One of the latest rounds of iPhone rumors indicated that Apple may also be overhauling its “MobileMe” online service. Currently a $99 per year subscription that lets you synchronize e-mail messages, contacts and calendar appointments between portable Apple devices and computers, rumor has it that this revamped MobileMe service would be free and much more deeply integrated into future iPhones.
Additional MobileMe details have apparently been leaked to Cult of Mac though, like just about every Apple rumor, the supposed information comes from unnamed sources, so don’t read too far into things just yet.
Apparently the new version of MobileMe may go far beyond simple synchronization, instead acting as an online repository for just about everything you do with your iPhone—that’s assuming you give it permission to collect all this information, of course.
Cult of Mac relays the following:
“According to our source, the centerpiece of the new MobileMe services is a dynamic webpage that sounds like a mashup of Facebook, Foursquare and Ustream.
The webpage will collect a ton of information that is automatically uploaded from an iOS device, including the user’s location, photos they’ve taken and video they’ve shot.
It will also detail music they’re listening to, games they’re playing, applications they’re using, music and apps they’ve purchased, web sites they’ve visited, status updates, and so on. Users can even send live video to their page, much like the live video-streaming service Ustream.
‘The concept is that you would have you own website that’s dynamic, all based on what you are doing at that moment,’ said our source. ‘Apple thinks of it as having a webserver in your pocket… everything will be dynamically updated to MobileMe.’”
In the interest of conserving battery life, uploads can apparently be initiated to your own personal MobileMe webpage when someone else actually goes to the page to see if you’ve added anything. That’s actually not a bad idea, considering that you’d otherwise have an almost nonstop stream of uploading activity whenever you’re using your phone.
Privacy controls will be a big consideration, according to this source. You’ll be able to set limits on which information you share (or share nothing at all).
You’ll also apparently be able to form your own “iGroups” with your friends, complete with notifications when one of your friends is within a certain radius—not a bad way to leverage a little peer pressure in the interest of getting as many iPhones into as many hands as possible, eh?
More on TIME.com:
Apple Prepping Small, Cheap iPhone and Free Online Storage?