14 DAY TRIAL // As Apple prepares to beef up iCloud with even more exciting features, the company headquartered at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California has officially terminated the predecessor, MobileMe. Users can no longer access any data that hasn’t been transferred and / or downloaded from their MobileMe account.
Starting this week, customers accessing MobileMe.com are directed to iCloud.com, which displays a big “closed” sign with a single option to visit iCloud (pictured above).
“iCloud does more than just store your content,” Apple states on the marketing pages of iCloud. “It lets you access your music, photos, calendars, contacts, documents, and more, from whatever devices you’re on. And it’s built into every new iOS device and every new Mac.”
Provided that your web browser is supported (Firefox, Safari, Chrome), using iCloud will require setting it up with your Apple ID on a device with iOS 5 or a Mac with OS X Lion 10.7.4 or later. If you’ve already done that, you’re good to go.
Although iCloud works fine with OS X Lion, Apple says, “To get the most out of iCloud on your Mac, install OS X Mountain Lion (v10.8).” Mountain Lion is a $19.99 (€15.99) download from the Mac App Store.
Upon login, users are greeted by the five main apps offered by the service: Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Find My iPhone, and iWork (which holds your Documents in the Cloud). With iCloud you also get an ad-free me.com email account that includes webmail at iCloud.com.
With the launch of iOS 6 this fall, iCloud will get brand-new features for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, as well as Windows PC. Shared Photo Streams is a good example. It lets you share just the photos you want, with just the people you choose.