Apple's MobileMe service is to be relaunched this week, ahead of the Friday launch of the iPhone 3G. That means subscribers to .Mac will find the service taken offline for a six-hour stretch as Apple makes the transition, according to a post in MacRumors.com.
The www.mac.com site will go down on Thursday from 11am to 5pm EST, leaving .Mac subscribers unable to access the site or use .Mac services, except for .MacMail via their desktop applications, iPhone or iPod Touch. In fact, existing .Mac users may have already noticed the ability to receive and send email at an @me.com address if they so request. Other mac.com subscribers will be grandfathered in, allowing them to continue receiving email at their mac.com address, while also receiving a new me.com address.
When the site relaunches as MobileMe, users will find a few changes, according to MacRumors.com:
The revamped .Mac service will offer Web-based email, calendar, address book, photo gallery, and storage capabilities as well as "Push" sync services.
A one-year subscription to MobileMe will cost US$99, which is similar to the .Mac price, but purchasers of an iPhone 3G will be able to score a subscription for US$69 on Friday, the report notes.
