Following on from my WWDC 2008 Predictions Part Two – OSX 10.6 , lets look at the rumors around the refresh of the .Mac service.

.Mac refresh announcement – 50%

On the surface, any announcement about some trivial upgrade to the .Mac service would seem out of place at WWDC08. The rumors of a name change involving Apples recent acquisition of me.com – possibly point to something bigger to me.

Extending .Mac to Windows computers? Oh Yes Please! Even just for sharing Safari bookmarks.

Extending .Mac functionality to iPhones – seems obvious doesn’t it?

Making .Mac FREE and available to all Mac users in a “Beta” form (ala Bootcamp in Tiger) – this make more sense than anything to me regarding the “next step” for .Mac

(A “test” of .Mac for all could then form the basis for OSX 10.6)

FREE .Mac – 95%

Why make .Mac free? Sure it doesn’t have a huge take up with users – but I have seen figures somewhere it turns over $100 million in sales – a nice cherry on top for sure.

But make it free-for-all, and suddenly the opportunities for developers to create some really interesting “cloud based” stuff really opens up.

.Mac is the “cloud” that Apple has neglected for years. Let it go free and let developers and customers turn it into something awesome for Mac 2.0.

As for existing customers – like myself. Credit us @ the iTunes store and I’ll be happy. I’ll just be happy to see .Mac developed more.