MobileMe service of Apple out for 'downtime'

Apple Inc.'s MobileMe service was down for several hours Friday (Manila time), with email, web apps and "Find My iPhone" services affected, a tech site said. Enthusiast site MacRumors posted on a screenshot showing MobileMe email was out for as many as 75 percent of users at one point during the outage. At 7:37 p.m. Manila time, the status page indicated, "Some MobileMe members may experience delays with incoming mail." It added that all other MobileMe services are "online and fully operational." MacRumors said the outage could be related to the upcoming launch of its iCloud services. "Apple is of course expected to officially launch its iCloud services in the near future, with much of MobileMe's functionality transitioning to the new service. Users with active MobileMe subscriptions will, however, be able to continue using the service through June 30, 2012, after which time MobileMe will be officially discontinued," MacRumors also said. Tech site TheNextWeb added issues with MobileMe services are not uncommon, but widespread outages like this are rare. "Apple is preparing to launch its iCloud service as a replacement for MobileMe very soon and this may perhaps be related to that, but we have no way to be sure," it added. — ELR, GMA News