July 1, 2012: Apple shuts down its MobileMe internet service, pushing customers to modify to iCloud.
Launched in 2008, Apple’s subscription-based suite of on-line companies and software program contains options like Discover My iPhone, a MobileMe photograph gallery, chat services, a web-based calendar, storage and different cloud-based companies.
After letting it limp alongside for 4 years, Cupertino lastly decides to drag the plug, giving MobileMe customers till the tip of July to take away their information from the service.
MobileMe: Apple’s failed iCloud precursor
Apple’s ill-fated iCloud precursor was an early try at operating a cloud-based subscription service. In contrast to as we speak’s month-to-month choices, Apple priced MobileMe at $99 as a one-off fee for a person plan or $149 for a Household Pack. Cupertino additionally provided top-up choices for these wanting so as to add storage.
MobileMe was a part of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ “digital hub” technique, introduced quickly after his return to Apple within the late Nineties. Apple had experimented with subscription-based web companies for Mac customers because the early 2000s. MobileMe expanded these efforts to cowl iPhone and iPod contact house owners, whereas overhauling the service for OS X.
On paper, it sounded nice. In follow, it by no means lived as much as its promise. As early as August 4, 2008 — only a month after delivery — Jobs apologized for MobileMe’s botched rollout.
“It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store,” he wrote in an e-mail to staff.
MobileMe was a uncommon Steve Jobs misfire
Behind the scenes, Jobs was livid in regards to the MobileMe debacle. In keeping with a Fortune article, he gathered the accountable staff collectively within the Apple auditorium and requested them, “Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?”
When some individuals started to stammer solutions, Jobs snapped: “So why the f**k doesn’t it do that?”
In his e-mail to Apple staff, he promised to make MobileMe “a service we are all proud of,” however this by no means actually occurred. By 2011, Apple stopped promoting MobileMe to new prospects. iCloud changed MobileMe that October. The July loss of life of MobileMe got here as no shock, however marked the tip of considered one of Jobs’ uncommon misfires.
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