New Account Types Hint at Pending MobileMe Changes

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Jeff Gamet

9:52 AM, Jun. 4th ET, 2010

Articles by Author Jeff Gamet on Twitter Contact Author Bio

Comments (15)

Some MobileMe subscribers account type changed from “Individual” to “Full Member” overnight, raising speculation that Apple may be planning to introduce some changes to the online service during its annual World Wide Developers Conference next week. Previously, MobileMe subscribers were listed as either “Individual” or “Family Pack.”

The addition of “Full Member” has added fuel to the rumor that Apple is planning on dropping the US$99 annual fee for MobileMe and making the service free. What seems more likely, however, is that a tiered plan is in the works where current MobileMe subscribers will have access to more features than new subscribers that choose a reduced feature set.

MobileMe’s new “Full Member” status

The status type change may also be a new way for Apple to track who has paid for the MobileMe service, and who signed up for trial accounts, but never paid for the service.

Apple isn’t saying whether or not it has new plans in store for MobileMe, but CEO Steve Jobs will be hosting the company’s keynote presentation on June 7 to kick off this year’s WWDC event, and that would be a perfect time to announce service changes.

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15 Observer Comments

FlipFriddle

said on June 4th, 2010 at 9:31 AM:

Mine still says “Individual” and I’m fully paid up for another 200+ days.
The new beta for Mail online is pretty decent; a big improvement so far.

iSki iMac said on June 4th, 2010 at 9:47 AM:

My “Family Pack - Master” has changed to “Full Member”.

My “Family Pack - Member” has not changed.

MacGnome said on June 4th, 2010 at 9:53 AM:

Account Type: “Full Member”

is the old .Mac accounts.

Now with MobileMe, it is “Individual” for single users.

Lee Dronick

said on June 4th, 2010 at 9:58 AM (Edited: 10/18/2011 6:20 PM):

Mine still shows “Family Pack - Master”

Some level of free cloud service is probably in the offing. Note that the Developer’s Conference is next week and maybe Steve will make an announcement about MobileMe. Apple is also building a data farm in North Carolina.

FlipFriddle

said on June 4th, 2010 at 11:04 AM:

Hmmm. I’ll have to check my home iMac to see if it’s different there. It says Individual online as well. Interesting.

dhp

said on June 4th, 2010 at 4:39 PM:

Account Type: “Full Member” is the old .Mac accounts. Now with MobileMe, it is “Individual” for single users.

How can someone still have an “old .Mac account” in 2010? If you have stayed with the service you have switched to MobileMe.

FWIW, mine says “individual.”

Tom said on June 4th, 2010 at 6:54 PM:

We were grandfathered in. Have both .mac and .me

Tom said on June 4th, 2010 at 6:56 PM:

If you remember, when it first came out it was free.
Price went up with added features

dhp

said on June 4th, 2010 at 7:43 PM:

We were grandfathered in. Have both .mac and .me

Yeah, me too, I’ve been using it since it was called iTools, but the service is now MobileMe either way. And my MobileMe account type is “Individual.”

nytesky said on June 4th, 2010 at 8:26 PM:

Mine still says individual. I’ve been with it since the iTools days as well.

Intruder

said on June 4th, 2010 at 8:42 PM:

On since 2000. Individual.

AdamC said on June 5th, 2010 at 3:29 AM:

It will be great to have an email ends with apple.com and can’t wait to discard the gmail.com moniker.

Corks said on June 5th, 2010 at 7:23 AM:

Mine did display ‘Full Member’, now it’s back to ‘Family Pack - Master’.

iSki iMac said on June 5th, 2010 at 7:27 AM:

Mine did display ‘Full Member’, now it’s back to ‘Family Pack - Master’.

Mine too. Interesting….......

Lee Dronick

said on June 5th, 2010 at 10:48 AM (Edited: 10/18/2011 6:20 PM):

It will be great to have an email ends with apple.com and can’t wait to discard the gmail.com moniker.

I don’t think that we will see public @apple.com email addresses, those are reserved for Apple employees. If there are free MobileMe services coming then the email addresses will probably still have the me.com TLD.

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