Me.com and Mac.com addresses to be retained?

Although Apple has positioned iCloud as the eventual replacement of MobileMe, the company has not yet spelled out exact details on any transitions or changes from the myriad services MobileMe offered, leading to some user anxiety over the fate of individual services -- from iWeb page hosting to photo galleries. A discovery by a reader at Mac Rumors seems to indicate that some of the MobileMe services are already being mirrored on iCloud servers.

Very little confirmed information about the fate of the individual components of MobileMe has appeared as yet. Apple CEO Steve Jobs inferred that existing "@me.com" and "@mac.com" e-mail addresses will continue to work as normal, but a recent e-mail purportedly from Jobs also seems to say that iWeb and iWeb hosting will be discontinued as part of the transition. Most other services are likely to be transitioned rather than dropped outright, but one area that has some users worried is what will become of the web-based e-mail client after June 30th, 2012.

A user testing the iOS 5 beta discovered that sending themselves an invitation to an event was now linked to an iCloud domain, even though the content was identical to what a user would have seen under MobileMe. Contrary to some misinformed reports, this suggests that at least some of the functions of the web-based MobileMe client will be replicated under iCloud with the iCloud branding.

Apple has extended the normal functioning of the MobileMe portal for a full year from now to ease the transition, so it is likely that in the months to come (particularly as the fall launch of iCloud approaches) the company will issue further clarification about how existing services will be handled, along with transition instructions for any services that will need to be modified or relocated. [via Mac Rumors]

by MacNN Staff