Apple's MobileMe is dead -- but you can still retrieve your files

• Apple forced to shut off push e-mail service in Germany

  Motorola Mobility (and Google) give Cupertino a taste of its own patent medicine 

  Following a loss three weeks ago in Germany's Mannheim Regional Court, Apple (AAPL) late Thursday informed German iPhone customers that e-mail would no longer be "pushed" to their phones -- BlackBerry style -- through their iCloud or MobileMe services.

  Pending Apple's appeal, which could take months, iPhone users in Germany will have to retrieve their e-mail the old-fashioned way: by MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 24, 2012 7:15 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, European Commission, Florian Mueller, FOSS Patents, FRAND, Germany, Google, iCloud, iPhone, Microsoft, MobileMe, Motorola, Patents

• Friday a.m.: 25% of Apple mail clients can't get their e-mail

  In the transition to iCloud, which goes live next week, MobileMe is breaking down

  Having trouble reading your e-mail? According to Apple's (AAPL) official system status page, 25% of MobileMe clients were unable to get their mail Friday morning. Untold others couldn't access their MobileMe applications or use Find My iPhone.

  It's like an advertisement for Google's (GOOG) cloud services.

  But it could be worse. A few hours earlier, according to MacRumors, MobileMe MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Sep 30, 2011 5:50 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Cloud services, e-mail, Find My iPhone, Google, iCloud, MacRumors, Mobile, MobileMe

• Apple's iCloud FAQ: Web apps yes. iWeb, iDisk and Gallery no

  Confirms the demise of three online services. Offers instructions for saving your work

  Steve Jobs' iCloud keynote speech on June 6 left a lot of unanswered questions, many of which Apple (AAPL) answered in an FAQ posted Friday. The highlights:

  iWeb, Apple's web hosting service, is indeed disappearing on June 30, 2012. Instructions for moving to a new host are available here.
  Photos and movies stored on a MobileMe Gallery will go away MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 24, 2011 4:06 PM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Back to My Mac, Bookmarks, Calendar, Contacts, Find My iPhone, Gallery, iDisk, IWeb, Mail, MobileMe, Steve Jobs, Web hosting service

• iWeb heads for the island of discontinued Apple products

  Joins a long sad list that includes AppleWorks, Hypercard, OpenDoc and Shake

  If the e-mail to a MacRumors reader attributed to Steve Jobs is real -- and there is no reason to think it isn't -- Apple's CEO has confirmed with a "yep" what thousands of loyal Apple (AAPL) customers feared: The iWeb service that Apple has provided for building and hosting websites, blogs and podcasts since January 2006 will be MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 13, 2011 2:00 PM ET
  Posted in: Apple, AppleWorks, Discontinued, iDisk, iLife, IWeb, MacRumors, MobileMe, OpenDoc, Steve Jobs

• iCloud: What the analysts say

  The sell-side analysts liked the show. The market, not so much.

  With one exception (ahem, J.M.P.'s Alex Gauna), the analysts who follow Apple (AAPL) seemed to understand what the traders who drove Apple's shares down Monday $5.40 (1.57%) to $338.04 did not: The hundreds of improvements in its software ecosystem -- big and small --  that Apple announced Monday could, in the long run, sell more devices, convert more customers, and make MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 7, 2011 8:18 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Deutsche Bank, iCloud, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iTunes, Mobile, MobileMe, PCs, Piper Jaffray, RBC, Steve Jobs, Susquehanna, Tablets

• Apple puts Steve Jobs' iCloud unveiling online

  The two-hour video is available here. It gives you a far better view of Monday's proceedings than was afforded most of the people -- including yours truly -- who were there. If Apple (AAPL) had provided it as a live webcast, it would have saved me a lot of typing.

  Apple PR has also issued three press releases that cover the days' main developments.

  Apple Introduces iCloud
  New Version of iOS Includes Notification MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 6, 2011 8:56 PM ET
  Posted in: Apple, iCloud, iOS, iPhone, iTunes, Lion, Mac, MobileMe, Moscone Center, Moscone West, OS X, Steve Jobs, Twitter

• The coming iCloud: Apple experts predict what's about to debut at the WWDC

  Apple's pre-announcements -- of Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud -- have only made things worse

  I've never see the Apple (AAPL) cognoscenti quite so confused. They're all in town for the Worldwide Developers Conference that opens Monday at San Francisco's Moscone West -- the first one since 2007 that doesn't feature a new iPhone. And without that shiny piece of hardware to anchor their thoughts, they seem to MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 6, 2011 3:29 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, iPhone, iTunes, John Gruber, Kevin Fox, Leander Kahney, Mac OS X Lion, MobileMe, Steve Jobs, WWDC

• Kevin Fox's WWDC wishlist

  A veteran designer predicts that iCloud will be to MobileMe what the iPhone was to Apple's Newton

  Kevin Fox spent three years in the 1990s writing software for the Newton, Apple's (AAPL) first, fumbling attempt to do what the iPhone finally achieved. He went on to design Yahoo's (YHOO) Chat and Messenger services and spent five years at Google (GOOG) where as the head of its user experience and research group MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 4, 2011 6:33 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, iCloud, iOS, iPhone, Kevin Fox, Mac OS, Mac OS X Lion, Mobile, MobileMe, PCs, Steve Jobs, Tablets, WWDC

• How Apple works: Inside the world's biggest startup

  From Steve Jobs down to the janitor: How America's most successful -- and most secretive -- big company really operates.

  Apple doesn't often fail, and when it does, it isn't a pretty sight at 1 Infinite Loop. In the summer of 2008, when Apple launched the first version of its iPhone that worked on third-generation mobile networks, it also debuted MobileMe, an e-mail system that was supposed to provide the seamless MORE

  Adam Lashinsky, Sr. Editor at Large - May 9, 2011 5:00 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Fortune 500, iPad, iPhone, MobileMe, Steve Jobs