Why Apple scrapped MobileMe for iCloud

As Apple gets ready for the fall launch of iCloud, its brand-new Internet service for Mac and Windows, it seems only right to mark (if not exactly mourn) the passing of MobileMe, one of the rare product flops Apple has seen in recent years. While there was much to praise about MobileMe, there were too many problems -- both real and perceived -- that ultimately doomed the service.

What went wrong with Apple's pioneering Web services infrastructure? Why did Apple believe that its only option was to demolish the MobileMe brand? In part, it was a simple matter of established pattern. As we saw with MobileMe's predecessors, iTools (2000-2002) and .Mac (2002-2008), when Apple is ready to move on, these services simply cease to exist. MobileMe is on the same path, despite its being granted an unprecedented year to wave goodbye.

MobileMe featured several elegant-looking Web-based applications including Mail, Contacts, and Calendar, and offered corporate-style sync functionality to all users. Apple also threw in 20GB of online storage, the ability to synchronize browser bookmarks, an online photo gallery for all computers and devices, and more. The service also functioned as a Web host, specifically interoperable with Apple's iWeb, itself on the slow road to oblivion.

Despite its valuable features, the technical problems it eventually solved, and the improvements made to the service over time, MobileMe never was able to command the esteem of the Mac community. Here are some of the reasons why.

1. MobileMe could not recover from a miserable debut
No doubt, products have survived a worse rollout and managed to prosper. But MobileMe's debut debacle was no perception-versus-reality distortion field. MobileMe (aka ImmobileMe, MobileMess) collapsed on contact alongside an otherwise notable multiple product launches.

From the start, it was plagued with infuriating technical problems -- from syncing bugs that erased iPhone customer contact lists to a mail server crash that locked people out of their email accounts. These breakdowns forced Apple, at the dawn of the service, to apologize to its subscribers and make it up to them with a free 60-day subscription extension. Those events overshadowed the service from then on.

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