MobileMe will soon be free, if the rumor published by MacDailyNews is true. Currently costing US$99 per year, a free MobileMe subscription will be good news to existing subscribers and to all Mac users.

MobileMe consists of many services on the cloud, including storage, email, photo galleries, personal website, Find My iPhone, sync store of contacts/calendars/bookmarks etc. Many useful features that integrates tightly with your Mac/iPhone/iPad but most users are taken back by the price.

We hope this rumor is true as there are many advantages and justification for Apple to make MobileMe free:

• It will be a different ballgame for Apple if MobileMe becomes competitive to similar offering by Google and Microsoft. A free MobileMe will enjoy substantial increase in user base and suddenly makes Apple a major player in the cloud space. This is the necessary move by Apple if it wants to compete in Google’s stronghold, or simply wants to make Google mad.

• The recent purchase of Lala.com points to an imminent launch of a cloud based music service. We believe Apple will tie this new music service to the MobileMe branding. What better ways to attract users than to offer it free? We suspect Apple might launch the music service together with free MobileMe.

• With the world moving to a cloud service and apps (iPhone/iPad) model, it is timely if not slightly late in the game for Apple to focus on cloud services. It is inevitable.

• Apple’s commitment of US$1 billion to a server farm in North Carolina is meant for serving something new and substantial. We believe the new infrastructure is meant for free MobileMe for all users. According to the post by MacDailyNews, the timing for MobileMe to go free could be “sooner than later… depends on certain facilities going operational.”. That facilities could be the one in North Carolina.

Apple please, make MobileMe free. And announce it in your WWDC developer conference and make it available in June.

Several hints and evidence that are uncovered lately signal a likely introduction of next-gen Apple iPhone in June.

• Apple’s marketing cheif Phil Schiller, when outlining Apple’s general product cycles in a post MacWorld 2009 interview, said the plan includes an iPhone cycle in June.
• Recently, a reference to an unknown ‘iPhone 2,1′ string in firmware codes and web server logs indicate that a major hardware revision of iPhone is in the works and being tested. Apple refers to original iPhone as ‘iPhone 1,1′ while iPhone 3G is identified as ‘iPhone 1,2′.
• This week, Mark Davis (Program Director for iPhone at Emirates Communications Etisalat), when spoken to Dow Jones on iPhone 3G’s launch later this month in UAE and Saudi Arabia, said that the “next version of the device, which is due out in June, will be launched in the UAE at the same time.”

Enough info to get the Apple rumor mill spinning hot. Most industry watchers expect new iPhone during mid-year, citing Apple’s history to refresh its iPhone model once a year. The first iPhone was launched in June 29, 2007. iPhone 3G was released July 11, 2008.

Lets wish the new iPhone model includes video recording capability (make it 720p), with a higher resolution flash camera, and with higher capacity option.