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Apple to Offer Free Tier of iCloud Without Music Streaming? 'Aggressive' Pricing for Mac OS X Lion?

I think they'll keep MobileMe as the name of Apple's email service. @me.com is much more lucrative than @icloud.com and I'm sure they're not going to go through the change all over again.

Can't wait for 6 June. Just wish Apple will stream it live this time unlike the iPad 2 event !
 
Back up cloud service should be free for ALL Apple hardware owners. I'm sure there will be tiers for larger qty back up.

Streaming of your media content will unlikely be free. We can at least hope for repeat downloads from iTunes for purchased content. It's difficult to imagine free streaming given the large variety of means, legal and illegal, someone can obtain media content. Restricting streaming to iTunes purchases only seems like it would stir up to many anticompetition issues, but we'll see.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8J2)

The ultimate iOSification of Lion would be to make it a free update.
 
Some parts of iCloud have to be free or they'll never get used. For example: Game Center. Cloud saving, support for multiple same-device accounts, and cross-device sync should be assumed features for the platform that can be wrapped up in a basic, default tier.

Things like music streaming ("Save space on your device! Access your entire library!") can be easily considered extras.
 
I have a feeling it won't be available right away and won't be as functional as we want it to be, but I guess we'll see..
 
Menopause said:
I think they'll keep MobileMe as the name of Apple's email service. @me.com is much more lucrative than @icloud.com and I'm sure they're not going to go through the change all over again.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree. I'll be shocked if they change @me.

There's nothing wrong with "Mobile Me E-Mail" being a feature of "iCloud." No reason they have to change it.
 
Lunarstone said:
Transition from .me.com to .icloud.com I believe will proceed with or without user consent
Click to expand...

I see no reason why it wouldn't be the same as the .mac to MobileMe transition. Those that signed up when it was @mac.com got to keep that and gained the same username @me.com. So current MobileMe subscribers will get emails that work at @me.com and @icloud.com and those that were around when it was .mac like myself will keep @mac.com also.
 
This having to pay to update OSes rankles with me anyway (I don't care what anyone else thinks), but now as a long-time MobileMe user (MM being integrated in part of my life) they're going to twist my arm even further by giving me an ultimatum: change to Lion or keep paying up for MobileMe? Aren't the free alternatives ever increasing?
 
pmz said:
As a MobileMe member paid through January, I expect a full featured iCloud service immediately on it's launch.

And Im not changing my email to @icloud.com
Click to expand...

Seriously, @me is awful they need to go back to @mac that makes the most sense and sounds the best.
 
I was pretty sure this was going to be the offer. Googles got the cloud syncing thing down pat and Apple had nothing to show except a seriously over priced MobileMe service. I'm happy to see or hear that the should be fixed soon. All I really think anyone will care about is the free syncing.
 
pmz said:
As a MobileMe member paid through January, I expect a full featured iCloud service immediately on it's launch.

And Im not changing my email to @icloud.com
Click to expand...

+1

I paid mobile me for the next year or so (got it for $49 on amazon). The service sucks and I'm afraid I will end up with another email address (mac.com -> me.com -> icloud.com). The last "upgrade" was a major pain and I expect nothing different this time.
 
For once I really hope a MacRumor is true.
My MobileMe sub expires in 2 weeks.
If I can get Lion and use iCloud for app/file syncing and keep my mail and calendar without renewing, I'd be in heaven.

The one feature I have absolutely zero interest in is music syncing. I think Apple puts WAY too much importance on the degree to which people want to organize their lives around their music collection. (e.g. Ping.)
And I say this as a musician.
 
MrSmith said:
This having to pay to update OSes rankles with me anyway (I don't care what anyone else thinks), but now as a long-time MobileMe user (MM being integrated in part of my life) they're going to twist my arm even further by giving me an ultimatum: change to Lion or keep paying up for MobileMe? Aren't the free alternatives ever increasing?
Click to expand...

Really? You rankle at having to pay for major OS updates, even when the last one cost $29...? Do you know any software programmers? Have you any idea of the amount of work that goes into a major OS release?
If you don't want to pay, find a free distribution of Unix. Just don't expect Apple (or Microsoft) to give away the major releases of their OSes for free.
 
karthi said:
Rather than free, I would prefer more reliable service, with more features. Though I did not have any problems with mobileme recently, I don't fell confident about reliability of current offerings.
Click to expand...

I would definitely pay for a more reliable service, but this is definitely an area where Google excels. Google Apps integration with Android works really well and is free.

I just want my iPhones and Macs to have a seamless cloud syncing experience. I want it to "just work" like a Mac. Apple has to succeed at this now because the time has definitely come. You don't get to ignore the cloud and stay relevant anymore, not in 2011.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_8 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E401 Safari/6533.18.5)

Makes perfect sense. MobileMe already has the tools for this set up. Syncing contacts, calendars, email etc. Files already have cloud storage on iDisk. They could easily rebrand those features as iCloud and make them free.

I think the cloud based music player is cool, but it's a niche for now. The average person doesn't have more than a few gigs of music, which is easily transported everywhere already. The music feature will be important as devices shrink and cellular data gets fast enough to be reliable for such purposes.
 
pmz said:
As a MobileMe member paid through January, I expect a full featured iCloud service immediately on it's launch.

And Im not changing my email to @icloud.com
Click to expand...

Hey, if a few meaningless characters at the end of your email address mean that much to you, by all means give Apple your $99+/yr. Its your money.

BTW, no way will anyone's *@me.com address go away. Converting would be more headache than its worth for Apple. They went through this once before.
 
flipshot said:
I see no reason why it wouldn't be the same as the .mac to MobileMe transition. Those that signed up when it was @mac.com got to keep that and gained the same username @me.com. So current MobileMe subscribers will get emails that work at @me.com and @icloud.com and those that were around when it was .mac like myself will keep @mac.com also.
Click to expand...

when you send emails from anm iOS device you have to send them as name@me.com regardless if you had a .mac account or if you want to use aliases (a funcionality we paid for!). if I have to send out emails with the name@icloud.com I'm switching to google.
 
andiwm2003 said:
+1

I paid mobile me for the next year or so (got it for $49 on amazon). The service sucks and I'm afraid I will end up with another email address (mac.com -> me.com -> icloud.com). The last "upgrade" was a major pain and I expect nothing different this time.
Click to expand...

And you think Apple learned nothing from the .Mac -> MobileMe conversion?
 
People worrying about @icloud.com :D

I'm pretty sure Apple won't change the name of MobileMe's email service.

I think iCloud is a collection of services for 'me' which will exclusively be used for any iCloud service provided by Apple. iCloud is a wrapper around MobileMe.

In my opinion, MobileMe is effectively gone. The only things that are there now are:

1. iCloud [target name]
2. "me" services.

That's what I think. :|
 
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