No silver lining
Apple has revealed that for a number of its old MobileMe services, iCloud will have no silver lining, as the transition from the former to the latter will see the retirement of the MobileMe Gallary, iDisk and iWeb.
In a set of 'frequently asked questions' about the MobileMe to iCloud transision, posted by Apple of Friday, the company explained what would happen to the services previously available via MobileMe, once the service is supplanted by iCloud. For the most part the news is good - all subscribers to MobileMe get free extension of their service until 10 June 2010. Thereafter, however, users of the MobileMe Gallary photo storage, iDisk web storage, and iWeb website publishing platform will have to look for alternative solutions, as these three MobileMe features will no longer be available.
Users of iWeb hosting on MobileMe are advised to find alternative hosting, as there's nothing special about the website format Apple's application publishes in. iDisk users, conversely, are left to their own devices as to finding a suitable replacement (Dropbox would seem the most obvious alternative). Finally, photos stored in a MobileMe Gallery will need to be downloaded - Apple recommends via iPhoto, which should be the simplest method, but a web interface is available too.
After 30 June next year, all of the aforementioned content will be deleted from Apple's servers. Contacts, email, calendar entries and saved bookmarks (in Safari) will be transferred across to iCloud, which will also see the addition of new features such as iTunes and documents in the cloud, and automatic online app storage.
Those relying on MobileMe services currently may be a bit perturbed about having to find an alternative, but it would be unfair to say that Apple hasn't given due notice as to the termination of MobileMe. And the replacement is likely to be a far more universally embraced offering that Mobile Me ever was.
