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Erin Brockovich, the activist who defeated a utility giant and inspired a Julia Roberts film, is pushing data centers to be more transparent

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Erin Brockovich, the activist who defeated a utility giant and inspired a Julia Roberts film, is pushing data centers to be more transparent

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'Where we are today is frightening': a Pulitzer-winning historian sees a doomsday scenario involving China and the national debt

Apple’s MobileMe is dead — but you can still retrieve your files

By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Down Arrow Button Icon
July 1, 2012, 6:55 AM ET

FORTUNE — “Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” Steve Jobs asked the team that created it shortly after a disastrous debut in 2008 that nearly ruined the launch of the iPhone 3G.

Having finally received a satisfactory answer, Jobs then asked (according to Adam Lashinsky’s 2011 account in
Fortune
), “So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”

With that, Jobs started a four-year process that led, Saturday at midnight, to MobileMe’s final demise.

Or nearly final. Having given users a full year’s warning and reminded them repeatedly by e-mail to move their accounts to iCloud and find another home for their photo galleries, iDisk files and iWeb pages, Apple (AAPL) on Sunday extended the deadline one more time.

If you own a Mac that doesn’t have the power or memory to support OS X Lion — which you need to open an iCloud account — you’re out of luck. (See here for system requirements.)

About the Author
By Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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