Mac users have had a long, sometimes frustrating relationship with the MobileMe. Originally launched a decade ago as iTools, the service was touted by Apple as a series of free, internet-based tools to make the lives of OS 9 users just a little bit easier. By 2002, iTools had evolved into .Mac and became a subscription-only service geared towards the needs of OS X users, and thus it remained until 2008 when the service was once again rebranded as MobileMe.

The service as we know it today is one that MobileMe subscribers have a hard time admitting that they love, as it very often give us reasons to hate it. Sure, it provides its subscribers with 20 GB of cloud-based data storage, integration with iWeb, acts as the backbone of our iPhone's ability to sync on the go and gives us a sweet Mac flavored email address we can use to stay in touch with our friends and loved ones, but with so many fresh faced cloud services out there offering similar features for free, it's getting harder and harder to justify paying Apple's hefty annual subscription fee.

This week, in response to an email from an exasperated user of the service, Steve Jobs promised that MobileMe would be getting an overhaul in 2011. We'd like to offer up a list of five ways that we here at Mac|Life feel Apple could improve MobileMe.

Make Back to My Mac a Pleasure to Use

Being able to access files and software applications from your home computer is nothing but win, provided the service you use to do it offers a pain-free. In its current form, that's not Back To My Mac. While the service offers the ability to connect to and tinker with Mac from afar, the conditions it requires to do so, are stringent, to say the least. If you're rocking an incompatible router, your ports aren't mapped just so, it just ain't happening. Oh, and don't even think about trying to utilize Back To My Mac from an iOS device. When services like LogMeIn are able to provide a rich, fully capable remote desktop experience from any computer or iOS device with an Internet connection for free, do you mean to tell us that Apple can't come up with something better for their paid subscribers? This needs to change. By giving MobileMe users the ability to effortlessly and securely connect to their Macs from anywhere via a wide variety of devices,Apple would be doing a tremendous service to the service's subscriber base.

Better Support for Third-Party Applications

MobileMe subscribers shouldn't have to rely on cloud-based storage solutions like Dropbox or ZumoDrive, but we do. As part of a MobileMe Subscription, all users are given a generous 20 gigabytes' worth of cloud-based iDisk storage. As it stands, that storage can currently only be used to stash away files that subscribers manually upload, iWeb files, iOS sync information. Certainly, the iPad's suite of iWork apps are able to upload and download user created documents and handful of programs like The Omni Group's utterly awesome Omnifocus can use MobileMe to synchronize files across multiple platforms, be we just know that Apple can do better.

By offering third party developers easier access to the technological back-end required to utilize the iDisk storage space that all MobileMe subscribers currently enjoy, they'd be breathing new life into the service. Given the impending release of the Mac App Store and the growing number iOS applications that offer cloud-based file syncing to bolster their on-device usability, this one is a no-brainer.

iTunes Integration

The purchase of LaLa this past year gave Apple the personnel and technological know-how to put together an amazing iTunes streaming experience for iTunes users.  Isn't it about time you provided us with a way to take our iTunes collections online with us so that we can get funky anywhere we go? We know you care about our needs, Steve. Please listen to us: we need this. If you gave MobileMe users the ability to fill up their cloud-based storage space with movies and music that they could access from any device they owned, we can assure you that you'd fill up that new server farm you've been building's hard drives with the cloud accounts of new subscribers in no time at all.

Tighter Windows Integration for iOS Device Owners

For iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users that prefer or have no choice but to use Windows for their daily computing, it's currently hard to justify the purchase of a MobileMe subscription. Certainly, doing so would provide them with the ability to sync their Outlook Calendars, email contacts and the like in real-time to their devices, but in the face of excellent free solutions such as Google Calendar and Gmail, it's hard to justify the financial commitment, especially in harsh economic times like these. Apple has already offered up Safari, QuickTime and iTunes for Windows OS users.

Is it a stretch to ask that, in the name of improving their bottom line, the company might want to consider providing computer-side Apple Mail and iCal and iChat software solutions to Windows users as well? Instead of having to rely on control Panel level workarounds and software filtering systems, Windows users could rely upon the Apple software that has the ability to access MobileMe services baked right into it. With the constantly growing number of iOS devices finding their way into the hands of Windows users, Apple could have another solid gold hit on their hands were they to implement such a solution.

Implement a Tiered Pricing Structure

In its current form, MobileMe is a no haggling sort of affair. For an annual fee, users are given a set list of services provided to them by Apple. While many of us are fine with this and find the cost for what is offered to be a reasonable exchange, we're sure that others no doubt get the high cost of MobileMe membership stuck in their craws. It's very likely that were Apple to break down the services offered by MobileMe to be offered à la carte, they would attract a wide variety of potential users who had never considered MobileMe as a viable option before. Need some cloud storage space, but already have an email address? That'll be $50 per year. Care for the caché that comes with a @mac.com email address? It's going to cost you ten bucks annually. With Apple now offering iPad and iPhone users Find My iPhone without the need to have a MobileMe account, we have a feeling that Cupertino might already have something like this in the cards, come 2011.

So what do you think: Will any of our suggestions surface in MobileMe once 2011 rolls around? Will Apple catch up to what other alternative services are already offering for free, or will Cupertino unleash a new set of services on the world that will define cloud-based computing in such a way that everyone else in the business will have no choice but to follow? We want to hear from you!

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