How is icloud different than mobileme

With iCloud, clues suggest that Apple is finally getting serious with online media services. The company began building a ,square-foot data center in North Carolina in , which would support an enormous volume of data. Further revealing Apple's ambitions for online media, the company acquired music-streaming service Lala in , and its new Apple TV set-top box transitioned to internet-streamed video rentals in NPD's Rubin believes that similar to competitors offering cloud services, Apple will integrate iCloud as a cross-platform solution -- as it does with iTunes -- while leveraging the service for Apple customers by giving special perks to owners of iPhones, iPads and Macs.

Brian recently wrote a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On published June 7, by Da Capo. Check out Brian's Google Profile. Editor Twitter. For others, using MobileMe was like walking into a briar patch. MobileMe defenders often praise the product in its entirety —for its slate of combined services—rather than calling out the merits of any particular feature.

But few people actually used every component of MobileMe. And even from aficionados, we rarely heard ringing accolades. Even when arguably good features were added to MobileMe, they seemed more complex to set up than they should have been. The reader comments on that page more or less typify contentious user assessments of MobileMe. First, there was the way-cool mac. But seriously, where else in the year could you find services like iCards, HomePage, and KidSafe—for free? Two and a half years later, as demand for storage space and those still-cool mac.

The rebranded service worked with the new Mac OS X and offered more features, such as calendar syncing, anti-virus protection, and backup. The name seemed a little awkward, what with the dot up front. But it was likely the expense of the service that cooled public excitement.

Mac paying customer. Then Apple came up with the name MobileMe, in an effort to make the Internet service more consumer-friendly and device inclusive, and less Mac-centric.

Launching on June 9, , the name was derided on message boards and Mac user forums. To many, it sounded silly and unprofessional. If you haven't yet transitioned data stored on MobileMe to another service, you can still download Gallery and iDisk files from me. Apple put up an informational website to help ease the pain of MobileMe's shutdown, including links to longer articles for people looking to transition from iDisk. And for people who aren't interested in any type of Apple cloud storage solution, there's a host of alternatives available.

Photo Stream automatically uploads images from your iPhone or other iOS device and syncs those as well—and they can be viewed using an Apple TV for slideshow fun. You can sync iWork documents among all your linked devices, and iOS devices can be backed up to iCloud instead of iTunes.

All these new abilities, however, come with a downside. Apple has emphatically stated that iWeb publishing, iDisk storage and file sharing, and the photo and video Gallery feature are going away. These services will exist in their current form until Apple pulls the plug on MobileMe next June.

There are also other less obvious side effects. You will no longer be able to use me. Existing e-mail aliases will continue to work, but you won't be able to create any new ones on iCloud.