What MobileMe Means for Current .Mac Users

ByMike Moffit

If you have a .Mac account, you will automatically be upgraded to a MobileMe account when the service rolls out in July. A change of service email will be sent to your mac.com address when the upgrade occurs. Here’s what current .Mac subscribers can expect as the transition takes place.

First, current mac.com email addresses will continue to work as they do today. If you have any email aliases at mac.com, they will also continue to work. In addition to your mac.com email address, you will also get an address at me.com with the same username when MobileMe is available. For example, if your current email is emily_parker@mac.com, you will get emily_parker@me.com. You can send from whichever address you choose. The choice is yours. You will still receive email sent to your mac.com address so you won’t miss any emails. All of existing email messages with MobileMe Mail will continue to exist, along with contacts in your .Mac Address Book.

Your @mac.com ID will still work as an Apple ID for purchases on the iTunes Store, Apple Online Store, and Apple print products created with iPhoto or Aperture. Once MobileMe becomes available, you may continue to use your @mac.com ID or your new me.com ID as an Apple ID. Both names will access the same ID. Your @mac.com ID will still work for iChat. You will also be able to use your @me.com ID for iChat. However, it will be separate from your mac.com iChat ID and will work only as long as your MobileMe subscription is active.

With MobileMe, you will get twice as much storage as you did with .Mac. Individual subscription storage doubles from 10GB to 20GB. Family Packs now get 40GB of storage: 20GB for the main account and 5GB for each of the four sub-accounts. If you purchased a storage upgrade, it will also be upgraded at no additional charge, so a 10GB storage upgrade is now 20GB. Your new total storage will be 40GB, and a 20GB storage upgrade is now 40GB. Your new total storage will be 60GB. The storage increase is effective after MobileMe launches, and may take up to 10 days to appear on all accounts.

All existing iDisk files will be available on MobileMe iDisk. Backup 3.1.2 will continue to work with MobileMe.

Back to My Mac will continue to work, this time with MobileMe instead of .Mac.

Your Web Gallery will still be available at the same URL and will also be given a new URL at me.com. For example, gallery.mac.com/emily_parker/ will work as will gallery.me.com/emily_parker (both will go to the same website).

Your iWeb web site will still be available at the same URLs and will also be given a new URL at me.com. For example, web.mac.com/emily_parker/ will work as will web.me.com/emily_parker (both will go to the same website). If you have a personal domain setup for your iWeb site, it will continue to work without changing any settings at your registrar.

Can I continue to use my mac.com ID for iChat?

Your @mac.com ID will still work for iChat. You will also be able to use your @me.com ID for iChat. However, it will be separate from your mac.com iChat ID and will work only as long as your MobileMe subscription is active.

Web access to bookmarks, iCards, .Mac slides, and support for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther sync will be discontinued (bookmark sync between your Macs and/or PCs will still be supported).

MobileMe will cost the same as .Mac, $99 per year. A 60-day free trial will be available when iPhone 2.0 software ships in early July. Again, current .Mac subscribers will automatically be upgraded to MobileMe. MobileMe’s web applications use the latest web technologies, so you will need Safari 3 or Firefox 2 on a Mac, or Safari 3, Firefox 2 or Internet Explorer 7 on a PC. Other browsers will likely work, but these are the browsers Apple recommends. On a Mac, MobileMe requires the latest versions of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (use Software Update to update to the latest versions).

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