Apple iCloud

iCloud

iPass

In another chapter of Apple’s impressive branding of average products (liberal readers, please do not desecrate me for that comment), Apple is introducing a service titled ‘iCloud.’

Basically, it’s a re-branding of a previous product failure,  MobileMe.  MobileMe was “a paid online service for synchronizing personal information, such as your calendars, address books, e-mail and photos, across multiple devices.” (http://www.wired.com)

So, essentially, it’s an online version of your hard drive where you can go in and get all of your data consolidated.  I am not incredibly aware of the MobileMe service, as I used a service called a computer, or a phone to store my e-mail and photos.

One thing I do know about the MobileMe service is that it failed, and caused 20,000 subscribes to be without e-mail functionality for a week.  Yikes.

What Apple is going to do is convince you that this paid service will work better than your computer’s hard drive due to its intertwining of services and uniform functionality.  That it will allow you to access all of your documentation from anywhere that you go, and that it will also allow you to store all of your data from your assortment of Apple products in one location. It will have a fancy interface with bells and whistles like streaming movies/videos and maybe even streaming music.

Is some of that true?  Yes.  It is going to look cool, you are going to have access to some of your documents from remote locales and it will have some streaming services available (although some of the streaming service deals, according to apple insider, have yet to be locked in).

But at the end of the day, you are going to be paying (a rumored) $99 a year to look really cool.  Apple is convinced that it has branded itself so well that they can resurrect failed products that should only interest a niche market and re-introduce them to the masses who have sunk deep in to the world of the mac.

Please don’t allow yourself to be a sheep and subscribe to this iCloud service, no matter how many cool slides you see and no matter how many interesting keynote speeches you hear from Apple Employees at upcoming electronic conferences.  This is not going to be a quality product and this product will be not be a necessarily element of your life; You are not tech savvy if you subscribe to iCloud, you are very dumb.

When Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs comes out next week and wows you with slideshows, don’t become a victim of iAddiction.  Just say no.