All this talk that .Mac’s set for a re-branding and service improvements sent us away to search for some more incidental information. Here’s what we’ve come up with:
– Apple filed an application for the Mobile Me trademark in January 2006. (Source, Daring Fireball).
– The Mobile Me URL was transferred to one of Apple’s favourite domain registrars, Mark Monitor, on 11 January, 2007. It was parked on 13 January, 2007.
– Mark Monitor serves up to half the Fortune 500 companies, and was last widely discussed in connection with Apple earlier this year when it purchased the following domains on behalf of Apple: MacBookAir.net, MacBookAir.org, MacBookAir.us, MacBookAir.info, MacBookAir.biz.
– These domains were registered on Apple’s behalf (as it turned out) by Mark Monitor just before the Macworld keynote this year, when Apple introduced the MacBook Air.
– Mark Monitor is also the registrant of record for Apple.com, iPhone.com and numerous additional Apple URLs.
– Today’s reports all claim Apple to have carefully hidden code within Mac OS X 10.5.3 that would enable the company to rename .Mac and its services with a subsequent update.
– Current rumours suggest .Mac is set to be revised with a host of new features, including ‘push’ email. It has also recently been claimed Apple will abandon its .Mac trademark in preference for a non-Mac-based mark in order to offer a version of its service to Windows users.
– Given Apple’s focus on mobile phones with iPhone, is it possible the company plans to finally enable portability of a user’s Home folder? If it does, will it make this a feature of .Mac, under the Mobile Me trademark?
Returning to the MobileMe trademark, here’s what it covers:
“Telecommunication services; electronic transmission and retrieval of data, images, audio, video and documents, including text, cards, letters, messages, mail, animations, and electronic mail, over local or global communications networks, including the internet, intranets, extranets, television, mobile communication, cellular and satellite networks; electronic transmission of computer software over local or global communications networks, including the internet, intranets, extranets, television, mobile communication, cellular, and satellite networks; electronic mail services; facsimile transmission; web site portal services; providing access to databases and local or global communications networks, including the internet, intranets, extranets, television, mobile communication, cellular, and satellite networks; internet service provider services; message transmission services, namely, electronic transmission of messages; telecommunication services for the dissemination of information by mobile telephone, namely the transmission of data to mobile telephones; mobile telephone communication services.” (Source, once again, Daring Fireball).
Oh, and if this isn’t enough…"MobileMe" has been found in a number of iPhone SDK files…
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