Edible Apple

MacDailyNews reports that they’ve received an unsubstantiated rumor saying that Apple is soon planning to offer users its MobileMe service, which now costs $99 a year, for free.

In case you’re unaware, MobileMe is a nifty service from Apple that lets users sync all of their email, contacts, and photos up in the cloud for easy access from anywhere with an Internet connection. One of its cooler features is the Find My iPhone feature which enables users who can’t find their device to log into MobileMe and approximate the location of their missing device on a map via the phone’s GPS.

MobileMe also lets users who lose track of their iPhones remotely wipe all of the information on the device as a preventative measure to prevent sensitive information from getting into the wrong hands. Remember, remote wipe is what Apple engineer Gray Powell employed when he misplaced the next-gen iPhone he was tasked with debugging. Shortly after the found was found, the device was wiped clean and both the finder and Gizmodo were unable to boot up the device past the Connect to iTunes display. MobileMe also comes with iDisk, a feature which lets users to store, access, and share their files online.

With competition in the smartphone market getting increasingly fierce, free access to MobileMe’s features would be an incredible and attractive way for Apple to entice that many more users over to the iPhone platform. The Find my iPhone feature alone would be a great way to cement the iPhone as the device with the most bang for the buck.