14 DAY TRIAL // In what was an expected move on behalf of Apple, the Cupertino-based Mac maker has officially added MobileMe support for the iPad, including a “find my iPad feature” that enables customers to locate their device, or remotely wipe its contents at any time.
“MobileMe keeps your email, contacts, and calendar in the ‘cloud’ and automatically syncs across your iPad, Mac, PC, iPhone, and the web,” Apple states, going through the usual description of the service. “So no matter where you go or what device you use, your information stays up to date over the air — no docking required. And if you ever lose your iPad, MobileMe can help you find it,” Apple adds.
Weighing in on the latter aspect, the company stresses that, “If you misplace your iPad, MobileMe can help you find it.” You simply need to log in to me.com to view a map that shows the approximate location of your device. In a worst case scenario – your iPad gets stolen –, the same feature can help you recover it.
“Your iPad contains information you don’t want in the hands of a stranger,” Apple informs. “So if you lose your iPad and displaying a message on it hasn’t resulted in its safe return, you can remotely lock it with a passcode or initiate a remote wipe and restore factory settings,” customers are told. This particular feature has been available to iPhone users for a while now. “If you eventually find your iPad, you can restore your email, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks by enabling your MobileMe account on iPad,” the Mac maker claims.
MobileMe is an Apple-developed service that replaces the former .Mac (dot Mac). It automatically pushes new email, contacts and calendar events to your Mac, PC, iPhone and iPod touch, so that your information stays up-to-date across all your devices. It’s not supported by the iPad as well. The changes you make on one device are automatically “pushed” to the MobileMe “cloud,” then back to every device you use. Besides push email, push calendar and push contacts, MobileMe also offers web applications at me.com, a MobileMe Gallery for photo sharing, MobileMe iDisk for online document access and 20GB of online storage. The subscription service requires a monthly fee.
Apple recently released an updated version of the MobileMe Control Panel for Windows users. Learn more here.