Are you unhappy Apple is killing MobileMe? You're not alone

Editor's Note: On June 6, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that iCloud, an online synchronization service, is coming in the Fall. iCloud will replace MobileMe, and Apple isn't waiting around for the new service to launch. MobileMe has stopped taking new subscribers and has extended existing customers' service for free. MobileMe will close on June 30, 2012. But iCloud is a much different service, which has upset many subscribers for what they're losing and for what they paid ($99 or more).

Apple is bringing us a laughably monikered upgrade to MobileMe called iCloud, and when you strip away the hype and Steve Jobs reality distortion field, iCloud is a proprietary, convoluted and highly restrictive sync-backup service.

Unlike the current MobileMe service that allows one to stuff Apple's cloud with any and all files and folders of their choosing, the iCloud service only allows use of their cloud as a synchronization style backup, and it only allows synchronization of a tiny handful of file types related to music, contact lists, calendars, iOS apps, bookmarks, photos, and proprietary Apple office suite documents.

Presumably a third-party developer such as Microsoft could update their office suite to allow MS Office users to access the Apple iCloud to synchronize its document types -- and that's where the insanity of this solution comes to light.

Instead of simply allowing the customer to synchronize and backup individual files, folders or even entire machines to the cloud, the customer will be forced to rely on armies of third-party developers to adjust their applications to run a synchronization process into the Apple iCloud.

Also, there is no option to archive files into the cloud as one could do with the MobileMe iDisk -- you must maintain a copy on one or multiple devices for it to synchronize -- provided, of course, there's an application that will support the file type you want synchronized. Finally, Apple will no longer allow you to use its cloud to host your website as you could with MobileMe under the iWeb publishing program.

While MobileMe had an embarrassing start, it was eventually improved over time -- with the exception of a hefty price tag that limited wide adoption, and thus Mr. Jobs could declare it a failure and clean the slate to start over.

The replacement is free but limited to a ridiculously small amount of synchronization storage and is utterly restrictive as noted above. I'm afraid Apple is once again on the road to repeating MobileMe history. When people actually understand the ridiculous limitations of iCloud, they will be looking elsewhere for true cloud backup solutions.

Mark Freedman is an independent research and contractor.