“Attention, Kmart shoppers! We have a cleanup in the MobileMe aisle from 10pm until Midnight PST on Thursday, June 17, presumably as we prepare for the iOS 4 upgrade onslaught coming on Monday. That is all.”
The eagle eyes at 9to5Mac have noticed that Apple will be taking the Me.com part of the MobileMe service down tonight -- that’s Thursday, June 17 -- for two hours, from 10pm to Midnight PST (which translates to 1am through 3am for those on the East Coast). So why is that a big deal?
The timing is not likely to be a coincidence, since next week is a big one for Apple. iOS 4 will be available for existing iPhone 3G/3GS and iPod touch (second and third gen) owners sometime on Monday, June 21, and the “iPhonepocalypse” Phase Two will kick off next Thursday, June 24 when the iPhone 4 actually starts landing in customers’ hands -- especially now that pre-orders are suspended and those who want one will start have to trading kidneys or beating up reservation customers to get theirs. (We don’t actually see that happening, nor do we condone it, of course.)
“MobileMe members will be unable to access MobileMe applications at me.com. Access to MobileMe will still be available on desktop applications, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Normal service is expected to be restored at the end of the maintenance window,” an Apple support document says of tonight’s outage.
If you’ve used an iPhone or iPod touch for at least two years now, you’ll surely remember the absolute chaos that ensued in 2008 when Apple launched iPhone OS 2.0, the App Store and MobileMe (revamped from the former .Mac service) all at the same time, which CEO Steve Jobs later referred to as a “mistake” in a leaked internal e-mail. Especially given Tuesday’s pre-order meltdown for the iPhone 4, Apple is probably keen to get their ducks in a row ahead of time, which included Wednesday’s release of iTunes 9.2 in advance of iOS 4.
9to5Mac also notes the continuing speculation that MobileMe may soon become a free service, although it would seem that Steve Jobs would have spent some of his WWDC 2010 keynote time to tout that fact, if it were indeed coming.
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