Apple Extending MobileMe to 2012 for all Current Users

Steve Jobs announced the end of MobileMe which is to be replaced by the free iCloud service. Some parts of the iCloud service went online yesterday, meaning that MobileMe would essentially die. Well, not exactly. MobileMe still lives for another year for those who already paid.

MobileMe will be replaced by iCloud

Apple sent out an email to MobileMe subscribers that their subscriptions had been renewed until June 30, 2012 for free. So, there will be no downtime for those of us with @me.com email addresses which will now be included in iCloud. It also means that you get a full year of iDisk support which won’t be included in iCloud.

The free service for existing users isn’t great news for everyone. Apple will no longer sell the MobileMe service to anyone. If you were hoping to beat the crowds and claim your @me.com email by paying for it, you’re out of luck. Don’t worry, you’re not really missing much with the service. Still, the options to buy the service is taken away so nobody else will be able to buy their 20GB of iDisk storage and MobileMe galleries. Perhaps these services will come back later, but they’re gone for now.