Apple gives former MobileMe customers free cloud storage

Early Friday evening I received unexpected email from Apple, offering extra benefit as former MobileMe customer -- a year of extra online storage. Hey, that's 20GB, instead of 5GB. It's good marketing to those of us who paid $99 a year or more for MobileMe. Not that I benefit, being about five months into an Apple boycott.

Apple started transitioning MobileMe customers with iCloud's launch nearly a year ago. The older service officially closed on June 30, with the fruit-logo company offering existing customers extra storage during the transition.

Text of my email:

Dear Joe Wilcox,

When you moved your MobileMe account to iCloud, we provided you with a complimentary storage upgrade beyond the standard 5GB that comes with an iCloud account to help you with the transition. Originally, this storage upgrade was set to expire on September 30, 2012.

As a thank you to our former MobileMe members, we will continue to provide you with this complimentary storage upgrade at no charge, for an additional year, until September 30, 2013. No action is required on your part. For complete details, please read this article.

Thank you again for using iCloud,

iCloud Team

I appreciate the upgrade but don't have plans to use it, because of my personal boycott. Who says the best things in life are free?