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There’s been wind of an unconfirmed rumor making its rounds across the Internet; Apple to make their MobileMe services free to all users. For those not in the know, MobileMe is Apples’ subscription based, cloud storage and data syncing service. It enables subscribers to sync their calendar/contacts/bookmarks across all their devices, share pictures, get a snazzy me.com email address and access to the Find My Phone & Remote Wipe features for the iPhone & iPad. Total cost for the pleasure of these services? USD99 or RM316.

Anyone else feeling a little underwhelmed by this news? 

I’m usually one for anything free, especially from Apple, but I think it’s a case of too little too late. Similar services have been offered free since the dawn of time from competitors like Google. I for one am a heavy user of the Google suite of tools, like Gmail, Gtalk, Calendars, Contacts and Google Docs. So what’s in it for me to port all my contacts, emails and data over to MobileMe? I guess it syncs up better to my Macbook Pro, but to be honest, I’ve discovered using Google contacts and calendars isn’t that bad either. 

Other than the iDisk cloud storage (which I use dropbox as an alternative), free MobileMe could only be useful to me for the Find My Phone and Remote Wipe services. That is, if I’m still using an iPhone.