Mac Musings

Leaving MobileMe Behind

Daniel Knight - 2009.12.01 -

Follow Low End Mac's blogs: LEMblog and Low End Mac Services.

It's time to say good-bye to MobileMe.

I started using Apple's online service, originally known as iTools, when it was free. It was nice to have an email address that promoted the Mac with every message I sent from my_name@mac.com. In addition to free email, Apple also provided HomePage to host a small personal website and iDisk, where you could store files on Apple's servers.

iTools had been launched in early 2000. But when Apple announced in mid-2002 that it would no longer be free, I looked at my use of the service, weighed the benefits, and concluded that since I only used it for email at that time, it wasn't worth $99 a year. But Apple offered a $50 discount, and in the end I decided to renew - as I've done every year since.

Apple renamed the service .mac (dot-mac) when it went from free to fee, and as I became an OS X user, I found more reasons to keep using it. iSync let my synchronize my Address Book, iCal calendars, Safari bookmarks, and passwords among two or more Macs. Combined with email, I figured it was worth $99 a year.

In July 2008, .mac became MobileMe, putting more emphasis on the iPhone and iPod touch - and less on the Mac. Over time, HomePage has disappeared, a real disappointment to many who had used it to promote their freeware and shareware apps. (That said, iWeb users can still have a personal online presence on the me.com domain.)

When I had two or three production Macs, including a PowerBook, it made a lot of sense to use .mac. I could make sure that both eMacs and the PowerBook had the same iCal and Address Book data. I could make sure that site passwords used on one Mac would be in the keychain of the other Macs.

However, I no longer work that way. My two production Macs sit side-by-side on my desk, and while I'm still using iSync to synchronize things between them, the day has already come when that is no longer necessary. I really don't need Address Book and iCal on my Tiger machine, since I do all of my email and scheduling on the Leopard machine right next to it. I don't use Safari enough to bother with synchronizing its bookmarks, and since I do 90% of my browsing on the Leopard Power Mac, I don't really need to synchronize the password keychains either.

I renewed MobileMe last year before finances got tight, and thanks to some extended outages, Apple extended every user's account by a few months. However, finances are very tight (in addition to working full time on Low End Mac, I've been working a third-shift job at Kohl's since October), and I can no longer justify spending $99 for something that is a convenience but not a necessity.

I'm not going to be replacing MobileMe. I already have several free email addresses thanks to Gmail and Yahoo Mail. I can use Google Calendar if I want an online calendar. I have lowendmac.com to hosting my website and a few software downloads (all freeware or shareware). I backup regularly. I can get by without MobileMe.

My MobileMe subscription ends on December 28, 2009, and after nearly ten years, I will no longer have an email address @mac.com. I can live without it.

Good-bye, MobileMe.