dotMac Web 2.0 Coming?

If you have read my previous blogposts about Apple and its products, you know I've been humping Apple for some time to improve its .Mac service. At least, I've ranted, make it Web 2.0 in scope and potential.

Well, my frequent feedback comments to Apple on the web and often deleted posts in the .Mac tech discussion groups might finally start to bare fruit. Rumors abound on the Mac rumor sites that one of the big announcements planned for Steve Jobs June 9th keynote is a wholly-designed .Mac under the banner MobileMe.

In previous posts I pointed out Google Gadget's energy in software development is around online applications, and this would a no-brainer evolution for Apple’s iLife and iWork software. But since the first day I bought the iPhone, I've was immediately aware that iPhone and iPod Touch are particularly suited to services that blend small local applications on the handset with storage and other processing handled on the .Mac server. The best answer to iPhone's internal flash memory limitations is saving desktop states, applications, and media to "the cloud" as Jobs himself would want to word it.

When a person wants to do project management on-the-fly it is absolutely essential that you have the push capabilities to update calendars, address books, and integrate with maps without having to sync the iPhone via USB. Add to that, an ability to link a document or possibly a stripped down spreadsheet with an overall budget for your project and store it on .Mac and access it at the time and place it is most needed -- often not while you are seated in the cradle next to your host CPU for the iPhone.

Recently, it has been reported by MacWorld, Apple has filed for a number of domains in the new “.Me” top level domain. Some of the geeky sites started digging around the new 10.5.3 version of the Apple operating system and found what is called placeholders where the .Mac strings would exist, suggesting that Apple is also going to change the name of the service. All this points to a big redesign of .Mac.

It is long overdue!