Apple Schedules MobileMe Maintenance for 10:00 pm Tonight

Apple has started notifying MobileMe subscribers that the service will be undergoing “scheduled maintenance” starting at 10:00 pm (PT) tonight. MobileMe is a cloud-based service that replaced .Mac (dot Mac). MobileMe automatically pushes new email, contacts, and calendar events to the customers’ iPhone, Mac, and PC, so their devices always stay in sync.

“Due to scheduled maintenance, some MobileMe members may be unable to sync between their computers, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch or view their contacts and calendars at me.com,” Apple is telling subscribers.

“Normal service is expected to be restored at the end of the maintenance window. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

The duration of the outages is:

MobileMe Account Maintenance – 12/14/2010 22:00-23:00 PT

MobileMe Sync Maintenance – 12/14/2010 22:00 PT – 12/15/2010 00:00 PT

MobileMe is closely integrated with Mac OS X, allowing those with a MobileMe account to extend the functions of many programs, mostly those within the iLife suite.

iDisk can be mounted as any other volume on the Mac OS X desktop, and it is possible to mount the public portion of another user's iDisk as well.

Any Address Book entries, iCal events and to-do entries, Safari bookmarks and keychains, mail accounts, mail rules, mail signatures, and smart mailboxes can be synchronized with iDisk.

During the iOS 4.2 launch, Apple used the announcement to confirm that its Find My iPhone feature, previously available only via a MobileMe subscription, had become a free service to users of an iPhone 4, iPad, or a new-model iPod touch (4th generation).

MobileMe integrates with various applications on iOS devices as well. This includes iCal syncing with Calendar, Address Book syncing with Contacts, Mail syncing across devices, Safari Bookmarks syncing across devices, and more.