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Earlier this month, we noted that the original golden master version of iOS 4.2 appeared to be preparing to allow users to sign in to MobileMe using their Apple IDs and even offer users the ability create a free Apple ID right from the MobileMe settings page in iOS. At the time, we cautioned about reading too much into the change but speculated that Apple could be looking at bringing some of the features of the paid MobileMe service to a new free offering tied to users' Apple IDs. At a minimum, it appeared that Apple was looking to create a consolidated login to allow MobileMe users to access features with their Apple IDs.

New evidence uncovered in recent iOS 4.2 builds and the iOS 4.2.1 golden master seed is suggesting, however, that Apple will be offering a free MobileMe tier to users. The evidence comes in the form of a new private framework known as AppleAccounts.framework that includes a series of device-specific error messages referring to free MobileMe accounts. In particular, the error messages include alerts regarding having reached "the maximum number of free accounts" for a given device and certain devices not being "qualified for free MobileMe service".


223724-mrme.png


The framework has been localized for dozens of languages and countries, and is not present in the currently-shipping iOS 4.1. Meanwhile, an error message in another part of iOS suggests that free accounts may be used for features other than email, as an error message specifically restricts certain Apple IDs from being used with MobileMe Mail:
"This Apple ID cannot be used for MobileMe Mail, but you can use it for other MobileMe services."
Other MobileMe iPhone services include Find My iPhone, iDisk, Contact/Calendar/Safari/Notes over-the-air sync, and Photo Galleries.

This might fit nicely with a previously unconfirmed rumor that Apple would begin offering MobileMe syncing services for free. Over-the-air syncing has been an area where iOS has lagged in comparison to Google's Android operating system.

Article Link: Apple to Offer Free MobileMe Service to Some iOS Users?
 
So jeez are they finally going to flip the switch on the big data center when they release 4.2.1? Free MobileMe calendar and contact syncing would go a long way with folks I should think.

That said, i have high hopes for a far larger MM redux, one centered on a proper file system (or app) that allows for seamless workflows in/out of all apps, and also plays nicely with the cloud.
 
Free Find my iPhone would be nice. That's the only thing I'd want from MobileMe.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8B117)

I wonder which devices would not be qualified?
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8B117)

I pay the regular yearly fee for this service. For my money I should hope that very few Premium features of the service I pay for find their way into this supposed free version. Or else cut the fee I pay in half.
 
Among all of the features, I am only interested in Find My Phone and Remote Wipe. I am happy with Dropbox, but if iDisk support is built into the system so that every app utilizes it automatically, that may come in handy. In any case, I rarely use Dropbox, so it does not matter all that much.

I don't see the utility of "Contact/Calendar/Safari/Notes over-the-air sync" for myself. They get synced and backed up when I am charging my phone at home, that is frequent enough for me.
 
I currently pay for MobileMe and use all it's features.

Yet that said, I find it woefully overpriced. If not free, Apple could cut down the price by half, and still make a nice profit. At the current MSRP it leaves a bad impression and reinforces the fact that there is an Apple Tax Premium. Fanboys will deny it till their final breath, but it's very real. What a racket.
 
I figured they would hold this until iOS 5, but it sounds like it's coming to iOS 4.

I don't see the utility of "Contact/Calendar/Safari/Notes over-the-air sync" for myself. They get synced and backed up when I am charging my phone at home, that is frequent enough for me.

Except there's a lot of iPhone/iPod customers that never sync to iTunes. I'm always reminding friends and acquaintances to connect their phones to iTunes because they're on old firmware versions.
 
the only feature I can see being free is iDisk.

Currently iOS doesn't have a visible file system, if I create a Document in Pages, I have to plug in my iPad to iTunes to extract the file or email it to myself. If Apple offered iDisk free on every iOS device, that would make things a lot more easier.

This is a big reason why I use Dropbox, I can be on my iMac, drop in a file and have it go to my iPhone/iPad and iPod touch all at once, and vice versa.
 
MobileMe is getting expensive for the limited functionality it provides. Too much functionality in iLife depends on MobileMe.

Yes, I subscribe to MobileMe.

Apple need to improve.. especially the iDisk which has been unusable since day one.

I'd like to see:
* multiple domain name support for web space
* domain names for email addresses
* scripting language, be it PHP , or other. HTML is too limited.

The new Calendar App didn't work correctly, it trashed all my calendar entries past 30 days, and still didn't return after 24 hours... Looking on Apple discussions, plenty of people also had the same problem. Fortunately, I had a recent iCal backup.
 
I don't care about mobileme web hosting or data storage. I just want it to sync contacts/calendars/email. All stuff that's low data.. if they offered that for free I'd love it.
 
Me.com's login page has also been changed. It used to be you'd enter your MobileMe username. Now, you enter your username@me.com. It has javascript to populate the me.com, but if you use a password filler like 1password, you need to make sure @me.com is in the field.

That change definitely seems like they'll enable non-me.com apple ids.
 
I'd say sign up now for the 60d trial so you can reserve a good username before a flood of users sign up! I think it holds your username for you even if the trial expires and you dont renew
 
Well, on 4.2.1 under mobileme it does say "use mobileme with your apple id or mobileme email address". I used ebay for my mobile me subscription, but would love to see some free features.
 
If they offer a free tier, I would guess it would include syncing of Calender and contacts (maybe a @me.com account). Find my iPhone and picture gallery would be appropriate in a free version as well. But I would think the 20GB of iDisk and the @me.com account would be the benefits of a paid account.
 
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