by , 10:45 AM EDT, May 30th, 2008

Apple's .Mac service may be in store for some kind of reworking or update, even if it is in name only. Code snippets ferreted away inside post-Mac OS X 10.5.3 versions of iCal, Mail and Safari all point to a name change for Apple's online service, according to Blogging Robots.

Apple's .Mac service

iCal, Apple's calendar and scheduling application, includes this line in its Localizable.strings file:

/* Label of .Mac button in iCal's General preferences. %@ is the new name of Apple's online service (was .Mac) (remove -XX02)

Safari's Localizable.strings file includes this line:

/* Title of .Mac alert sheet, with .Mac brand name subsituted */ "You need a %@ account that has syncing enabled" = "You need a %@ account that has syncing enabled";

Mail includes a similar string in its Prefs.strings file:

/* Title of button used to open the .Mac system preference pane. */ "AOS_SYNC_BUTTON_FORMAT" = "%@...";
/* Descriptive text for .Mac Sync. */ "AOS_SYNC_FORMAT" = "Use %@ to synchronize Accounts, Rules, Notes, Signatures, and Smart Mailboxes.";

Based on what's been found so far, it looks like the .Mac name will be changing, and Apple coders are using %@ as a place holder for the as yet unannounced new name. Daring Fireball, however, reported that the .Mac name could be replaced with "Mobile Me" as part of a move to include iPhone and iPod over-the-air syncing to the service.

If so, that could mean that iPhone and iPod touch users would have a way to keep their schedule and contacts remotely synchronized with their computer without having to rely on Microsoft Exchange, which would be good news for personal users and companies that aren't using Microsoft's tools.