, and we simply logged onto the Dropbox.com website, viewed deleted items, and restored it.

The only thing it lacks is enabling security permissions on individual files or folders.

I would imagine the functions of syncing photos and documents wouldn't work.

I would think you could still link your mail and calendars, just like you can link them to Exchange or Gmail.

I use Word and Excel 2004, and won't buy the later versions, which I can't stand. I find the alternatives to Office lacking too much. Is there no hope for a Rosetta-like app in Lion?

Another topic (along with the future of iDisk, Photo Galleries, Back to My Mac, etc.) is email aliases. I use several of these to keep companies and websites from having direct access to my primary email address. With server side rules and rules in Mail I can route these emails into specific folders. From everything Apple has said so far and what can be read between the lines the only thing being migrated from MobileMe to iCloud is your primary email address. Yikes! At the very least I hope they offer the (suboptimal) option of turning our aliases into full email accounts.

QUOTE=TheRobin;1876922]I just got this email from Apple about MobileMe going away by next summer. My big question is what will happen after that with my me.com email address. I will start moving away from it if they are shutting down the email service also.[/QUOTE]

Didn't you read the email? Or even just the third paragraph?

I am most troubled by the apparent shutdown of iDisk next June. I use it to sync my most used office documents between my MacPro (that I sit at 9-5) and my laptop (that I sit at 5-9). My company uses MS Office not iWork, so my document won't sync or back up from what I've read so far. I also use the "Share" function to send documents to people as download links on a daily basis. I'm still peeved over the whole 'new' calendar sync that dumped the 'view as web page' function and killed iCal<->Blackberry syncing...and now this. Month by month Apple is making my life harder and more complicated, not easier and less complicated.

iDisk was never even the best solution for this, Dropbox works way better and is the same price
as MobileMe was for 50GB.