Non-Filipino readers might find this post’s title odd, but it’s just Taglish for “I’m mobile”, which for this blogger is a clumsy play on the rumored new name for Apple’s .Mac service (and for the purposes of this blog will be referred to as DotMac, to retain the sanity of my word processor’s autocorrect feature.) It’s also a play on the current and more-than-annoying marketing campaign of local telecom provider Smart Communications called “Me na Me” presently irritating us silly here in Manila for their Smart Buddy service.

Ok. So there I go ruining the whole structure of the post just so I could have my silly title. Let’s just have it out then: According to rumors, Apple seems to be set on renaming their DotMac service, that US$99 one-year thing where you get a paltry amount of online storage and a snotty email address that ends in “mac.com” (and some other stuff), to Mobile Me. Ugh.

Dunno about you, but the fact that you can get everything DotMac is offering for free elsewhere online seems to me a testament to the lengths fanboys will go to for their mothership. (Full disclosure: I used to be suckered into this thing too, and had a DotMac account for three years or so until I wised up and saved my money instead to buy more useful things like food. And beer.) But apparently it may be time to come back to the fold.

According to many archived reports, Apple trademarked the name Mobile Mac on Jan. 5, 2006, and while much was made of it at the time as Apple folk are wont to do, nothing happened and people forgot about it. Now though, people poking through the code of the recently released 10.5.3 update of Leopard have come across considerable evidence that Apple is finally going to use the two-year-old name, presumably after the relaunching announcement to be made at Steve Jobs’ WWDC keynote on June 9.

A rose by any other name, blah blah. What’s more important is what new stuff it will offer for the hundred bucks (or however much they’ll be charging for it), and right now all we can do is make educated guesses. Obviously it will tie in with the new 3G iPhone and include stuff like push email, wireless syncing and things Blackberry fans have been enjoying for years. We’ll just have to add Mobile Me to our list of things to wait for during the keynote. If it had really useful features, I wouldn’t be averse to signing back up again and resurrecting my old DotMac address.

Which also means most of us renegade iPhone users will have to formally sign up with Globe Telecom when it finally releases the phone for my country (sometime in September, if rumors are to be believed). Obviously my non-3G first-gen kracked-and-jailbroken iPhone won’t do, so I’ll have to pony up for the new one. Life is hard. Ah, well.

(By the way, is it just me, or does Mobile Me really sound like an embarrasingly jejune name for an Apple service? It even sounds …Microsoftian, like something Gates and Ballmer might’ve thought up. Sheesh.)

[Box art mock-up via TUAW]

Canadian MAD Reader Bill McConkey writes that I never post anything about iChat.

Two major reasons for that oversight, Bill. One is, of the myriad of choices to write about in the Apple universe, I just haven’t gotten to it yet. The other more telling one is that I’m not much of a chatter myself, and it’s not too high up on my list of topics to write about.

I was going to get around to it sometime, but since Bill’s comment, I took a look at iChat AV 4.0 from Leopard, and realize that it’s certainly come a long way. And chatting is really an indispensable part of life for people who need to get in touch with friends and loved ones from far away (like Bill), and it’s high time I wrote about it.

That said, I am amazed at the improvements in iChat with Leopard, and it seems worth the price of the upgrade. Admittedly a lot of the improvements aren’t anything especially new, since they are available elsewhere, but its refreshing to have them all come in the box and work flawlessly out of it.

One of things that bother me about iChat is the profusion of windows that pop up when doing simultaneous chats, and the juggling one needs to do to keep on top of things. The new iChat now lets you do tabbed browsing (and improves the look by sparing the window from the Brushed Aluminum theme we’ve all come to hate). And if you’re afraid of missing out on other chat replies while concentrating on one, little thought balloons pop up when someone says something from other simulchats.

You can now also have multiple log-ins if you have different AOL/dotMac accounts with separate buddy lists. How you keep from getting confused will be the trick.

Visually, there are a bunch of new goodies: you can do the Photobooth trick during a video chat and make yourself look like an idiot from across the miles; you can do the bluescreen trick and change your backdrop as well - pretend you’re chatting from poolside, when in reality you’re in the dark basement of your parents’ house; and you can use plug-in filters that change your look even further - one of the most popular ones (that didn’t make it into Leopard but is being circulated on the net) is the shimmery hologram look that makes you look like Princess Leia saying “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”

You can even record video and audio chats now, which are saved in MPEG-4 and AAC respectively. Just hit the red button. You can even do rudimentary audio and video podcasts using this. Apple’s made it so that you can’t hide your recording though - everyone involved will know the chat’s being recorded and needs to give their consent.

A couple of the most useful additions is based on sharing. You can now share any document or file that can be viewed using Quick Look with your chatmate - pictures, video, presentations and the like. More exciting is Screen Sharing, which is essentially VNC without the hassles. You can remotely access and control each other’s screens. This is perfect for teaching or troubleshooting - or snooping, if that’s your thing.

There are other improvements in iChat, and as soon as I get facetime with it, I’ll come back with a more comprehensive report on the new version. Maybe I’ll even chat with you guys.

If you have a .Mac account using Panther and think you can get by without upgrading to Leopard (like you did with not upgrading to Tiger the last time), this time you’re SOL. You’re going to have to bite the bullet and bump up to OS 10.5, or at least the latest Tiger update, if you hope to continue using the US$99 service.

Starting last Friday, Apple began the process of abandoning full .Mac syncing support for users of OS 10.3. To have “uninterrupted service”, Panther users will have to pony up for at least 10.4.10 or later.

A technical note from Apple states that they are doing this to support .Mac enhancements that will emerge with the release of Leopard today, and will leave users of older versions out in the cold, especially with Calendar syncing.

Apple says

If you use Mac OS X 10.3.9 or earlier, be aware that in order to accommodate new enhancements, .Mac Sync will no longer support syncing calendars between a Mac OS X 10.3.x-based Mac and a Mac OS X 10.4.x-based Mac. Syncing calendars between two Mac OS X 10.3.x-based Macs is unaffected.”

Thus pushes the inexorable march of progress.