Another day, more rumors. Seems like there are a lot of people who are familiar with the matter who are hearing alot from Apple. Good for us I guess.

First Bloomberg and then The Wall Street Journal both reporting that Apple is working on a cheaper and smaller iPhone that might or might not be released in summer, together with the next iPhone.

This comes after news that Nokia loving it up with Microsoft’s Windows 7 OS on their future devices, HP’s upcoming devices with WebOS and of course, the many Android devices that are available in the market. Having a smaller and cheaper iPhone will enable Apple to tap into developing market that might not have been accessible with the current or upcoming iPhone 5.

Another piece of rumor that comes out is the updating of MobileMe to provide more services than the ones currently provided, at US$99.

Apple is considering making MobileMe a free service that would serve as a “locker” for personal memorabilia such as photos, music and videos, eliminating the need for devices to carry a lot of memory

This will be useful together with a miniature iPhone as it sacrifice size and price with smaller capacity. Imagine every piece of music that you purchase, will automatically be available online via MobileMe. Many people have speculated on when Apple will bring more cloud to their MobileMe services, especially with a huge data center that has been operating in North Carolina, 2011 might just be the time to see that happening.

We will update and see if there are people who are familiar with the matter will start leaking images, especially those badly-lit and out-of-focused photos.

Apple has made available a beta trial of the online MobileMe Mail service which you can access at http://me.com if you are a MobileMe subscriber. This beta brings in some new features in their attempt to make their online Mail page more user friendly.
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Apple has added the ability to combine and compress files in MobileMe’s web iDisk interface:

A number of MobileMe members have asked if there’s a way to use the new iDisk sharing feature to share multiple files at once. The answer is yes, it can be done easily using the Compress command in the iDisk web app.

Once you’ve selected multiple files you want to share with others, choose the “Compress X items” option in the drop down menu and iDisk will archive them into a .zip file, just like your Finder. Select the new file and choose the “Share File…” option. Easy as 1-2-3.

Besides just providing online storage with your MobileMe account, iDisk now comes with a new feature that lets you share files stored in your iDisk easily.

Instead of attaching a large document to an email and hoping it’s not too big to be received, you can place the file in your iDisk and use the new Share File command in the iDisk web app. It lets you send your friends, family, or colleagues a link they can click to download the file directly. You can password protect the link if you choose to and even set how long it will be available.

Slowly and surely, Apple is giving more features to MobileMe that hopefully will make the service worth the S$148 you pay for having it.

Have a look at the tutorial in case you aren’t sure how to do that.

Screenshots

Google just announced a beta version of Google Sync that will let you sync over the air your Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar with your iPhone. Google Sync uses Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to allow updates (except Gmail) to be pushed between your Google account and your iPhone.

Instructions on setting up can be found on the Google Support page but do take note on a few points. As it is still beta, it is best that all data on the iPhone is fully backed up and your Mac’s AddressBook and iCal are updated.

Some additional points:

• Requires firmware 2.2 on both iPhone and iPod Touch
• If you already using another Exchange ActiveSync account with your iPhone, you can’t use Google Sync as the iPhone only supports one ActiveSync profile
• Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar must be updated before initiating the first sync as data on your iPhone will be deleted during setup
• Google Sync currently can support up to 5 calendars – read here on setting up the calendars to be synced
• Once you use Google Sync, you will not be able to sync your Calendar and Contacts on your iPhone via iTunes although you can use iTunes to update Gmail Contacts
• Google Sync is also available for those that has their own domains that uses Google Apps
• Not sure whether it will have any conflict with syncing via MobileMe concurrently with Google Sync. If you have both running side by side, do let us know
• Go to Google Mobile Help Forum for more information, problems listing and tips with using Google Sync

Watch a video introduction from Google about Google Sync:

It does work. From my iMac to me.com to my iPod Touch, the changes on my Address Book are reflected within one minute online and my iPod Touch.

However, you would need to set your MobileMe Sync setting in System Preference to sync “Automatically” for that to happen (see image above).

More details about the changes in the syncing behavior with this update can be found at this Knowledge Base article (via The Apple Blog).