Apple Buys Me.com? .Mac's New Name?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Earlier today, John Gruber of DaringFireball.net suggested (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/may#sat-31-mecom) that Me.com might be the name for Apple's .Mac rename. There was no real evidence, however, except that Me.com was registered under MarkMonitor's (http://www.markmonitor.com/) domain service. MarkMonitor is a domain management service that Apple (and many others) use. Gruber admits that this is mostly speculative:This is proof of nothing, of course, since MarkMonitor provides domain name parking for any company that pays for their services.
Me.com currently redirects users to Snappville.com (http://www.snappville.com/) - a social networking community. Snappville used to be called Me.com (http://mashable.com/2007/05/08/me-snapp/) but changed names (http://www.snappville.com/_forum/index.php?cat=1⊂=9&threadnumber=484992) in December 2007 with little fanfare. The current Me.com (http://me.com) page simply redirects to Snappville.

MacRumors reader Matthew Yohe pointed us to Netcraft page (http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.me.com) which curiously lists Kenneth Eddings (eddingsk@apple.com) as the DNS admin. This email address, however, was no where in the Whois lookup for Me.com. As it turns out, Mr. Eddings email address is listed in the SOA Record (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/163971) of the DNS record:


http://images.macrumors.com/article/2008/06/01/010557-soa.jpg


So, Apple does appear to own Me.com. It was likely purchased sometime in December 2007, and it could very well be the rebranding for Apple's .Mac service.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/06/01/apple-buys-me-com-macs-new-name/)

[Knolly]

The plot thickens!

My .mac runs out in 13 days... Just enough time to see if renewing is worth it, haha.

[TheYankees1903]

The Service will be called Me... The iPhone support will be called Mobile Me...

You Heard It Here First,
TheYankees1903 :apple:

[EricNau]

I'm assuming this correlates with the past story and the new name will be "Mobile Me" with the domain name me.com?

I think a name of just "Me" would get very confusing.

[nlivo]

Hmmm, interesting. I don't know if this means something or not? Does it? Is this enough to say that it is quite likely that .Mac will now be known as 'Me', or 'Mobile Me'?

[Applepi]

The Service will be called Me... The iPhone support will be called Mobile Me...

You Heard It Here First,
TheYankees1903 :apple:

P.S. First Comment

Good work gumshoe.

[metalray@mac.co]

seams very self centered "you know .me and all.

[Decrepit]

Maybe this is their way of weaning people away from the name Mac.

Start on the mobile side. iPhone, iPod...

Change the notebooks to AirBook, and AirBook Pro eventually killing the machine in the middle.

They could go with iDesk Mini for the Mini, iDesk for the iMac and iDesk Pro for the Mac Pro.

Just some wild speculation on my part, but they killed the Apple II line pretty harshly. They could kill the Mac name overnight as well.

[Chris Stroud]

I hope they have a way of implementing the new name so that it makes sense. I think I like dotmac better than mobileme.... it sounds kinda odd or even stupid at this point.

[Dr.Gargoyle]

I seriously hope that they wont kill off the .mac addresses. The reason I chose .mac in the first place was so I could keep my email address.

[thejason]

Wahoo! Good work Matthew!

[Peace]

Same basic info for mobileme.com

Registrant:
Domain Administrator
DNStination, Inc.
303 Second Street Suite 800N
San Francisco CA 94107
US
admin@dnstinations.com +1.4155319335 Fax: -

Domain Name: mobileme.com

Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com

Administrative Contact:
Domain Administrator
DNStination, Inc.
303 Second Street Suite 800N
San Francisco CA 94107
US
admin@dnstinations.com +1.4155319335 Fax: -
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Domain Administrator
DNStination, Inc.
303 Second Street Suite 800N
San Francisco CA 94107
US
admin@dnstinations.com +1.4155319335 Fax: -

Created on..............: 2002-08-23.
Expires on..............: 2009-08-23.
Record last updated on..: 2008-03-30.


Note: the date it was updated.. March 30th 2008

[bc008]

@me.com would be a cool address...

anyone really know why a name change is needed?

[arn]

@me.com would be a cool address...

anyone really know why a name change is needed?

I think it's because the iPhone and iPod Touch are not Macs. So it doesn't make sense to provide a service called ".Mac" to people who might not even own a Mac.

arn

[bretm]

Maybe this is their way of weaning people away from the name Mac.

Start on the mobile side. iPhone, iPod...

Change the notebooks to AirBook, and AirBook Pro eventually killing the machine in the middle.

They could go with iDesk Mini for the Mini, iDesk for the iMac and iDesk Pro for the Mac Pro.

Just some wild speculation on my part, but they killed the Apple II line pretty harshly. They could kill the Mac name overnight as well.

Except they specifically changed the name of all their products to contain Mac instead of "Power" since the Power stood for PowerPC. The i now stands for Intel I guess. When the iMac came out he said it stood for internet. Internet Mac. The goal of the first iMac was to be incredibly easy to set up and get on the internet. Now I guess the i is just an i.

[koobcamuk]

I think it's because the iPhone and iPod Touch are not Macs. So it doesn't make sense to provide a service called ".Mac" to people who might not even own a Mac.

arn

Makes sense, but I prefer .Mac.

It's easy to spell out as an email address and I just like what it assocaites me with. @me.com sounds stupid to me.

[Chris Stroud]

Except they specifically changed the name of all their products to contain Mac instead of "Power" since the Power stood for PowerPC. The i now stands for Intel I guess. When the iMac came out he said it stood for internet. Internet Mac. The goal of the first iMac was to be incredibly easy to set up and get on the internet. Now I guess the i is just an i.

Yeah because the original iPod had no internet connectivity, that is just their thing. iMovie, iWeb, iMac, iPod, iPhone, iCal, iChat, iSync, iLife, iTV (code name), iDVD, iWork, iBook, of course Stevo (iCeo), iCar.... did I miss any?

[Mykbibby]

Not bad... I like .Mac, but this beats the crap out of MobileMe...

[Decrepit]

Except they specifically changed the name of all their products to contain Mac instead of "Power" since the Power stood for PowerPC. The i now stands for Intel I guess. When the iMac came out he said it stood for internet. Internet Mac. The goal of the first iMac was to be incredibly easy to set up and get on the internet. Now I guess the i is just an i.

True.

But there's been the Mac, Mac SE, Mac+, Mac II, Mac LC....... and so many more.

Just wondering if they're getting tired of the name. Again, just thinking out loud. :-)

[Chris Stroud]

And if you think about it, it would have to be set up like me.com being the .mac replacement, and have MobileMe be the iPhone/iPod touch protocol for accessing features such as Push email etc... it couldn't be two separate services.

[Mac OS X Ocelot]

Maybe it has nothing to do with .Mac but instead Apple is going to attempt a full-fledged social networking website. Maybe it means nothing and Apple felt whimsical at the time.

[Nermal]

Yeah because the original iPod had no internet connectivity, that is just their thing. iMovie, iWeb, iMac, iPod, iPhone, iCal, iChat, iSync, iLife, iTV (code name), iDVD, iWork, iBook, iCar.... did I miss any?

You forgot Steve, the iCEO :cool:

[bc008]

I think it's because the iPhone and iPod Touch are not Macs. So it doesn't make sense to provide a service called ".Mac" to people who might not even own a Mac.

arn

does make sense, this looks promising!

[Chris Stroud]

Maybe it has nothing to do with .Mac but instead Apple is going to attempt a full-fledged social networking website. Maybe it means nothing and Apple felt whimsical at the time.
No way, Apple would never create a Social web site, the demand simply isn't there. People already have several great ones to choose from. The references to .Mac have been changed to a variable like a% or something idr, these can be changed in 10.5.4(maybe) during WWDC.

[ingenious]

Except they specifically changed the name of all their products to contain Mac instead of "Power" since the Power stood for PowerPC. The i now stands for Intel I guess. When the iMac came out he said it stood for internet. Internet Mac. The goal of the first iMac was to be incredibly easy to set up and get on the internet. Now I guess the i is just an i.

The official word from Apple was just that they wanted to emphasize the "Mac" moniker with all of their products. Just like iPod... i.e. iPod classic, iPod nano, iPod touch, etc., we have iMac, Mac mini, MacBook, Mac Pro. In other words, Apple said it had nothing to do with the "Power" part of PowerPC. The Intel transition was just a good time to change the names.


Also, the "i" doesn't stand for Intel. You're right that it stood for "internet" to begin with, but I don't think it really stands for anything now.

[Agathon]

With all this rumormongering we aren't much better than that dude with the alien movie.

Still, I'll take free .mac upgrades whatever the name is. Even if it was .crap.

[ingenious]

What if all of this "MobileMe" and "Me" nonsense is just another service .Mac will offer. I'm in the camp that thinks those two sorry excuses for brands are horrible ideas. Period. :D

".Mac" is way better. Although, I've never understood why it's ".Mac" and "mac.com"... hmm.. strange.

I just became a member a month ago and I really like .Mac. I'm looking forward to a non-name changing upgrade, though. New features are always nice. :)

[solipsism]

Maybe it has nothing to do with .Mac but instead Apple is going to attempt a full-fledged social networking website. Maybe it means nothing and Apple felt whimsical at the time.

That makes the most sense.

[Chris Stroud]

What if all of this "MobileMe" and "Me" nonsense is just another service .Mac will offer. I'm in the camp that thinks those two sorry excuses for brands are horrible ideas. Period. :D

".Mac" is way better. Although, I've never understood why it's ".Mac" and "mac.com"... hmm.. strange.

I just became a member a month ago and I really like .Mac. I'm looking forward to a non-name changing upgrade, though. New features are always nice. :)

Yes, I think that features are definitely at least due for an upgrade. Apple would rather file bankruptcy and stop manufacturing than provide a Microsoft service (Exchange) that is better than what they have.

[arn]

The biggest question is how much Me.com cost Apple.

Easily in the millions.

Pizza.com recently sold for $2.6 million

arn

[Chris Stroud]

The biggest question is how much Me.com cost Apple.

Easily in the millions.

arn

How? all they really have to pay for is their domain(s) which are like 100/yr each tops. And their own coders etc.

[Decrepit]

How? all they really have to pay for is their domain(s) which are like 100/yr each tops. And their own coders etc.

Any previously owned domain name, especially a short one, ESPECIALLY one being bought by somebody like Apple is going to go for massive money.

Go to eBay and look up domain names that are for sale. It's unreal what some people try to sell them for.

But a two character domain name that makes sense is going to be huge money.

[Chris Stroud]

Any previously owned domain name, especially a short one, ESPECIALLY one being bought by somebody like Apple is going to go for massive money.

Go to eBay and look up domain names that are for sale. It's unreal what some people try to sell them for.

But a two character domain name that makes sense is going to be huge money.

I see what you are saying, but I am still thinking Millions is a little pricy, maybe not. Doesn't matter, they have the money to fork out.

[BornAgainMac]

.Mac was really just a play on words with Microsoft's .NET. when it was first introduced in a Keynote a reference to .NET was made by Jobs. I hope I can still keep my email address after this name change.

This gives me flashbacks of Microsoft Me.

[dagamer34]

.Mac was really just a play on words with Microsoft's .NET. when it was first introduced in a Keynote a reference to .NET was made by Jobs. I hope I can still keep my email address after this name change.

This gives me flashbacks of Microsoft Me.

Microsoft BOB!!!!

[arn]

I see what you are saying, but I am still thinking Millions is a little pricy, maybe not. Doesn't matter, they have the money to fork out.

you missed my edit...

Pizza.com sold for $2.6 million recently.
Fund.com sold (http://www.dnjournal.com/ytd-sales-charts.htm) for $9.9 million in March.

arn

[Cool6324]

How? all they really have to pay for is their domain(s) which are like 100/yr each tops. And their own coders etc.

If that were the case, I would be able to register for apple.com for 100/yr. :p Worded domains cost a great deal of money; things like spell.com, cool.com, etc.

I'm guessing a clean 50 million. "Me" is only two letters!

[Chris Stroud]

If that were the case, I would be able to register for apple.com for 100/yr. :p Worded domains cost a great deal of money; things like spell.com, cool.com, etc.

I'm guessing a clean 50 million. "Me" is only two letters!
Go for it.
you missed my edit...

Pizza.com sold for $2.6 million recently.
Fund.com sold (http://www.dnjournal.com/ytd-sales-charts.htm) for $9.9 million in March.

arn
Yeah... I'll just shut up while I'm ahead

[dap1215]

I don't think that any of the changes to .mac are rumors. Steve Jobs himself said that apple is addressing the .mac service at D5. We will just have to wait and see. :D

[samh004]

Not sure if I'm a fan, but it does make sense, what with the name change from Apple Computer Inc to Apple Inc, there is less focus on the computer aspect. I'd prefer to keep the mac part of it myself, but will see what happens.

[chgojcs]

This just might be a new feature they're adding to .Mac, or just a name change of the service itself. Personally, I think they could have thought of something that fits a little more into the Apple brand, but whatever.

I just would hope that all the people with a @mac.com email address aren't suddenly finding themselves with a new email address. if that's the case, it would piss a lot of people off.

[joeshell383]

Go for it.

Yeah... I'll just shut up while I'm ahead

Yeah... You probably should.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16212799/

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/business/story.html?id=4cf16e63-a2ac-4cbf-9580-9c888824341a&k=98881

http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2007/domainsales07-31-07.htm

According to your theory, I could just nab apple.com or macrumors.com when they expire right? It's not like Apple or MacRumors have first priority on renewal and will renew them...

It sure makes sense that someone who has a domain name like "me.com" would only want a few hundred dollars for that name.

[AppleMojo]

I just noticed that Apple owns the macrumors.com domain as well.

Looks like we've all been had! ! !

;-)

[philoye]

Another crazy one: business.com was sold for $345 million in July 2007. Though there was an actual company that came along for the ride, the theory is that this was all about the domain itself.

Link (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=74700&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1031378&highlight=)

[B. Hunter]

Say it ain't so!
Apple, please don't go down the road of developing a social website like MySpace and or Facebook.
Focus on the products you already have.

I wan't iWeb enhancements please.

[Dreamer2go]

nintendo = mii
apple = me

something is fishy :p

[chairguru22]

They should also let you create your own avatar character and spell it differently like Mii.

edit: beat me to it dreamer2go

[MacsAttack]

So... Would a mobile version of this service be called miniMe?

[leracerx]

Perhaps ME stands for (Mac)intosh Everywhere and the .Mac e-mail/web addresses will still be applicable?

[Punataro]

I don't think this is official, i work for one of the apple retailer store (in asia) and never heard of the "Me" name. It sound kinda like Microsoft's unsuccessful operating system in 2001 "Windows Me" and i can't believe apple can come up with such a name.
iSpace sounds cooler BTW.

[8CoreWhore]

Ah, screw it all! I can't keep up with this stuff. I need a beer. :o

[jmadlena]

I think this is much bigger than everyone seems to realize. All of this stuff about Mobile Me, me.com, and 10.6. I think it is safe to say that Apple will give us a sneak peak at the newest OS:

Mac OS ME (Millenium Edition)

It will be Mac OS X, just with a few things added, and some stabilization removed.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

[macduke]

Well, it makes sense that there would be two different services. There is a variable in 10.5.3, and a set string in the SDK. Think about that for a minute. Now for the name...I don't really like it. It really reminds me of the worst operating system ever, Windows ME. Although I was never really a fan of the name .MAC, I do like it as an email address. I also hated the name Wii when it was announced, but I'm used to it now.

So several people on here are speculating that Apple might kill the Mac branding. If that ever happens, I would expect them to open up OS X to be installed on any machine...which will never officially happen. Mac branding has been around for a long time and is synonymous with Apple. Many people, after purchasing my iPhone last June, asked me "Is that the Mac iPhone?". Yeah I know, stupid, but many people really don't know the difference. It just makes marketing sense to keep the name. That would be like Microsoft changing the name of Windows to Porthole or Skylight.

Guy: "Hey I just installed Skylight 2009 and my computer crashed!"
Buddy: "Fwend, what the hell are you talking about?"

Back to the topic, this is what I want to see in the alleged "Mobile Me" for iPhone:

1. Wireless syncing
2. Mobile streaming and download of Mobile Me storage space files, effectively increasing the storage of the iPhone.
3. Uploading created videos and photos to Mobile Me storage, with Youtube, Facebook and Flikr extensions
4. Incorporating security tools such as GPS tracking, wireless camera viewing and remote wipe into this service for lost and stolen iPhones
5. Wireless control and access to my Mac, like Remote Buddy except better and native.
6. That cool bluetooth and GPS tagging thing that was mentioned the other day that helps you find your keys, illegitimate children, etc.

[applemumba]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

This just might be a new feature they're adding to .Mac, or just a name change of the service itself. Personally, I think they could have thought of something that fits a little more into the Apple brand, but whatever.

I just would hope that all the people with a @mac.com email address aren't suddenly finding themselves with a new email address. if that's the case, it would piss a lot of people off.

If and I suppose when apple change the name the email addresses will still be available as well as a new one issued, you will then probably find apple just pushing the emails addressed to the old .mac address to your new one so in effect you would not have to worry about lost emails.

If you a new customer under the new name you will then only be issued with the new .whatever email address and not recieve a .mac address.

This is easily done.

[larry22]

Okay, I have a question. Assuming that .mac becomes "push-email" would that mean that while using Apple's Mail app on Mac computer an Email would come in instantly, rather than checking every minute or so? Or does this only apply to the iPhone and the Touch?

[arn]

Okay, I have a question. Assuming that .mac becomes "push-email" would that mean that while using Apple's Mail app on Mac computer an Email would come in instantly, rather than checking every minute or so? Or does this only apply to the iPhone and the Touch?

I would suspect the Push email would apply only to the iPhone. Not the Mac.

arn

[sk8mash]

I hope we get a choice about wether our email is .mac or .me. I would much rather prefer .mac!

[jonharris200]

This whole thing is basically 'welcome to cloud computing' - one user account for all devices with personal information stored on Apple's servers.

From there your data syncs seamlessly with your iMac, iPhone, MacBook, :apple: TV, touch-screen tablet and any internet-browser.

Dotmac won't be overhauled - it will be completely replaced. Exciting to see what Apple unveils when they're ready.

[SParis]

I don't know about me.com. In fact I think it's a terrible idea: it reminds me too much of Myalgic encephalomyelitis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myalgic_encephalomyelitis) which is a bad thing for a new vibrant service...

[Matthew Yohe]

I don't think this is official, i work for one of the apple retailer store (in asia) and never heard of the "Me" name. It sound kinda like Microsoft's unsuccessful operating system in 2001 "Windows Me" and i can't believe apple can come up with such a name.
iSpace sounds cooler BTW.

Here is a story for you: I went to this year's MacWorld. After the keynote the mob went to the floor to get their hands on the new MacBook Air. I chatted with one of the genii who couldn't answer a technical question because he basically said: "I don't know, I only knew of the Air about ten minutes before you got here." So, it seems very likely to assume that you would be left in the dark about a service not yet offered.

[Matthew Yohe]

I don't know about me.com. In fact I think it's a terrible idea: it reminds me too much of Myalgic encephalomyelitis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myalgic_encephalomyelitis) which is a bad thing for a new vibrant service...

I thought "MacBook" was silly when I first heard it too.

I don't think anymore.

[lofight]

If that were the case, I would be able to register for apple.com for 100/yr. :p Worded domains cost a great deal of money; things like spell.com, cool.com, etc.

I'm guessing a clean 50 million. "Me" is only two letters!
I'm not 100% sure, but don't you need to have 3 letters for a domain name? That's what I always thought.

[SParis]

I thought "MacBook" was silly when I first heard it too.

I don't think anymore.

It's not just silly I'm afraid - imagine the parallels in the media if the service sucks.

[arn]

I'm not 100% sure, but don't you need to have 3 letters for a domain name? That's what I always thought.

you are clearly mistaken:

http://www.me.com
http://www.ge.com/

edit: though in researching it, it does appear that if a 2 letter domain expires, you are not allowed to reg it again. but existing 2 letter domains are allowed to persist.

arn

[Matthew Yohe]

It's not just silly I'm afraid - imagine the parallels in the media if the service sucks.

.Mac isn't a really a service that can get much worse.

[aLoC]

Well, everyone get ready after the keynote to grab the best and shortest email addresses.
look@me
smile@me
stopscreaming@me

etc.

[lofight]

you are clearly mistaken:

http://www.me.com
http://www.ge.com/

edit: though in researching it, it does appear that if a 2 letter domain expires, you are not allowed to reg it again. but existing 2 letter domains are allowed to persist.

arn

oh. :p

[CJM]

Interesting. Some good sleuthing right there.

Not entirely sure if I like the 'me' domain though, it does come across as a bit self-righteous.

Mmm, I guess we'll have to wait and see. Oh and the earlier suggestion someone had of Apple doing their own social-networking website; I'd never even thought of that. If done well, it could be the next big thing.

[dicklacara]

This just might be a new feature they're adding to .Mac, or just a name change of the service itself. Personally, I think they could have thought of something that fits a little more into the Apple brand, but whatever.

I just would hope that all the people with a @mac.com email address aren't suddenly finding themselves with a new email address. if that's the case, it would piss a lot of people off.

There is no reason that Apple needs to abandon .mac domain. Rather, they could offer current .mac subscribers the new .me addresses in addition to their .mac addresses.

[EvanLugh]

I think this WWDC - Job's keynote is going to very special, furthermore it's already exciting.

[nlivo]

This whole thing is basically 'welcome to cloud computing' - one user account for all devices with personal information stored on Apple's servers.

From there your data syncs seamlessly with your iMac, iPhone, MacBook, :apple: TV, touch-screen tablet and any internet-browser.

Dotmac won't be overhauled - it will be completely replaced. Exciting to see what Apple unveils when they're ready.

I think this post is closest to the money.

[boss1]

You'd think the naming is purposely done to be headline news friendly and news anchor friendly.


Corny News Anchor line: "So with all the revolutionary services out there such as Youtube and Me dot com . the real question remains , what's more important , me or you ? "

[ElectricHermit]

This whole thing is basically 'welcome to cloud computing' - one user account for all devices with personal information stored on Apple's servers.

From there your data syncs seamlessly with your iMac, iPhone, MacBook, :apple: TV, touch-screen tablet and any internet-browser.

Dotmac won't be overhauled - it will be completely replaced. Exciting to see what Apple unveils when they're ready.

I'm sure this is right. If this also works with Windows, it's even further down that line than you suggest.

There is one major area of cloud computing that hasn't quite been realised for home users, which is identity management. If I can create a 'me' account, which contains a series of variable permissions to access my contact information, websites and public directories, I can grant (and withdraw) secure access to this information to other people. Then if my email address or mobile number changes, I would update my profile, and the changes would be distributed to my 'subscribers'. In turn, my account is given permissions by other users to access their data. Eventually, we would stop thinking about contact details and just get used to contacting a person (via whatever 'channel' seems appropriate - email, phone, IM) - a dynamically updated 'ID' which we have hold across all our devices.

I doubt that Apple have this planned for us yet, but being able to sync our own data wirelessly across all our computing devices, including iPhones and iPods, is a significant step towards it.

[kiwi031]

This whole thing is basically 'welcome to cloud computing' - one user account for all devices with personal information stored on Apple's servers.

From there your data syncs seamlessly with your iMac, iPhone, MacBook, :apple: TV, touch-screen tablet and any internet-browser.

Dotmac won't be overhauled - it will be completely replaced. Exciting to see what Apple unveils when they're ready.


I like this gentlemen's idea.

This concept is clearly the next big thing. Our digital lifestyles supported by fully linked devices and seamless integration. :cool:

There's hundreds of billions in this concept and Apple are continuously adding products and services to bring this dream to a reality. I've considered the .Mac service but found it a little confusing and useless really. But if they can make it an integral part of the Mac - iPhone - AppleTV - Wifi combination then it has huge potential. :D

I reckon WWDC 08' going to be huge. Although many people would disagree, stating the WWDC is purely for Developers etc.. But you see, the direction for Developers this year appears to be this integration concept. Apple needs to delivery nifty gadgetry for the developers to work with.

Bring on WWDC 08'. Hope Macrumors will post a spoiler-free link to the Keynote once it's available!

[Mugs]

Well, everyone get ready after the keynote to grab the best and shortest email addresses.
look@me
smile@me
stopscreaming@me

etc.

haha, what about......lol@me! hehe

[MattZani]

Well, if they were to rename the whole line, maybe Steve could get very vain?

StevePod, SteveBook, SteveBook Pro, StevePhone, iSteve, Steve (is) Pro, .Steve, StevePort, SteveCapsule, SteveTV etc...

[zedsdead]

WWDC this year seams to be shaping up very nicely, especially since the past 2 were not that amazing. We have some great stuff it seems: iPhone 2, iPhone Software 2.0 w/ Apps Store, re-haul of .Mac, and potentially a redesigned Mac Mini or Macbook/Macbook Pro (the Cinema Displays are long overdue for an update as well). No rumors yet on Apple's next OS though, probably not till next year. Should be interesting to see if Apple addresses the recent Touch implementation in Windows.

I am not sure where I stand on the me.com. Clearly Apple can't use .Mac for the mobile devices, and give their "i" fixation, it makes sense for them to choose something like "me," so I think this story is legit. I prefer telling people @mac.com rather than @me.com. I think most people will think I am joking with them if I use the latter.

Just really curious as to if our .Mac email address will be transfered over or if we simply get first dibs at registering our names with the new service.

Still hoping for iPhoto Synching, and for Back To My Mac to actually work.

[paja]

The .me name change would be a horrible idea. It reeks of Microsoft Bob.

I dropped .Mac two years ago because it sucked so bad. I have no plans on returning unless it dramatically improves and this would just loose it for me. I would find the .me address embarrassing.

I understand that Apple wants to attract more Windows users to the service who might be turned of by the .Mac moniker, but .me is a bad substitute.

[Project]

Remember when iPhone.org was acquired?


http://forums.ilounge.com/archive/index.php/t-62615.html


Domain ID:D15354654-LROR
Domain Name:IPHONE.ORG
Created On:16-Dec-1999 04:59:34 UTC
Last Updated On:27-Jul-2004 18:32:41 UTC
Expiration Date:16-Dec-2005 04:59:33 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:EmarkMonitor Inc. (R37-LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:mKn-14211604
Registrant Name:Apple Computer , Inc.
Registrant Organization:Apple Computer, Inc.
Registrant Street1:1 Infinite Loop
Registrant Street2:M/S 60-DR
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Cupertino
Registrant State/Province:CA
Registrant Postal Code:95014
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.4089961010
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:+1.4089741560
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:Apple-NOC@APPLE.COM
Admin ID:mKn-14211601
Admin Name:Kenneth Eddings (KE557)
Admin Organization:Apple Computer, Inc.
Admin Street1:1 Infinite Loop M/S 60-DR
Admin Street2:
Admin Street3:
Admin City:Cupertino
Admin State/Province:CA
Admin Postal Code:95014
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.4089744286
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:eddingsk@apple.com
Tech ID:mKn-14211602
Tech Name:eMarkMonitor, Inc.
Tech Organization:eMarkMonitor, Inc.
Tech Street1:12438 W. Bridger Street
Tech Street2:Ste. 100
Tech Street3:
Tech City:Boise
Tech State/Province:ID
Tech Postal Code:83713
Tech Country:US
Tech Phone:+1.2083895755
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:+1.2083895799
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:ccops@markmonitor.com
Name Server:NSERVER2.APPLE.COM
Name Server:NSERVER.APPLE.COM


And from AllThingsD last year:

Walt: You obviously have a very large Internet business with iTunes and you sell a lot of stuff in the Apple Store, but, you know, you were early with this idea that when you bought a computer from Apple, you had this kind of Internet service back end, and it was called “.Mac”. And I think a lot of people feel you haven’t developed it very much.

Steve: I couldn’t agree with you more, and we’ll make up for lost time in the near future.

[lofight]

If there's one thing I would like, is that .mac or a possibly new .me, will be cheaper.

[KindredMAC]

I am not enthused at all by this prospect of DotMac turning into DotMe or Me or MobileMe....

It sounds too "PC"-ish.

Plus I have way too many contacts that know my DotMac email account. Don't really feel like changing my letterheads or other pieces of printed materials to show an email address that looks generic.

Sad sad day if this is true next week.... :(

[pmoeser]

What if all of this "MobileMe" and "Me" nonsense is just another service .Mac will offer. I'm in the camp that thinks those two sorry excuses for brands are horrible ideas. Period. :D

".Mac" is way better. Although, I've never understood why it's ".Mac" and "mac.com"... hmm.. strange.

I just became a member a month ago and I really like .Mac. I'm looking forward to a non-name changing upgrade, though. New features are always nice. :)

I wonder if Steve has tried to have a new high level domain created.... .mac would then be really .mac

[Project]

I am not enthused at all by this prospect of DotMac turning into DotMe or Me or MobileMe....

It sounds too "PC"-ish.

Plus I have way too many contacts that know my DotMac email account. Don't really feel like changing my letterheads or other pieces of printed materials to show an email address that looks generic.

Sad sad day if this is true next week.... :(

What are you talking about?

Do you honestly believe that Apple would cut the .Mac email domain? ReallY?

[pmoeser]

.Mac isn't a really a service that can get much worse.

I don't get the dumping on .Mac?

I use it and think it's great.

What exactly were you looking for? You had 60 or 90 days to try it out before you paid for it.

If you have a similar unified product that offers the same functionality with one login then let me know. I'll sign up as well!

[!¡ V ¡!]

Maybe @me.com is an acronym for "Mobile Experience" or "Mobile Environment" or "Mac Environment" or "Mac Experience."

Then again if they go with @mobileme.com it could stand for "Mobile Mac Experience" or Mobile Mac Environment."


You can decide which sounds best. :)

[mmzplanet]

I wonder if Steve has tried to have a new high level domain created.... .mac would then be really .mac

That would be awesome. I would never see that happening.

[bytethese]

I think it's because the iPhone and iPod Touch are not Macs. So it doesn't make sense to provide a service called ".Mac" to people who might not even own a Mac.

arn

Well they SHOULD own a Mac. :)

[tivoli2]

Makes sense, but I prefer .Mac.

It's easy to spell out as an email address and I just like what it assocaites me with. @me.com sounds stupid to me.

"<your name here>@me.com" sounds incredibly stupid to me... even juvenile. Unless that's your target demographic, of course. I'll go a step further - I think it's lazy. I'm sure if the me.com change is true that some high-priced firm has a long-winded explanation wherein they wax eloquent on how it embodies "simplicity and elegance, the center of the user's experience: themselves." <insert heavenly choir here>

Blah. I need my coffee.

[bytethese]

you are clearly mistaken:

http://www.me.com
http://www.ge.com/

edit: though in researching it, it does appear that if a 2 letter domain expires, you are not allowed to reg it again. but existing 2 letter domains are allowed to persist.

arn

The first 2 letter that comes to mind for me is always xe.com for their UCC. :)

[hdasmith]

Except they specifically changed the name of all their products to contain Mac instead of "Power" since the Power stood for PowerPC. The i now stands for Intel I guess. When the iMac came out he said it stood for internet. Internet Mac. The goal of the first iMac was to be incredibly easy to set up and get on the internet. Now I guess the i is just an i.

The "i" didn't just stand for internet, it also stood for:
individual
instruct
inform
inspire

See here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BHPtoTctDY)

[Tosser]

you are clearly mistaken:

http://www.me.com
http://www.ge.com/

edit: though in researching it, it does appear that if a 2 letter domain expires, you are not allowed to reg it again. but existing 2 letter domains are allowed to persist.

arn

www.m.dk

[lofight]

Maybe @me.com is an acronym for "Mobile Experience" or "Mobile Environment" or "Mac Environment" or "Mac Experience."

Then again if they go with @mobileme.com it could stand for "Mobile Mac Experience" or Mobile Mac Environment."


You can decide which sounds best. :)

that's a good thought. But then again. Mobile experience could be possible, but Mobile Mobile experience would be stupid. So then Mac environment or mac experience, but then the iphone and ipod touch would again actually be excluded.

[jonharris200]

nlivo, ElectricHermit and kiwi031 you are all too kind, especially kiwi031 who calls me a gentleman. :)

Of course what I am saying is nothing new (so I can't take the credit!), but what perhaps is new is a company of Apple's size launching a cloud product for the consumer market.

Also, the fact that, as ever, they control not just the software (the cloud) but also the hardware - a 360° complete solution.

Even though @me.com sounds self-indulgent, Apple is pragmatic about names (ref: MacBook - it's not classy but it works). Me.com is supremely simple and easy-to-use, and we all know how much Apple loves that.

Another thing about names: people don't really care if the service is innovative and reliable (you heard us in the UK, right, Steve?). The most ridiculous name I saw was a computer company called a FRUIT!

ElectricHermit you are right to mention Windows. I think the 'a-browser-is-all-you-need' approach, as dotmac already is, is good enough, but I wonder what the iTunes tie-up might be given that iTunes is Mac + PC. Or they could even make some aspects of it 'Safari only' to entice more Windows users to dip their toe in the Apple water (or should that be juice? :rolleyes:).

Personally I remain a bit nervous about cloud computing as I like the idea that my data is on my hardware thank you very much. But then to be honest I don't live like that - I build websites and trust other companies to host them. I use Facebook, Skype and eBay. So I guess trust is the operative word - there's a lot of sky but whose cloud (as it were) do I trust the most? Apple's not perfect, but by and large I trust them.

I have no idea if such a product will be launched at WWDC, but you'd have to say it could be a great fit for a developers' conference. Sure it leans more towards web applications rather than iPhone or Mac platforms specifically - but in a way it is a whole new paradigm that embraces them both.

Interested in everyone else's input in the discussion too - sorry if this long post sounds a bit me, Me, ME!

This whole thing is basically 'welcome to cloud computing' - one user account for all devices with personal information stored on Apple's servers.

From there your data syncs seamlessly with your iMac, iPhone, MacBook, :apple: TV, touch-screen tablet and any internet-browser.

Dotmac won't be overhauled - it will be completely replaced. Exciting to see what Apple unveils when they're ready.

I think this post is closest to the money.

I'm sure this is right. If this also works with Windows, it's even further down that line than you suggest.

There is one major area of cloud computing that hasn't quite been realised for home users, which is identity management. If I can create a 'me' account, which contains a series of variable permissions to access my contact information, websites and public directories, I can grant (and withdraw) secure access to this information to other people. Then if my email address or mobile number changes, I would update my profile, and the changes would be distributed to my 'subscribers'. In turn, my account is given permissions by other users to access their data. Eventually, we would stop thinking about contact details and just get used to contacting a person (via whatever 'channel' seems appropriate - email, phone, IM) - a dynamically updated 'ID' which we have hold across all our devices.

I doubt that Apple have this planned for us yet, but being able to sync our own data wirelessly across all our computing devices, including iPhones and iPods, is a significant step towards it.

I like this gentlemen's idea.

This concept is clearly the next big thing. Our digital lifestyles supported by fully linked devices and seamless integration. :cool:

There's hundreds of billions in this concept and Apple are continuously adding products and services to bring this dream to a reality. I've considered the .Mac service but found it a little confusing and useless really. But if they can make it an integral part of the Mac - iPhone - AppleTV - Wifi combination then it has huge potential. :D

I reckon WWDC 08' going to be huge. Although many people would disagree, stating the WWDC is purely for Developers etc.. But you see, the direction for Developers this year appears to be this integration concept. Apple needs to delivery nifty gadgetry for the developers to work with.

Bring on WWDC 08'. Hope Macrumors will post a spoiler-free link to the Keynote once it's available!

[Kar98]

Meh. (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=meh) :D

[trip1ex]

iMac => meMac

iPhone => mePhone

iPod => mePod

[jonharris200]

iMac => meMac

iPhone => mePhone

iPod => mePod
= brand suicide :eek:

[stagi]

I don't really like the name but don't really care as long as they add some good functionality to the service.

[!¡ V ¡!]

that's a good thought. But then again. Mobile experience could be possible, but Mobile Mobile experience would be stupid. So then Mac environment or mac experience, but then the iphone and ipod touch would again actually be excluded.

"Media Experience"

make something up that can utilize the acronym "me."

Reminds me of "Windows ME." :D

[!¡ V ¡!]

= brand suicide :eek:

Either you kill your competition or you kill yourself. Seems :apple: is doing both in tandem. ;):D

[Peace]

To be honest after thinking thinking about this overnight the idea of me.com SUX big time.

It is branding suicide..It's a smokescreen just watch.

[tubechallenger]

I don't know about me.com. In fact I think it's a terrible idea: it reminds me too much of Myalgic encephalomyelitis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myalgic_encephalomyelitis) which is a bad thing for a new vibrant service...

I don't really think that you can read anything into a name when it comes to that particular, erm, how to put it, illness.

I have it and this rumoured 'me' name certainly didn't remind me of it!

[BRLawyer]

Maybe this is their way of weaning people away from the name Mac.

Start on the mobile side. iPhone, iPod...

Change the notebooks to AirBook, and AirBook Pro eventually killing the machine in the middle.

They could go with iDesk Mini for the Mini, iDesk for the iMac and iDesk Pro for the Mac Pro.

Just some wild speculation on my part, but they killed the Apple II line pretty harshly. They could kill the Mac name overnight as well.

.Mac is compatible with Windows, as are the iPhone, iPod and AppleTV...nothing more sensible, given Apple's forays as a consumer electronics company.

I had an Apple II when that decision happened, and it wasn't harsh at all; just an evolution of the market in face of ANOTHER computer line. Besides, they even put an Apple II compatibility card on the LC line for the Mac.

Again: the Mac is gone ONLY if there is a totally new computer line launched by Apple...and this won't happen anytime soon.

[dicklacara]

nlivo, ElectricHermit and kiwi031 you are all too kind, especially kiwi031 who calls me a gentleman. :)

Of course what I am saying is nothing new (so I can't take the credit!), but what perhaps is new is a company of Apple's size launching a cloud product for the consumer market.

Also, the fact that, as ever, they control not just the software (the cloud) but also the hardware - a 360° complete solution.

Even though @me.com sounds self-indulgent, Apple is pragmatic about names (ref: MacBook - it's not classy but it works). Me.com is supremely simple and easy-to-use, and we all know how much Apple loves that.

Another thing about names: people don't really care if the service is innovative and reliable (you heard us in the UK, right, Steve?). The most ridiculous name I saw was a computer company called a FRUIT!

ElectricHermit you are right to mention Windows. I think the 'a-browser-is-all-you-need' approach, as dotmac already is, is good enough, but I wonder what the iTunes tie-up might be given that iTunes is Mac + PC. Or they could even make some aspects of it 'Safari only' to entice more Windows users to dip their toe in the Apple water (or should that be juice? :rolleyes:).

Personally I remain a bit nervous about cloud computing as I like the idea that my data is on my hardware thank you very much. But then to be honest I don't live like that - I build websites and trust other companies to host them. I use Facebook, Skype and eBay. So I guess trust is the operative word - there's a lot of sky but whose cloud (as it were) do I trust the most? Apple's not perfect, but by and large I trust them.

I have no idea if such a product will be launched at WWDC, but you'd have to say it could be a great fit for a developers' conference. Sure it leans more towards web applications rather than iPhone or Mac platforms specifically - but in a way it is a whole new paradigm that embraces them both.

Interested in everyone else's input in the discussion too - sorry if this long post sounds a bit me, Me, ME!

I would like to see the following (posted this on another thread):

--A Cloud iTunes where all the AV I buy from Apple remains on their servers in the Cloud, but can be manipulated and synched/streamed (or rarely downloaded) to any of my computers/iPods/iPhones/AppleTVs

--Expanded capability to the above to allow me to upload all my AV that was not purchased from Apple

--Same for my photos/scans and Home Movies

So my entire iLife repository would reside on Apple's servers in the Cloud-- secure, off-site, redundant, automatically backed-up, manageable and accessible from anywhere, sharable, etc.

This could be expanded to offer Cloud storage/backup of non-iLife files via Cloud TimeMachine.

So, Apple would need to offer large Cloud storage.

In addition, to make this practical, Apple would, likely, need to work with the IPs to offer a reasonably-priced fast upload capability.

So, give me a couple TB of storage and commensurate bandwidth allocation and IP upload/download speeds & I'd be happy to pay $200/yr (even more) for the total package.

For reference, a LaCie 2TB HDD costs about $550-$650:

http://www.macconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Search.htm?term=Lacie%202TB&id=21&DefSort=Y&searchFilter=21

and I currently have 2 of these (1 backup) for my iTunes & Photos.

But, I am very uncomfortable with the files & backup, both, being on-site!

[Brianstorm91]

I don't like it. .mac sounds a hundred times better, even if you don't own one. This name sounds a bit cheap :o

[alphaod]

It does say the current site has been moved; I'd guess Apple paid big bucks to get the domain name.

[jonharris200]

To be honest after thinking thinking about this overnight the idea of me.com SUX big time.

It is branding suicide..It's a smokescreen just watch.

While I have reservations, I'm not fully convinced that me.com is branding suicide - though pre-pending it to -Mac, -Phone and -Pod, certainly would be.

Remember too that Mobile Me would be the brand, with me.com as the domain, just as .Mac is currently the brand, and mac.com is the domain. Even Mobile Me takes some getting used to, but I think I could live with it depending on the actual product or service as mentioned earlier.

However I am loathe to quibble with a demi-god, especially one whose stated MR location is 'in the clouds'. :)

Maybe Apple will surprise us with social networking... then the me.com domain name would be a better fit. Personally I'm not expecting a Facebook competitor from Apple though.

[lofight]

"Media Experience"

make something up that can utilize the acronym "me."

Reminds me of "Windows ME." :D

very smart!

[Hagrid]

Maybe this is their way of weaning people away from the name Mac.

Start on the mobile side. iPhone, iPod...

Change the notebooks to AirBook, and AirBook Pro eventually killing the machine in the middle.

They could go with iDesk Mini for the Mini, iDesk for the iMac and iDesk Pro for the Mac Pro.

Just some wild speculation on my part, but they killed the Apple II line pretty harshly. They could kill the Mac name overnight as well.

Come with me on a journey to a future "Get a Mac" commercial:
<start dreamy music sequence>

Mobile Me: Hello, I'm a Mobile Me device

PC: And I'm a PC...
...... PC dressed in an Hawaiian shirt with shades:cool:, holding a bottle of Champagne. "Happy Days are Here Again" song playing in background. Two scantily clad, buxom blonds at his side

Mobile Me: Hey PC, what's going on, what are you celebrating?

PC: Well Mobile Me <snickering>, happy days are indeed here again. No more, switchers to MAC, I mean come on: idesk, Mobile Me device, I think that the guys over at Apple have been smoking way too much of that funny stuff. <takes long pull of Champagne, blondes giggle>

Mobile Me: What do you mean PC, we got tired of Mac this and Mac that, I mean what's in a brand name anyway..?

PC: That's ok Mac, I mean Mobile Me device, <laughing out loud>, I went through the "ME" phase, what with all the instability and the innovation of my 'Millennium Edition'....

Mobile Me:...but it's not 'Millennium Edition', it's Mobile Experience, or Mobile Entertainment, or...

PC: Yeah, I hear ya bud....;)
..... PC walks into the sunset, one arm with bottle around one of the blonds, his other hand on a butt cheek (the feminists here will have to get over it, it's my commercial, it's going to have alcohol and babes)...song changes to "You shook ME all night long".......

Mobile Me device: <stares at PC leaving, thinking I used to be the cool one with the cool Brand, what happened?>

<cue dreamy sequence music>

One possibility when you let the marketing dept run wild......

[e-coli]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

Maybe it has nothing to do with .Mac but instead Apple is going to attempt a full-fledged social networking website. Maybe it means nothing and Apple felt whimsical at the time.

the last thing the world needs is yet another social networking site. It's already too hard to keep up with a blog, facebook account, myspace account, flickr page etc.

Now if it acted as an aggregator or as a plugin for all those other sites, then I could see such a service having a future.

[Peace]

Anybody remember the rumors surrounding Vingle.com ?

That came and went like a terrible tornado.POOF! it was gone.

That's what's going to happen to me.


pun intended :cool:

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

Me =
Mobile Entertainment?
Mobile Enterprise?

[StuPidQPid]

iMac => meMac

iPhone => mePhone

iPod => mePod

Hey you forgot the Mac Mini which would obviously become the...

MiniMe

Groovy Baby! :cool:

[sfoalex]

I think this post is closest to the money.

Sync has been changing as well. I think you two are on to something here. Perhaps a full change is exactly what will happen.

I would love an Apple branded social site. I would love Push Email. And in general, I would like some choices for greater online in the cloud software. Google's DOCs is actually growing on me. But imagine something like creating a doc in the cloud and having access to it from your iPhone, iPod Touch or Apple tablet. Imagine a social site where you can share that document with friends in your network. Imagine forums, groups, your email and alerts and content. Imagine all of it tied to your Apple TV. I could easily get excited about such a product.

Alex Alexzander

[deannnnn]

I know it's been said, but I like .Mac so much better.

[phd]

It sounds so egotisticle...
allabout@me.com :eek:

[hiimamac]

Makes sense, but I prefer .Mac.

It's easy to spell out as an email address and I just like what it assocaites me with. @me.com sounds stupid to me.

Okay so Mac doesn't taylor to the creative anymore, or pro reallly - no more artists, writers, people who are snobs as everyone has a mac and (okay, not everyone, pun), and the machines really are faster, okay Steve? (remember when he said they were and they were slow as dogs compared to say a AMD at the time for crunching or doing video/audio, and of course gaming.

But today's market is the iphone and ipod user, at least having heywhatup@mac.com said a little something about you, regardless of "status", it said, to some, hip, or cool, of course, @apple.com is better (and that's all I will say about that except you cannot check @apple.com unless in Cuppertino or at a retail back room hard lined computer (grin)....but @me.com? Like I said yesterday, this is very Microsoft sounding, for it to fly it would have to be 99 at time of purchase, 9.99 a month with DSL/CABLE ISP and a heck of a makeover. (lol)...

[brucku]

I think a bunch of you are getting way too worried about changing your email address. In fact I think the solution apple offers may be quite the opposite.

I think one of the down-falls of a mac based service is that I will have to get a brand new email address.

Not only do I think apple will certainly allow you to keep the routing of your current .mac email, I think people like myself with Gmail accounts will be able to attach the Imap server settings of our Gmail accounts to this new email service, and seamlessly use the apple framework to run our life, in just the same way, yet quicker and in a more responsive manner.

Apple's not dumb enough to try to get 1 million gmail users to tell all of their contacts a brand new email address. It just doesn't make sense. Its competition, and I think apple and google would do best to avoid competing whenever possible with each other.

*I do feel that competing operating systems for cell phones, IS necessary. so Android vs Iphone as a bad idea was not the intention of this post.

[brucku]

(and that's all I will say about that except you cannot check @apple.com unless in Cuppertino or at a retail back room hard lined computer (grin)........

this drives me nuts. My bro has an @apple.com address. I still for the life of me can not figure out why they limit checking of this address to retail/cupertino locations. Its so dumb. They send him emails with important information (like his upcoming work schedule) and then he can't read it without driving 20 min into work. Its an email. Its the internet. Its 2008. Can someone explain this to me?

[carloslegarda]

I'm assuming this correlates with the past story and the new name will be "Mobile Me" with the domain name me.com?

I think a name of just "Me" would get very confusing.

Yeah, and you would need Windows Me to connect to Apple's Me service.:)

Hehehehe

[Decrepit]

this drives me nuts. My bro has an @apple.com address. I still for the life of me can not figure out why they limit checking of this address to retail/cupertino locations. Its so dumb. They send him emails with important information (like his upcoming work schedule) and then he can't read it without driving 20 min into work. Its an email. Its the internet. Its 2008. Can someone explain this to me?

For security purposes. If they create an email server with external access, it opens a door to hacking and information gathering.

What they probably should have done was created applestore.com or something like that email that has web access. That way no confidential information ever makes it offsite.

[swingerofbirch]

I wonder if this could have something to do with my generation being the "me generation." Supposedly we're sooooooooo into ourselves. Well maybe that's because no one was into us! My generation was the first one to live in institutionalized day care, day long kindergarten, standardized testing, mass mind numbing drugs (legal), and be born to parents who thought of us as housecats that could largely make do on our own and were expected to come along to work, theatre, and museums and just be quiet. Oh, and stay inside of course, because it's a dangerous world out there! To be honest I think it was the baby boomers who were too far into themselves to be real parents! They're the real me generation! I'm part of the shattered dreams generation. Or is that just me?

[macerroneous]

Actually, I think this is the next war. Remember, 20 years ago Steve didn't realize in time that IBM wasn't the enemy any longer, it was really microsoft. It's not that that war is won (in terms of usage), but its time to wage war in the clouds.

Google IS the new enemy. Therefore, this new service must equal, and exceed, Google's services and be FREE to Apple hardware users. How about 1 year free with an iphone, 6 months with a touch 2 years with a MAC. Imagine the value perceived by the windows crowd. Now, allow every windows user who bought an ipod, but not a touch or iphone, to buy the same services for their Vistasaster* boxes for $100/year through itunes, using Safari. Why not give them a taste of the Mac Experience if they're paying you? And ultimately, they'll be buying your boxes.

Do you think this might be why Apple doesn't want to "fix" Safari yet? They want everybody to download the new ME-enabled Safari next month!

*credit to FSJ

[brucku]

For security purposes. If they create an email server with external access, it opens a door to hacking and information gathering.

What they probably should have done was created applestore.com or something like that email that has web access. That way no confidential information ever makes it offsite.

Security purposes? no way. Hundreds of Fortune 500 companies have webmail accessible email interfaces. And this is apple, if anyone should be able to secure their own corporate network.....

[nimbuscloud]

Security purposes? no way. Hundreds of Fortune 500 companies have webmail accessible email interfaces. And this is apple, if anyone should be able to secure their own corporate network.....

Probably so people like you wouldn't try to read their brother's emails and spilling secret/important information to others on the internet. This is Apple we're talking about. They don't want others to know what they know.

:apple:

[mogzieee]

The name 'me' sounds too tacky. Too on the social networking youth side of the internet.

Think about it, Apples tactic will be to get your .Mac (or 'me' homepage) website will be your equivalent of your Facebook Profile - your web gallery to replace the Facebook photos section. Joining a .Mac group is just like the Facebook Groups. Mac mail is the equivalent to Facebook / Bebo / MySpace mail. AND SO ON.

And all this for still $99 bucks per year when you have Facebook / MySpace for FREE!? It defines belief, who would go for .Mac or 'me' or whatever the name is...??

I think its pointless. .Mac is the one thing I'd like to stay the SAME. Apart from a price drop. That would be nice.

[dvince2]

Maybe this is their way of weaning people away from the name Mac.

Start on the mobile side. iPhone, iPod...

Change the notebooks to AirBook, and AirBook Pro eventually killing the machine in the middle.

They could go with iDesk Mini for the Mini, iDesk for the iMac and iDesk Pro for the Mac Pro.

Just some wild speculation on my part, but they killed the Apple II line pretty harshly. They could kill the Mac name overnight as well.

I thought they were just moving away from the "i" prefex to put the "mac" name in their products? IE ibook to macbook?

[bdkennedy1]

Well I certainly hope they don't change @mac.com e-mail addresses.

That's a ton of free advertising right there. Every time I send an e-mail out someone sees it and thinks Mac.

[!¡ V ¡!]

Well I certainly hope they don't change @mac.com e-mail addresses.

That's a ton of free advertising right there. Every time I send an e-mail out someone sees it and thinks Mac.

Maybe "@me" stands for Macintosh Enterprise, since :apple: is targeting the enterprise market with iPhone 2.0 and its SDK/OS so this would just make sense to alter the @mac service for enterprise customers as well which is where the big $$$ is anyhow. ;) :D

Some might find that @mac does not sounds professional for enterprise users, then again I am sure Steve Jobs will pull some survey out skewing his decision for the name change. ;)

[Orng]

Well, everyone get ready after the keynote to grab the best and shortest email addresses.
look@me
smile@me
stopscreaming@me

etc.

StopPoking.Me!

I thought they were just moving away from the "i" prefex to put the "mac" name in their products? IE ibook to macbook?

The 24" macMac is awesome, and I love my macPod Touch

====

Alright, enough fooling around. Lets talk strategy.

They may or may not change the @mac.com address, and even if they do, they'll probably migrate the existing users straight over. Or they might cut us all lose into the aether, who knows?

Either way, considering the current relatively small user base of dotMac, and the 50/50 chance that they will make some announcement that will inspire droves of iPhone owners to sign up next week, this week might be your last chance to snag the email address that you want. Costs you nothing to snag the free trial, and it holds the name for you even if you let the trial expire.

Consider: I tried to get a Gmail address recently. Entered in bob.jones (not my actual name) for the address. My options were: bob.jones3467; jones.bob.bjones434; bjones.jones44; it was freakin ridiculous.

Consider: I let my iTools expire when it became dotMac and went to a paid model in 2002 (I think?). In 2005 I looked at it again and decided it had value for me now, for various reasons. On a whim, I tried my old iTools user name. Inactive, but ready for me to reactivate with the password (and a fistful of cash of course)

If I was one of the naysayers, someone on the fence, someone with potential future switchers in their family, someone who is waiting to see what is unveiled, someone who thinks maybe not now but someday; I'd go snag me a free trial right now, and hold the name you want, and do the same for family members. And your kids. If you can imagine yourself converting your dotmac to a family pack sometime in the future, then hold your kids names. They can hive off their sub-accounts if they want later.


I'm only posting this because I've already preserved the names of the potential future switchers in my family, nyeah! :)

[MrExige]

not read the whole thread os maybe been said before..

maybe it's a push email aggregator? i.e. you point it at all your other email accounts like gmail/.mac and it sets up a push service to your iPhone.

[firewood]

Security purposes? no way. Hundreds of Fortune 500 companies have webmail accessible email interfaces. And this is apple, if anyone should be able to secure their own corporate network.....

And dozens of Fortune 500 companies have had their employee's laptops hacked or stolen allowing those companies secrets (customers SSN's, etc.) on the hard drive to be exposed.

[gotohamish]

Will the apple store employees say:

"Would you like Me with that?"

"Can I offer you a special offer for Me?"

"You can also have Me for $99."

"Now you can post photos on Me..."

"You can use Me to send your emails."

[Decrepit]

Security purposes? no way. Hundreds of Fortune 500 companies have webmail accessible email interfaces. And this is apple, if anyone should be able to secure their own corporate network.....

I'm not saying it can't be done, but if any company exhibits paranoia and needs total secrecy, it's Apple.

But to be fair, they don't need to extend their security to the unsecured homes of retail store employees.

[chrisgeleven]

I wouldn't worry about your .mac e-mail address.

Worst case, they would forward any e-mail addressed to mac.com to me.com (or whatever it ends up being).

Best case, you pick whether you want a me.com address.

[Virgil-TB2]

@me.com would be a cool address...

anyone really know why a name change is needed?It's sure better than mobile.me as a portal/destination name, but I still don't think it makes much sense as an email address.

"John_Doe@me.com" doesn't say much of anything about a person IMO. It sure doesn't identify them as a member of an online community.

Whereas "John_Doe@mac.com" says "this is my mac account," (a community identification), and "John_Doe@sony.com" says, "this is my email address at work," and even "John_Doe@mobileme.com" says "this is where you can get a hold of me when I'm on the road," "me.com" doesn't say much of anything IMO.

True.

But there's been the Mac, Mac SE, Mac+, Mac II, Mac LC....... and so many more.

Just wondering if they're getting tired of the name. Again, just thinking out loud. :-)It's a good thought, but likely not true.

"Mac" is Apple's longest standing and best brand other than the word "Apple" itself. It's unlikely that they would ever give it up or get tired of it unless for some future reason it becomes a negative.

Well, it makes sense that there would be two different services. There is a variable in 10.5.3, and a set string in the SDK. Think about that for a minute. Now for the name...I don't really like it. It really reminds me of the worst operating system ever, Windows ME. Although I was never really a fan of the name .MAC, I do like it as an email address. I also hated the name Wii when it was announced, but I'm used to it now.

So several people on here are speculating that Apple might kill the Mac branding. If that ever happens, I would expect them to open up OS X to be installed on any machine...which will never officially happen. Mac branding has been around for a long time and is synonymous with Apple. Many people, after purchasing my iPhone last June, asked me "Is that the Mac iPhone?". Yeah I know, stupid, but many people really don't know the difference. It just makes marketing sense to keep the name. That would be like Microsoft changing the name of Windows to Porthole or Skylight.

Guy: "Hey I just installed Skylight 2009 and my computer crashed!"
Buddy: "Fwend, what the hell are you talking about?"....Good analysis. I agree and think it much more likely that however unfortunate the name might sound that "mobile.me" is obviously the new iphone portal and Me.Com is the over-arching entity that draws Mobile.Me and .Mac together.

Apple wouldn't want to force mobile Windows users to use a mac.com address and not everyone will want to use mac.com regardless of whether they are mac or windows or linux people.

So you go to Me.Com to sign into your online life. When you get there, you can access your "mobile.me" stuff (which will be a fantastic new site that is Win/Mac agnostic but laid out expressly for iphone access), or you can log into your .Mac account (hopefully renamed to plain old "mac.com"), or Google, or Facebook, or (shudders) MySpace or whatever.

[Neo110503]

Will the apple store employees say:

"Would you like Me with that?"

"Can I offer you a special offer for Me?"

"You can also have Me for $99."

"Now you can post photos on Me..."

"You can use Me to send your emails."


We'll see what the employee looks like. If it's a cute :apple:girl, i might consider it.

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

The plot thickens!

My .mac runs out in 13 days... Just enough time to see if renewing is worth it, haha.

That's really good for you. Personally, I want to keep mine but I just don't want to have to deal with the hassel of changing email addresses. I'm sure many others here feel this way.

[DiamondMac]

I seriously hope that they wont kill off the .mac addresses. The reason I chose .mac in the first place was so I could keep my email address.

No way they would kill off the email addresses. I use it as well for a LOT of things and I suspect they have a LOT of other people using it for the same thing.

I would be surprised if they didn't just allow people to keep it for as long as they want but new people to sign up for the new @whatever email service

[Mykbibby]

Yeah because the original iPod had no internet connectivity, that is just their thing. iMovie, iWeb, iMac, iPod, iPhone, iCal, iChat, iSync, iLife, iTV (code name), iDVD, iWork, iBook, of course Stevo (iCeo), iCar.... did I miss any?

iTunes :rolleyes:

[joeshell383]

I'm not 100% sure, but don't you need to have 3 letters for a domain name? That's what I always thought.

What about cs.com, bp.com, pb.com, hp.com, ku.edu, etc.........

[GuillaumeB]

Ok well I guess we all know what's coming:

Apple is working on a place where personal data will be sync of from the iPhone/iPod touch and where media would be shared among a social network used by iphone/iPod touch owners. A marketing strategy to develop the popularity of the devices.
Media would be send via email (like web galleries) using @me.com email addresses probably based on a subscription model and the system will also be applied to @mac.com members.

what's next?

[joeshell383]

I seriously hope that they wont kill off the .mac addresses. The reason I chose .mac in the first place was so I could keep my email address.

Providers usually retain the e-mail domains. Look at former Ameritech, SBC, CompuServe, and Prodigy e-mail addresses. Those customers still keep their domain names.

[nokq]

No way, Apple would never create a Social web site, the demand simply isn't there. People already have several great ones to choose from. The references to .Mac have been changed to a variable like a% or something idr, these can be changed in 10.5.4(maybe) during WWDC.

I wouldn't just rule it out. First, imagine if Google had come to your same conclusion when they introduced their own search engine in '99. There were plenty of products to choose from back then, right? Perhaps I'll name a few, WebCrawler, Yahoo Search, MSN Search, Excite, etc. Google displaced them all. Apple has the same kind of raw talent, and I believe they could displace Facebook, MySpace, etc if they wanted to. Social Networking sites are the hot web properties right now. If they can crack/monetize them more efficiently, they'll be just as profitable as Google. Its no easy task though.

[jagardner1984]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

As others have intimated, I think changing .mac addresses would be a way of getting rid of much of the subscriber base. At the moment, I think it is seen by many as an email+ service, as all of the rest of the services are not very well implemented, at least not when you consider it in a Web 2.0 environment. What will be interesting is what Apple does with all their old services. .Mac at the moment is a mess of various generations of products. To use the example of photo publishing, you have Homepage, iWeb, and .Mac galleries all operating concurrently and co-existing with various products. There will be an inevitable backlash if support for any of these is ended. So is there a possibility if there is a me.com product launched leaving the .mac product orphaned, perhaps providing access to both products at the same price ?

[GuillaumeB]

By the way there is another possibility that has not been explored with me.com:

Blackberry providers let you create Blackberry exchange accounts where you can set up your existing email to receive it as push on your device.

My gf set up her gmail account and linked it to some @bouygues-blackberry.com email address and she now receives her gmail messages with push (bouygues is the operator)

i would not be surprised to learn that the Exchange technology had been set up on the me.com servers to let use generate email addresses and link our own personal email over there.

[ideapower]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)
I think changing .mac addresses would be a way of getting rid of much of the subscriber base.

It's ridiculous to think that they would actually make people change their email address just because they rebrand the service. They'll always own the mac.com domain name, whether they name the service dotMe or dotPoopyPants. In fact, they might even offer a choice of addresses when you sign up, ie:
__@mac.com
__@me.com
__@mobileme.com
__@iphone.com
etc

[dmula]

Macintosh Exchange Server 2008

[Ynot]

Well it would be Logical

we will then have the meMac
the myselfMac
and Lastly the iMac
:D

[FreeState]

Well, everyone get ready after the keynote to grab the best and shortest email addresses.
look@me
smile@me
stopscreaming@me

etc.

Wow the porn companies could have a field day with this...

I wont even post the ones that come to my mind LOL...

[Chris Stroud]

iTunes :rolleyes:

wow..... that would be the obvious one lol

[roosta]

hmmm. could apple be going in myspace/facebook territory?

[Stig McNasty]

Nice bit of detective work MacRumors squad.

[Shasterball]

Must have gotten some help from a Microsoft consultant for the name....

[twoodcc]

wow, can't wait to find out about the new service.

[Chris Stroud]

I don't think Apple is positioned to create the new Facebook. That isn't their Area. Web technologies isn't what they are up to... you mentioned google creating their search engine... yes I see what you are saying but Apple is looking out for the individual consumer and is slowly moving to businesses where Windows is over 90% of the market. They can't really use a new Facebook to promote OS X and the iPhone etc. Does that make any sense lol?

[guzhogi]

Must have gotten some help from a Microsoft consultant for the name....

Just thought of Windows ME. ME meaning Mistake Edition. Hopefully, this isn't the case w/ Apple's expected .Mac upgrade.

[megfilmworks]

Maybe "@me" stands for Macintosh Enterprise

That sounds like an good guess.

[me_94501]

If this rumor is true, I would have an awesome .mac (ahem--"Me") email address:

me_94501 (at) me.com

Sweet! :D

[Chris Stroud]

If this rumor is true, I would have an awesome .mac (ahem--"Me") email address:

me_94501 (at) me.com

Sweet! :D

Well, what the hell is your avatar lol?

[JW008]

So is there a possibility if there is a me.com product launched leaving the .mac product orphaned, perhaps providing access to both products at the same price ?

Or perhaps a tiered-service. You could get Mobile Me for $50/year OR .Mac+Mobile Me for $100/year. Couldn't Mobile Me supplement .Mac instead of replace it? Of course this leads to an entirely new set of problems...

[winterspan]

And dozens of Fortune 500 companies have had their employee's laptops hacked or stolen allowing those companies secrets (customers SSN's, etc.) on the hard drive to be exposed.

Yea, I can't believe how often that happens. Do these companies have IT departments for god sakes??? All it takes is basic encryption software to secure all those customer records. For god sakes, there are hundreds of free open source solutions and even more paid ones.

hmmm. could apple be going in myspace/facebook territory?

No way, it doesn't make any sense at all for them to do that. The social networking site is just what was operating at the me.com domain name, so they probably game them time to move it and now Apple is going to finally use the me.com domain.

Well, what the hell is your avatar lol?

HAHAH! Seriously, what is that thing? It's like the loaf-of-bread cousin to Plan 9's little bunny...

[me_94501]

Well, what the hell is your avatar lol?

It's kittyloaf! Do a google search for kittyloaf.gif.

[Chris Stroud]

It's kittyloaf! Do a google search for kittyloaf.gif.

no, I think I'm good. glad to see you had the time on your hands though..

[Goliath]

If this rumor is true, I would have an awesome .mac (ahem--"Me") email address:

me_94501 (at) me.com

Sweet! :D

If true then I'd have stopscreaming@me .com so yeah that would be sweet!

[Pwned]

IMHO, ME stands for mobile enterprise and it will be used to sync with the iphone and much much more.

[impaler]

I don't get the dumping on .Mac?

I use it and think it's great.

What exactly were you looking for? You had 60 or 90 days to try it out before you paid for it.

If you have a similar unified product that offers the same functionality with one login then let me know. I'll sign up as well!

Okay...it's called Google. Google really has hit the nail on integration...Gmail, Reader, Picasa, Calendar, etc...all tied to one email address. Now, I'm saying this as a current Gmail user, but also a .mac subscriber. I go back and forth between the two...I am a pretty damned shameless all-Apple fanboy, and I WANT to love .mac and just be happy with it. But Gmail offers more storage, tighter integration with other Google services, and best of all, is FREE. But .mac offers the sync between my MB and iMac, and that's tough to live without. It is the single best reason for me to keep .mac. I'm not with AT&T but after Jun 9, I plan to buy the next iPhone, and hope that integration with .mac/.me, whatever it will be, will become OTA. That would be AWESOME! I'd also really really really like a true online calendar, like Google Calendar, for .mac/.me. I would love to buy into the Apple world fully here...but the tight integration just keeps me coming back and staying with Google for now.

[impaler]

hmmm. could apple be going in myspace/facebook territory?

Another social networking site? That would be retarded.

[easy4lif]

if I lose my .mac email address, I'll go ape **** crazy. I use it as my primary email address. its gonna take a lot of time to switch over account like amazon an newegg to the new address + friends and family.


we better get to keep our .mac email addresses

[Chris Stroud]

if I lose my .mac email address, I'll go ape **** crazy. I use it as my primary email address. its gonna take a lot of time to switch over account like amazon an newegg to the new address + friends and family.


we better get to keep our .mac email addresses

No worries, if that happens, Apple will have it set up so that .mac emails are forwarded to the .me addresses.

[koobcamuk]

No worries, if that happens, Apple will have it set up so that .mac emails are forwarded to the .me addresses.

...forever I hope.

[Chris Stroud]

...forever I hope.

should be

[Squid7085]

I can really see, and I guess have wanted to see in the past, the .Mac service becoming just an everything service. Basically the service than ties together all the things. iPhone, Mac, TV (Fingers Crossed) and hell, even your PC. With Mac's now running Windows, the idea of being able to sync things like contacts and bookmarks to Windows would be great. Obviously the branding of ".Mac" would be a bit odd. Whats my idea? iTools! How about that. Lol. Either way, I have nothing against the re-branding, Naming the service "Me" is fitting to tell you the truth, and the Mobile syncing part "Mobile Me." However, I really don't want to lose my @mac.com emails. I would not be too happy if I had to go around telling people new emails. I have always liked the .Mac email in that it showed my love of Macs, and it was a pretty darn easy email to remember. I would be more for keeping the .mac service and having a spinoff of the service for "MobileMe" Either way, We will see in a little more than a week. :D

[Orng]

If I could access iWork docs online or from my iPT, that would be so awesome I'd buy iWork.

edit: and by that I mean, if I could view and edit iWork via iMac (or whatever they want to call it). Thought i'd add that note, so nobody thinks I'm posting in the wrong forum.

[ParisParamus]

I doubt this is the future. Me is vastly inferior to .Mac. What does it stand for? Mobile Electronic? Electron? This just makes NO sense.

[ErikGrim]

It's a cloud service people. Not a social networking site. Think .Mac + Plaxo, not Facebook and MySpace.

[macerroneous]

It stands for Mac Erroneous.

[ParisParamus]

Is it possible that Apple actually spends several million annually creating disinformation for its products in development and launches? I can just imagine former KGB agents putting disinformation on the Web, and elsewhere to throw people off...This might be one such campaign.

[arn]

I doubt this is the future. Me is vastly inferior to .Mac. What does it stand for? Mobile Electronic? Electron? This just makes NO sense.

Um.... it doesn't stand for anything.

Me - as in not "you", but "me".

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/me
me: pron. refers to the speaker or writer: that hurts me

arn

[blairbeckwith]

Another interesting idea is the fact that the top level domain .me is just becoming available. How much would you like to bet that Apple is looking to register mobile.me?

[Chris Stroud]

I think that Macintosh Enterprise sounds most promising

[me_94501]

no, I think I'm good. glad to see you had the time on your hands though..

Heh, actually I found it like 3 years back on another forum I participate in.

Another interesting idea is the fact that the top level domain .me is just becoming available. How much would you like to bet that Apple is looking to register mobile.me?
I'm not sure I'd want to bet on it, but an interesting possibility nonetheless.

[Mal]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

Sorry if this had been posted, but look forward to a new ad campaign:

Me, Myself, and iMac.

jW

[SpinThis!]

I can't believe nobody's mentioned this yet... it's for Steve Jobs' personal e-mail: me@me.com. You know how he hates typing more than he has to... ;)

Settle down .mac people... you're not going to lose your e-mail address.

[chotty]

Okay so Mac doesn't taylor to the creative anymore, or pro reallly - no more artists, writers, people who are snobs as everyone has a mac and (okay, not everyone, pun), and the machines really are faster, okay Steve? (remember when he said they were and they were slow as dogs compared to say a AMD at the time for crunching or doing video/audio, and of course gaming.

But today's market is the iphone and ipod user, at least having heywhatup@mac.com said a little something about you, regardless of "status", it said, to some, hip, or cool, of course, @apple.com is better (and that's all I will say about that except you cannot check @apple.com unless in Cuppertino or at a retail back room hard lined computer (grin)....but @me.com? Like I said yesterday, this is very Microsoft sounding, for it to fly it would have to be 99 at time of purchase, 9.99 a month with DSL/CABLE ISP and a heck of a makeover. (lol)...

Er, that's "TAILOR"... not "Taylor". Sheesh.

[deloreanmacmini]

Apple recently purchased "me.com." Is this just a rebranding of .mac, or is Apple trying to launch a social networking site?

Apple knows it has a fan base that is fiercely loyal. Let's be honest. Many of us loyal Macheads would use Apple's social networking site. We believe Steve would do justice to social networking. They would not screw it up the way MySpace and Facebook have. They would make it seamless.

If Apple is trying to leverage the power of its new handheld platform, what better way to do it than launch a social networking site that brings iPhone users together while they are on the go? If they roll in all the current .mac features, photocasting, sharing movies and audio and video content, add iPhone optimized pages and content, and you've got yourself a site with plenty of users, and more to come as Apple's halo effect works its magic.

Apple also knows it can leverage the power it has in the music business by allowing artists to set up shop on this social networking site. Users can build in links to their podcast feeds or to their content for sale on iTunes. Apple can begin to compete with MySpace Music on the social side of music distribution.

Remember a while back when Apple wanted to patent the idea of an online store where you could interact with other customers looking at the same product?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9923977-7.html

No doubt Apple will roll this into their new networking site as well. Seamless integration to the Apple store allows users to chat with others looking at the same product online.

Finally, since Apple has such close ties with Google, we might see Google partnering with Apple on this. Microsoft has already made its move into social networking by buying part of FaceBook. Apple might work with Google to make a countermove.

-Ryan Brandys

[Antares]

I just would hope that all the people with a @mac.com email address aren't suddenly finding themselves with a new email address. if that's the case, it would piss a lot of people off.

Like me. I would be furious...I've had my @mac.com e-mail address for over 8 years. I have an immense number of things tied to it and would be screwed over if it disappeared. :eek: :mad:

[ecobach]

Mini-me anyone?

[zync]

I've always hated that people can register whatever they want and then sell it to you at an outrageous price. From the beginning there should have been a rule that any domain must be developed on within a year, and cannot be sold for more than the cost of developing the site, or something along those lines. If a company wished to make money off of their domain in the form of their volume of visitors and whatnot, then they could sell the company to another company who would then own the domain.

I haven't thought that part through, but it's a pain when you're trying to get your site going and have all of these great ideas for a domain name and they're all taken with a freaking holding page up. I'm trying to do something with the domain name and they're back the internet. It's just not right. Screw it though, if .me comes available I'm going to do it too—just to get back at those *******s who did it to me.

[Hawk.]

Mac Etcetera

[chickenninja]

lookout facebook, get a jobb myspace, me.com is goona rock yr t its off

[VoodooDaddy]

so...what happens to the .mac subscriptions we all have bought? I have one that I bought when CompUSA went out of business that I was saving until my current sub runs out in July.

[iMat77]

Mini-me anyone?


I wondered how long it would take... :rolleyes: That is exactly what I had in mind as a joke. ME is not at all creative or innovative and, in my humble opinion, just plain hideous for a service name. :(

Previously suggested email accounts also show how likely it is that this thing turns out to be only a joke.

You have the MacMini and now the MiniMe, Wooooot?! :confused:

Macintosh Enterprise would be much more understandable (since the Mac Business Unit is somewhere in Redmont, so that name is taken).

Anyway... Just wrote to say I don't like that name, not a bit.

AreYouTalkin@me? (Taxi Driver-like email)

[me_94501]

Another interesting idea is the fact that the top level domain .me is just becoming available. How much would you like to bet that Apple is looking to register mobile.me?
OK, I said in an earlier reply to this post that I wouldn't bet on it, but it's still an interesting possibility.

Blairbeckwith, it appears you might be onto something:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/business/news/index.cfm?newsid=21323
(via Gruber (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/june#sun-01-dot_me))

The Macworld.co.uk article, fwiw, is from May 14. And the question is, is Apple actually planning to use these domains as part of a mobile.me service? Or are they simply protecting their copyrights? I guess we'll know soon enough...

[deputylove8]

very interesting...hmmmmmm....i wonder whats in store....

[MacHiavelli]

Wonder how much a domain like me.com is worth?

[aLoC]

Wonder how much a domain like me.com is worth?

A few hundred thousand maybe? Enough to pay 2 developers to work on OS X for a year, which would have been a lot more productive use of it.

[edesignuk]

you missed my edit...

Pizza.com sold for $2.6 million recently.
Fund.com sold (http://www.dnjournal.com/ytd-sales-charts.htm) for $9.9 million in March.

arn...and business.com for $360m (http://blog.domaintools.com/2007/07/business-dotcom-solf-for-360-million/) :eek:

I'd love to know what Apple paid for this, I can easily see it being tens of millions. A lot of you seem to grossly underestimate the value these types of key domains hold.

[Mr Maui]

So several people on here are speculating that Apple might kill the Mac branding.

I can see the commercials with John and Justin now ...

Hi, I'm an Apple Product ... and I'm a PC. :eek:

Me =
Mobile Entertainment?
Mobile Enterprise?

or perhaps "me" just equals "me"

Will the apple store employees say:

"Would you like Me with that?"

"Can I offer you a special offer for Me?"

"You can also have Me for $99."

This would make the Apple Store experience parallel being in a brothel. :eek:

No way they would kill off the email addresses. I use it as well for a LOT of things and I suspect they have a LOT of other people using it for the same thing.

I would be surprised if they didn't just allow people to keep it for as long as they want but new people to sign up for the new @whatever email service

Though i would concur that it is "unlikely" they would kill the e-mail addresses, tell that to people that have had their area codes or zip codes changed on them, most specifically businesses, and have had all of their advertising, stationery, business cards, etc. completely redone.

[chickenninja]

i can just see it now, "just send it to my me" "your you?" "yeah my me" "your ..." "me" "what about you" "im dragonslippers@me send it to me" "yeah dragon slippers at what?" "at me" "i know, but where" "no, to me" "yeah,at you, but where are you at" "Im at me" "no sh it"

[Loge]

Another interesting idea is the fact that the top level domain .me is just becoming available. How much would you like to bet that Apple is looking to register mobile.me?

How about registering me.me, then for the really self-involved among us?

[137489]

Mobile Me does sound kinda lame. :rolleyes: Now, they should've just called it My Mobile. then if they wanted to dis-associate all the i-[name] and .mac (since Apple is also moving into consumer electronics, they could rename their apps to reflect what they really do and it would even be more personal feeling.

My-Work
My-Life
My-DVD
My-Movie
My-Photo
My-Phone
My-Addresses
My-Cal
My-tunes

then email addresses could be <nam e>@mymail.com

Lately this society is "what about me", so why not?

I could just see the commercials now.

guy 1: "Hey, you got my-phone!"
guy 2: "Huh, I do?"
guy 1: "yes, it got my-tunes on it!"
guy 2: "oh really, let me listen"
guy 2: "hummm bumm bumm humm huum"
guy 2: "wow, quite a selection, I wish my phone could do that. What else can this do."
guy 1: "well, let me show you" <demonstrating>
guy 2: "wow, now wonder it's a my-phone, its centered all around my life"



Or in the case of the Mac vs. PC commercials.
"My! its about what I do and it just works."

- or -

How 'bout one poking at how Vista is till having issues and PC waiting on Windows 7.

Mac: "Hey PC, still looking down these days"
PC: "Yeah, Vista just will not cooperate with the way I need to run my life or business"
Mac: "Wow, its been a number of years, I thought you would have worked it out by now?"
PC: "No, nothing is working. I am hoping 7 is really a lucky number."
Mac: "hmm, relying on lucky numbers now?"
PC: "well...."
<Mac guy rips out his new device>"
PC: "What's that?"
Mac: "It's called My-<...> because it is easily centered around the way I work and play"
PC: "Think that thing can help me?"
Mac: "Yes - I can integrate with you, I can work with all your documents, and best of all I can easily go on the road"
PC: "sign, yeah I am still stuck here at my desk trying to fit all the pc's together"

[137489]

I think that Macintosh Enterprise sounds most promising

Cool, to show once and for all that mac's can be productive at the Enterprise level

[Tosser]

Cool, to show once and for all that mac's can be productive at the Enterprise level

Didn't Apple drop the "macintosh" entirely, across the board, making it "Mac" instead?

With that in mind, it would become "Mac Enterprise". Doesn't really have that ring to it, does it?

Mi-cro-soft
Ma-cin-tosh

(syllabels).

[dernhelm]

I can see the commercials with John and Justin now ...

This would make the Apple Store experience parallel being in a brothel. :eek:



I was thinking a commercial with Mac and PC on a first class airline flight. PC has a rude attendant that treats him bad, etc. Mac has a pretty seductive one that politely offers "coffee, tea, ME?".

[ibwb]

A few hundred thousand maybe? Enough to pay 2 developers to work on OS X for a year, which would have been a lot more productive use of it.

That's not a very good analysis of the opportunity cost, since Apple has no shortage of funds to pay OS X developers. The size of the OS X development team is not determined by cost but rather by an understanding of the team sizes that are appropriate for software development projects. Blindly increasing the size of the development team does not lead to better software or a shorter development cycle; it leads to Windows Vista.

[137489]

Another thing I do not like about "ME", umm anyone remember Windows ME (as in Windows Millenium) and how much of a flop that was. :p

Oh wait, I can see it now...

PC: "Hey I was ME first"
Mac "yeah, but we re-invented what ME was supposed to be about, besides its 10 years later"
PC: "Oh, so its not about ME"
Mac: "hmm, no it's about ME now"

[137489]

I was thinking a commercial with Mac and PC on a first class airline flight. PC has a rude attendant that treats him bad, etc. Mac has a pretty seductive one that politely offers "coffee, tea, ME?".

Ouch, you just dove over the line dude...

:( I can see where people's minds are headed on this one..... Can we try to stay clean folks.....:rolleyes:

[!¡ V ¡!]

Macintosh Exchange Server 2008

MESs 2008. ;):D


Who cares what it is called?, :apple: already dropped some of the established and best sounding names in their product titles such as PowerMac, PowerBook, etc...renaming @mac to @me is another nail in the coffin that :apple: is burying its self slowly.

Power... names rolls off the tongue while the Mac...names has an inherent pause to it.

Then there is the iName scheme which is shared with hardware and software, no clear rules for its usage.

:apple: just seems to be a mess in the hardware department and to some extent its GUI Theme in Mac OS X.

Seems they made the guidelines, however don't feel like following it. Must be frustrating for developers. :rolleyes:

[!¡ V ¡!]

Didn't Apple drop the "macintosh" entirely, across the board, making it "Mac" instead?

With that in mind, it would become "Mac Enterprise". Doesn't really have that ring to it, does it?

Mi-cro-soft
Ma-cin-tosh

(syllabels).

Then again Steve Jobs also claimed they would never enter the PDA market and here we have the iPhone. :rolleyes:

:apple: drops products and titles then picks it up again later, it's all marketing. ;):D

[Orng]

But enough about me, YOU talk about me for awhile. :cool:

[137489]

Then again Steve Jobs also claimed they would never enter the PDA market and here we have the iPhone. :rolleyes:

:apple: drops products and titles then picks it up again later, it's all marketing. ;):D

Hmm. Lately I think Apple is about re-inventing and revolutionizing products for a new generation; and looking more into the future of the industry and people's needs. After all (and I know I am going to get blasted for this); Until Apple started back up with it's cool products a few years ago, the whole computing industry was at a stalemate. While some new products were coming out, Windows (and products that run on them) had the same feel, functionality, and fustrations since 1995. Cell Phones were just portable phones - nothing more. PDA's were growing kinda stale for people opting for a laptop instead as the whole pocket computer thing with the Windows CE, never really took off much (people had trouble with their docs being to large for the pocket PC).

Before Apple started with revolutionizing the way we think and work, we had to carry around a cell phone, a PDA (because the phone could not handle it all), a laptop (because both the phone and PDA still lacked what we need on the road).

Apple's revolutionizing is giving a new meaning to mobile computing and having all your information on the go. After all, the large corporation in its big-box building is going away. As more an more outsourcing and contracting out happens; you see less big-box buildings for smaller offices, people on the road, or even like me - working from home.

And working from home does have its benefits (not having to pay for Ga$ to commute). plus with the "virtual office", we have been able to tap into the best employees and not having to worry about if they can move or how long their commute is. You just send the equipment to where they are. I know this does not work for every industry, but any office worker this could work for.

[wilsonxwilson]

I think that me.com has something to do with syncing Adress book and various other devices. All your personal data in Address book is saved under the name 'Me'.

I don't know how they would use it, as some kind of community site/directory or maybe a software community site that you can install on your iphone/computer/ipod and the me.com is used as a user name...

There are lots of community sites but not many/any software community sites... could be a litle niche. :apple:

[MacHiavelli]

A few hundred thousand maybe? Enough to pay 2 developers to work on OS X for a year, which would have been a lot more productive use of it.

Thanks :D

Bucks or quid?

Would have thought it would have been worth a lot more than that. A contact I know enquired about a 4 letter/2 word dot com domain name (just the domain name, not the actual company/business) a few weeks ago and the company which owned it said it was generating about GBP 300k a year and that to replace that kind of income they would need to put at least GBP 6m in the bank (6m x 5% interest = 300,000) and so would only listen to offers in excess of GBP 6m.... which seems fair enough to me.

[running]

this discussion is tl;dr, but "Me" or "Mobile Me" immediately reminds me of "Windows ME"

[MacHiavelli]

A search on google for ME comes up with:

http://www.meassociation.org.uk/

:rolleyes:

[Mr Maui]

Another thing I do not like about "ME", umm anyone remember Windows ME (as in Windows Millenium) and how much of a flop that was.

Please check what came before the ME in that statement ... err ... Windows ...

'Nuff said.

Note: I love this thread ... it's all about me.

[AJsAWiz]

Apple always surprises me and is unpredictable so I have no idea and offering no guesses on the .Me domain name purchase. If used I have very little doubt, based on past performance, that it will be a thrilling addition :D

[anti-microsoft]

Found this :eek::

118263

[Jamvan]

You forgot Steve, the iCEO :cool:

Don't you mean Steve, the iCon (http://www.amazon.com/iCon-Steve-Jobs-Greatest-Business/dp/0471787841/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212426881&sr=8-1)? :rolleyes:

[blairbeckwith]

Found this :eek::

118263

A very poor fake. Look at the top left side edge.

[Mal]

A very poor fake. Look at the top left side edge.

Actually, that's not the giveaway (looks like a box flap, and looks just like the .Mac box images I have), but rather, the fact that all of the text is perfectly horizontal instead of following the angle of the box. You're right though, very poor fake.

jW

[TwinCities Dan]

By the way there is another possibility that has not been explored with me.com:

Blackberry providers let you create Blackberry exchange accounts where you can set up your existing email to receive it as push on your device.

My gf set up her gmail account and linked it to some @bouygues-blackberry.com email address and she now receives her gmail messages with push (bouygues is the operator)

i would not be surprised to learn that the Exchange technology had been set up on the me.com servers to let use generate email addresses and link our own personal email over there.

For everybody worried changing their .mac addresses and how stupid me.com sounds...

Don't you think GuillaumeB hit the nail on the head with this comment, I didn't see any replies to his idea? :confused:

[anti-microsoft]

A very poor fake. Look at the top left side edge.
It's the box flap.


Actually, that's not the giveaway (looks like a box flap, and looks just like the .Mac box images I have), but rather, the fact that all of the text is perfectly horizontal instead of following the angle of the box. You're right though, very poor fake.

jW

Haha I just made it for a bit of fun! I think it's going to be called .me not just me on its own. Obviously mobile me is for the iPhone/ iPod touch.

[mac*jedi*g]

In this case they should use "smac-me.com".:cool: Mobilme.com doesn't sound right.

[carlosbutler]

Maybe this is their way of weaning people away from the name Mac.

Start on the mobile side. iPhone, iPod...

Change the notebooks to AirBook, and AirBook Pro eventually killing the machine in the middle.

They could go with iDesk Mini for the Mini, iDesk for the iMac and iDesk Pro for the Mac Pro.

Just some wild speculation on my part, but they killed the Apple II line pretty harshly. They could kill the Mac name overnight as well.

maybe they will rename, but i hope not to iDesk. that just sounds horrid and its like a cheap rip of the iAnything. so many things after iPod have 'i' infront of them. also if you call it iDesk then it restricts it only to a desk, and some iMacs i have used are on a flat surface, but not a desk. for example in a research lab ontop of a trolley, then in the university research centres etc

[morespce54]

I see what you are saying, but I am still thinking Millions is a little pricy, maybe not. Doesn't matter, they have the money to fork out.

I think they probably paid big money for that. I own a few domain names and let me tell you, they can go pretty pricey... I know it's not Y2K anymore but as more business go on the net, the more money people are ready to pay for the proper name. No matter what, if your business is called "MyBigMachine", you don't want to end-up with a domain name like "MyBigMachineTooYouKnowtheRealOne.org" And the owner of "MyBigMachine.com" knows that ('cause Tyler knows that... ;))

Anyway, a good, easy and short name got is share of values. Could you ever forget "me.com"? Can you spell it wrong? Could you be confused if the service was called "Me"? I don't think I could (for good or bad reasons). ;)

[blairbeckwith]

It's the box flap.

*feels like an idiot*

:rolleyes:

[The Toddfather]

Has anyone noticed the .Mac site is not working now?

[4God]

Has anyone noticed the .Mac site is not working now?

Yup. (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=492655) It seems to have gone down everywhere
at different times.

[tgildred]

@me.com would be a cool address...

anyone really know why a name change is needed?

I call dibs on "look@me.com."

[cheese07]

Yup. (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=492655) It seems to have gone down everywhere
at different times.

Yep it's down and not working in Los Angeles. 5 pm local time. I need my e-mail!!!!!!


I wonder if this has anything to do with Apple revamping the .Mac site or just reg maintenance.

[tgildred]

I could just see the commercials now.

guy 1: "Hey, you got my-phone!"
guy 2: "Huh, I do?"
guy 1: "yes, it got my-tunes on it!"
guy 2: "oh really, let me listen"
guy 2: "hummm bumm bumm humm huum"
guy 2: "wow, quite a selection, I wish my phone could do that. What else can this do."
guy 1: "well, let me show you" <demonstrating>
guy 2: "wow, now wonder it's a my-phone, its centered all around my life"



Or in the case of the Mac vs. PC commercials.
"My! its about what I do and it just works."

- or -

How 'bout one poking at how Vista is till having issues and PC waiting on Windows 7.

Mac: "Hey PC, still looking down these days"
PC: "Yeah, Vista just will not cooperate with the way I need to run my life or business"
Mac: "Wow, its been a number of years, I thought you would have worked it out by now?"
PC: "No, nothing is working. I am hoping 7 is really a lucky number."
Mac: "hmm, relying on lucky numbers now?"
PC: "well...."
<Mac guy rips out his new device>"
PC: "What's that?"
Mac: "It's called My-<...> because it is easily centered around the way I work and play"
PC: "Think that thing can help me?"
Mac: "Yes - I can integrate with you, I can work with all your documents, and best of all I can easily go on the road"
PC: "sign, yeah I am still stuck here at my desk trying to fit all the pc's together"

Please--please--never go into advertising.


;)

[vandozza]

anyone elses .mac account/mail down at the moment?

i usually notice .mac mail goes down once every month or two, but over the last 4-5 days, i've seen this happen 3 times.

making some big behind the scenes changes apple? :)

edit - from the .mac support pages "100% of members might experience slower than normal response when using IMAP mail. Mail can be sent and received using .Mac webmail. Normal service will be restored ASAP."

[mrrory]

My email has been acting a little freaky this afternoon, going offline, asking for my password.. I wonder if they're tinkering with .Mac in preparation for Monday??

[Halon X]

My email has been acting a little freaky this afternoon, going offline, asking for my password.. I wonder if they're tinkering with .Mac in preparation for Monday??

I think they have tinkered a little too much and have now broke it!

Been there, done that ! ! !

[miketcool]

My email has been acting a little freaky this afternoon, going offline, asking for my password.. I wonder if they're tinkering with .Mac in preparation for Monday??

Perfect timing. I needed to respond to an email about a job offer after 3 months of waiting for a summer internship. I have the worst luck. At least you can all suffer with me.

[stefanski]

Hmmmmm, I was bored so I tried a few things on me.com and found this:

http://www.me.com/test.swf

Must be a hint regarding all the rumors surrounding this site :D

There are a few empty directories there as well but test.swf seems to be about the only file I could find...

Now back to some more serious work... :p

[cheese07]

Perfect timing. I needed to respond to an email about a job offer after 3 months of waiting for a summer internship. I have the worst luck. At least you can all suffer with me.

Yep mac.com isn't working either and I have two huge e-mails I need to return right now. This is a major inconvenience!!!!! Come on apple this new update better be good and worth the down time.

[cheese07]

On another note do you all think that existing .mac members will get any and all upgrades if and when the .mac gets revamped, or do you think we will get screwed out of new pricing and or any new features that new customers will get if they sign up for new .mac or .me services or whatever they are going to call it.

[Halon X]

Seems like this is including a lot of people a lot of grief including myself.

Does Apple have any sort of SLA's for their .Mac service?

[AceWilfong]

"I love my Me!"
Gee, I'm not sure...

[miketcool]

Coming in January expect to buy the grammatical bastard child:
meMac

[Tosser]

Coming in January expect to buy the grammatical bastard child:
meMac

Well,
Coming from a company that think different ah, ah, ah -LY, for crying out loud!!

[bdkennedy1]

Well, I'd like to think that the outage is because things are being upgraded for next week (thanks for the warning Apple - just because I'm looking for a job, right?) but I'm not holding my breath. The last time they had an outage this bad, it came back up with nothing changed.

I must be a glutton for punishment, I keep paying every year thinking things are going to change for the better and then nothing.

[Macky-Mac]

well tomorrow is tuesday so maybe they're rolling out the .Mac revision this week

"system status" says "memebers cannot access .Mac Mail"......and can't sign on either

[vohdoun]

Coming in January expect to buy the grammatical bastard child:
meMac


Who stole memac!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5171JR7576L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

[JMax1]

I call dibs on "look@me.com."

Then I call dibs on "stoplooking@me.com"!

[bytethese]

Then I call dibs on "stoplooking@me.com"!

In that case look to see:

stoppeeing@me.com
stopstaring@me.com
dontdrive@me.com (I love GTA 4)

Etc etc. :)

[MacHiavelli]

...and business.com for $360m (http://blog.domaintools.com/2007/07/business-dotcom-solf-for-360-million/) :eek:

I'd love to know what Apple paid for this, I can easily see it being tens of millions. A lot of you seem to grossly underestimate the value these types of key domains hold.

So 6 million quid for a 4 letter/2 word dot com domain name is pretty good value then... :eek:

[AndyClarke]

A but late to post but my email .mac was down yesterday evening in the UK. Certificate problems and passwords issues. It is working fine now. Although once I had a problem on the on my mac I tried my iphone and that seemed fine. Very strange.

100% outage - 100% of members were unable to access mail using an IMAP client. Normal service has been restored.

Has that happened before?