We know Apple is serious about mobile software and hardware, and it looks like they are getting ready to prove that they’re also serious about the cloud. There have been many rumors about an iTunes digital locker, a rebranding of MobileMe, and a major software / hardware announcement in the fall. It is exciting to think that in the next several months we may see some significant new software products from Apple. And so, as any respectable Apple-centric blogger knows, it’s part of the job description to post wild speculations about what we think will happen and when.
It seems to be a done deal that iCloud will be introduced later this year, perhaps at the time of the Lion launch, and that it will take over most of the functions of the current MobileMe/iDisk duo. It’s probably too disruptive to consider changing the @me.com email domain and that is likely to continue.
Shawn Blanc is as capable as any of us in predicting the opportunities to be created with iCloud. He believes that many of the synchronisation and storage options (up to a limit of 2GB) will be free for anyone with an Apple ID but that the email service will continue to be a chargeable item, albeit at a much lower rate than that current MobileMe subscription.