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 providers and software program contains options like Discover My iPhone, a MobileMe photograph gallery, chat amenities, an internet calendar, storage and different cloud-based providers.
After letting it limp alongside for 4 years, Cupertino lastly decides to drag the plug, giving MobileMe customers till the top of July to take away their knowledge from the service.
MobileMe: Apple’s failed iCloud precursor
Apple’s ill-fated iCloud precursor was an early try at working a cloud-based subscription service. Not like at present’s month-to-month choices, Apple priced MobileMe at $99 as a one-off cost 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 providers for Mac customers because the early 2000s. MobileMe expanded these efforts to cowl iPhone and iPod contact homeowners, whereas overhauling the service for OS X.
On paper, it sounded nice. In observe, 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 similtaneously iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software program and the App Retailer,” he wrote in an electronic mail to staff.
MobileMe was a uncommon Steve Jobs misfire
Behind the scenes, Jobs was livid in regards to the MobileMe debacle. In accordance to a Fortune article, he gathered the accountable staff collectively within the Apple auditorium and requested them, “Can anybody inform me what MobileMe is meant to do?”
When some individuals started to stammer solutions, Jobs snapped: “So why the f**ok doesn’t it do this?”
In his electronic mail to Apple staff, he promised to make MobileMe “a service we’re all happy with,” however this by no means actually occurred. By 2011, Apple stopped promoting MobileMe to new clients. iCloud changed MobileMe that October. The July demise of MobileMe got here as no shock, however marked the top of certainly one of Jobs’ uncommon misfires.
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