Hi, I'm Michael Mistretta, a teenager passionate about technology, photography, and God. Welcome to my online home where I write about technology, reviews, and my thoughts and opinions on technology-related matters. 
There has been a lot of talk around the web about .Mac’s successor and it’s rumored appearance at WWDC on Monday. It started with the 10.5.3 update changing all .Mac references to a localizable string—%@—as opposed to a hard-coded name, possibly implying that Apple could change the name of .Mac in the OS with a small update.
The rumor grew as references to “MobileMe” were found in Apple patents and iPhone SDK beta strings. Then Apple was discovered to have purchased “me.com” as well as a variety of new top-level .me domains such as apple.me, ipod.me, and itunes.me.
Something is happening with .Mac—everybody knows that. The question remains as to what Apple will do to their web-based software as a service suite. I believe that if Apple plays their cards right, the new .Mac—or MobileMe—will be far bigger, and more important than the 3G iPhone announcement.
The Master Plan
Apple has always wanted full control of the hardware and the software of any device they’ve manufactured. They want you to have the best experience on your Mac, your iPod, and your iPhone. Apple, and more specifically, Steve Jobs, want to be in control of the experience you have with your Apple products.
While your Mac and your iPhone might function and integrate perfectly, there is something missing that connects them. Currently, the only “integration” between the Mac and the iPhone is a two-foot, USB cable that may occasionally get plugged in. That’s not the seamless integration and design that defines the Apple experience.
Apple’s goal—and the reason for their existence—is to integrate and control your experience across all your devices. And while Apple has succeeded at creating a stunning Mac and iPhone experience, there has always been an area that Apple has had little to no control in—the Cloud.
Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing is nothing new—I’ve written about it’s pros and cons before. Apple has a chance to completely revolutionize the cloud computing space. They have the advantage over any other company (Adobe, Google, Microsoft, etc.) because they already control the hardware and software. Combine this seamless online experience with your desktop, laptop, and iPhone, and you’ll never have to leave the cohesiveness of the Apple environment.
Apple can begin to change the way people use the Internet even with existing .Mac technologies. Kyle Baxter—author of TightWind, one of my favourite new blogs—beat me to publishing a brilliant piece on the integration of .Mac with the iPhone:
I can imagine Apple enabling iDisk on the iPhone so you are never “disconnected” from it — it connects more or less invisibly to your iPhone. No FTP login, password, and directory data to input, no UI even necessarily needed to login and connect — it does it itself.
Placing a file on your iPhone would not require the annoying steps of mounting it on your desktop, dropping it into your phone, and dismounting it. Instead, you would just drop the file in your iDisk, and suddenly that file is available to all of your devices, seamlessly. Forgot to print out a homework assignment or paper? No big deal; just access your iDisk on your iPhone and email it.
Effectively, your iPhone and your Mac would be tied together at all times by shared storage, whether they are physically connected or not.
This is just the beginning of the power that a connected experience will bring to the iPhone. Forget about an Internet connection simply meaning the ability to surf the web. The Internet will begin to be associated with the term “connected”. When connected to Apple’s online “Me” service, all of your devices will sync up—contacts, calendars, emails, passwords, and notes.
But imagine the possibilities beyond that. Imagine if Apple positions this “Me” service along with it’s mobile division rumored to be called “MobileMe”, as a consumer’s identity management. This service will know the podcasts and RSS feeds you subscribe to. It will know your user names and passwords for all the popular social networking sites. It will know the IP addresses of all your devices at any time, and will be able to access any file, located on any device at a moments notice. It will know precisely where you are via GPS or triangulation. Yes, it may sound terrifying that one company has all this power—but imagine the potential.
No one company has ever been able to successfully pull off a move this big, because they simply do not have the leverage that Apple does. They did not have control of both the hardware and the software. And that is what cloud computing is truly about.
The Apple Way
.Mac is not going to be overhauled. It’s going to be entirely revamped from the bottom up. And if Apple does this right, they can become the first company with a complete 360° solution. In order for this to catch on though, they need to do a couple things:
- Give it away: In order to do this right, Apple has to make it free. Free as in Google free. Make the online services accessible to everyone. Make it so that you get a free access to “Apple Online Services” with the purchase of an iPhone or Mac. Make it so that pro users can pay a minimal annual fee to upgrade their features.
- Ensure that it’s more reliable than Twitter: If I’m going to be sending you all my private information, I want to be sure that I can access it at any time. And having it work 24/7 would be a bonus as well. .Mac isn’t really known for it’s reliability and stability—hopefully Apple will work to improve this before launch.
- Don’t duplicate services already in place: I love making .Mac Web Galleries. They’re beautiful, dead-simple to make, and integrate perfectly with the iApps and Aperture. But I’d much rather use Flickr with an established community. Don’t try to replace Facebook or Google or Flickr or Twitter. Make the new .Mac’s goal simple: To integrate all Apple devices with services on the Internet. Integrate the Apple experience with other online services (i.e. Flickr and YouTube upload from the iPhone)
Apple has the opportunity to do something game-changing with .Mac. Something that can, potentially, be bigger than the 3G iPhone. Brett Peters says it best: “Faster bandwidth allows me to do the same things I already do, only … faster. It’s equivalent to an incremental increase in storage capacity or processor speed. That’s just not sexy.”
Steve Jobs is not going to go on stage, come Monday, and announce a 3G iPhone that everybody knows about, without telling us the super-cool Star Trek-like things that we will be able to do because of this 3G technology. RIM, Nokia, Samsung—better watch closely.
I have to say Michael, you beat me to this post. I agree almost 100% on this. Something I have really stressed in my blog is that Apple and Steve Jobs are visionaries. When ever they release products, they do it with a plan of something great. Maybe with .Mac, they had a really amazing vision of having all of your offline iLife apps being seamlessly connected and integrated with your own personal space on the web. At the time, it sounded like an amazing thing, but the competition caught up to them and people found easier and better ways to do these things (flickr vs. web gallery). With mobileme and me.com, Apple is going to be doing something that no one else will be able to compete with. Why? Exactly what you said, they have total control. They wont just be integrating the web with the iLife apps, they will be integrating your whole computer with the web. Doing this means your computer can be connected with your iPhone. I think Steve Jobs has a plan to brings your computer to your iPhone. He has already figured out the way that will blow our minds…
Comment by Gabe Jacobs — June 7, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
What you propose would be absolutely wonderful, but I can’t really see it happening… Methonks a lot of people are going to be dissapointed come Tuesday… All this hype is getting ridiculous.
Comment by Andre — June 8, 2008 @ 12:19 am
@Andre
I think you right, but I just can’t help myself. Your lucky that you can easily take a back seat….
Comment by Gabe Jacobs — June 8, 2008 @ 12:28 am
Great link!
Comment by Hank — June 8, 2008 @ 12:56 am
This is the best post I’ve seen on this.
Thank you!
Comment by Dave — June 8, 2008 @ 1:02 am
I don’t even think Steve Jobs can say it better than that.
Comment by Nick Humphries — June 8, 2008 @ 2:11 am
Good article man! Well written and argued!
And I “hear ya”… hope Apple does so too! I bought .Mac along with my MBP back in February and haven’t given it much use! I was looking forward to “Back To My Mac” but across firewalls (especially enterprise) it’s not that straight forward… 
It’s not that I find it hard to open ports and stuff (I work with sysadmin too) but I *can’t* open ports for my personal needs in my corporate firewall!! So, not “having” that feature, I doubt I’ll renew it unless it gets the long-needed revamp you’re talking about! The current .Mac was already a “first stab” at “The Cloud”… Now they need to do with it what they do best: INNOVATE! 
hehe 3G = video calls ! We’ve had that in Europe for years and it never picked up… People want to TALK on the phone… Seeing each other is nice… but an overkill most of the time - just like as for most communication I prefer SMS: K.I.S.S. right? 
And that’s something Apple does sooooo well… ^^,
“Star Trek-like stuff” uh??
Comment by Levi Figueira — June 8, 2008 @ 6:32 am
Sorry about the smileys… and the absence of paragraphs (didn’t know I needed to add them “manually”) ^^,
Comment by Levi Figueira — June 8, 2008 @ 6:44 am
Great post although I disagree with some of your statements about Cloud Computing. Cloud computing is all about data living on the network … in the server. Do you really think Apple learn to build ( and do better than ) the kind of massively parallel distributed infracstures that these Google and Amazon are already building TODAY.
I am using the definition of Cloud Computing as I understand it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing ).
Comment by Khurt — June 8, 2008 @ 7:43 am
Khurt: That definition of cloud computing may be true as of today, but that is only because companies like Google don’t have any hardware or desktop software solutions. Apple does however. And I believe that Apple can redefine what cloud computing truly is. Personally, I don’t want all my data living on some server. I’d much rather have the Internet as a WAN (Wide-area network) become like a LAN (Local area network) between all my devices. In other words, I want to be able to connect and interact with all my devices seamlessly over the Internet.
Apple may in fact move in that direction. I know other companies like Google are moving this way as well with Android (the software) and the GPhone (the hardware). It’s just a matter of who gets there first. And Apple has a big head start.
Comment by Michael Mistretta — June 8, 2008 @ 8:07 am
Looking forward to iPhone 2 and finally getting the iPhone in Canada.
Comment by Partners in Grime — June 8, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
I’m also looking forward to iPhone 2, but everybody seems to forget that WWDC is a developer’s conference; not a commercial event.
Comment by Justin — June 8, 2008 @ 4:44 pm
Great ideas but Apple just doesn’t do free. The new .mac/mobileme/me.com will cost and cost a lot. Apple does a lot of great things but they just don’t get ‘free’ the way Google does.
Comment by Frank L — June 8, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
I submit that the biggest thing that Jobs will announce on Monday is that a Chinese carrier will carry the iPhone starting in July. This will see the stock close at 200, regardless of what feature the new kit will have.
Comment by karla — June 8, 2008 @ 10:35 pm
I think there’s a fundamental misconception here: end-customer Cloud Computing (as opposed to that delivered to businesses) is about rendering the desktop application suite irrelevant and hence freeing the customer from the desktop computer itself. Apple, as you say, is all about control. And that control has been (mistakenly in my opinion) delivered by controlling hardware for the last 20 years. The revolution that Cloud Computing is pushing forward is the final victory of open, free, widely available software as opposed to closed, expensive, elitist hardware. In fact, when you sit at a Mac or use an iPhone, you might be in love with how it looks, but we’ve all been truly seduced and convinced by *how it works* Unfortunately, Apple’s hardware-obsessed product planning, founded on the desire to control things, has kept it from thoroughly trouncing Microsoft in the market, which it should have long ago. Apple’s hardware may have carried it to where it is, but its software is the only thing that will carry it farther. And to do that, it must relinquish some of the control over the user that it has enjoyed. This is the problem with control: it backfires as resistance from those who experience that control. I don’t deny that Apple’s vision for the user experience would benefit Cloud computing users, it’s just that if it’s tied in any way to Apple hardware, then someone else without the hardware ball-and-chain will get there first.
Comment by Seer — June 9, 2008 @ 10:50 am
Your analysis is really interessant to read, thanks for it !
Comment by Webcloudworld — June 9, 2008 @ 3:59 pm