Apple today killed off its much-maligned .Mac service and introduced MobileMe, a service that delivers push email, push contacts and push calendars from the MobileMe service in the cloud to native applications on iPhone, iPod touch, Macs and PCs.

In a nutshell, your apps will automatically get synced, via MobileMe, so that your desktop, laptop, iPhone & web calendar are current.

MobileMe also provides a suite of web applications that deliver a desktop-like experience through any modern browser. MobileMe applications will include Mail, Contacts and Calendar, as well as Gallery for viewing and sharing photos and iDisk for storing and exchanging documents online.

The base service is $99/year for 20GB, or $150 for a family. Additional storage can be purchased for $99/40GB.

We would have like to have seen larger storage options and support for Time Machine backups to MobileMe. Google currently offers storage plans up to 400GB, and their pricing is significantly lower, too.

“Think of MobileMe as ‘Exchange for the rest of us,'” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Now users who are not part of an enterprise that runs Exchange can get the same push email, push calendars and push contacts that the big guys get.”

With a MobileMe email account, all folders, messages and status indicators look identical whether checking email on iPhone, iPod touch, a Mac or a PC. New email messages are pushed to iPhone over the cellular network or Wi-Fi, removing the need to manually check email and wait for downloads.

Push also keeps contacts and calendars continuously up-to-date so changes made on one device are automatically pushed up to the cloud and down to other devices. Push works with the native applications on iPhone and iPod touch, Microsoft Outlook for the PC, and Mac OS X applications, Mail, Address Book and iCal, as well as the MobileMe web application suite.

MobileMe web applications are ad-free and provide a desktop-like experience that allows users to drag and drop, click and drag and even use keyboard shortcuts. MobileMe provides online access to Mail, Contacts and Calendar, with a unified interface that allows users to switch between applications with a single click.

Gallery users can upload, rearrange, rotate and title photos from any browser; post photos directly from an iPhone; allow visitors to download print quality images; and contribute photos to an album. MobileMe iDisk lets users store and manage files online with drag and drop filing and makes it easy to share documents too large to email by automatically sending an email with a link for downloading the file. MobileMe includes 20GB of online storage that can be used for email, contacts, calendar, photos, movies and documents.

Pricing & Availability

MobileMe, available on July 11, is a subscription-based service with 20GB of storage for $99 (US) per year for individuals and $149 (US) for a Family Pack, which includes one master account with 20GB of storage and four Family Member accounts with 5GB of storage each. MobileMe subscribers can purchase an additional 20GB of storage for $49 (US) or 40GB of storage for $99 (US) annually.