When Apple made a big splash about its upcoming iCloud online service at the company's annual
Among the foremost questions: Would iCloud continue to let users upload any file type they wish to iDisk? Would the service still offer Web hosting? Would it still offer the beautiful online photo galleries of MobileMe?
No, no, and no.
iDisk is gone, as is Web hosting and photo galleries. It remains to be seen, however, if third-party companies will develop apps that can replace these services, since Apple has said that iCloud storage would be accessible by approved apps in the iTunes and Mac App stores.
On June 30, 2012, iWeb sites, MobileMe photo galleries, and iDisk data will all cease to exist. On the same date or earlier if you move to iCloud sooner, synced Mac Dashboard widgets, keychains, Dock items, and System Preferences will also vanish. And Apple is offering no replacement service. For each of the three discontinued services, Apple has provided a support page explaining how to download your content to local storage.
Fortunately, however, MobileMe email addresses, usually in the username@me.com format will still work. People who purchased a MobileMe boxed and didn't use the service will be able to apply for a refund, and those who've paid for and used MobileMe and want to cancel can receive a prorated refund.
Everyone is thrilled that the iCloud service is now free, compared with MobileMe's $99-a-year fee. But still, when you consider that Google with its Docs and Microsoft with SkyDrive offer loads of free online storage for whatever type of content you want to upload and throw in document editing to boot, Apple's free cloud offering falls a bit short.
And one final question still remains: How much will iCloud users have to pay for storage beyond its stated 5GB limit?