How to replace MobileMe service?

MobileMe is a cloud service that is familiar to almost every Mac user. I decided to try it too, since there is a 60 day trial period for which you can understand whether you need it or not.
I liked the service with the exception of some moments (first of all, the price), so I decided to speculate on what kind of free counterparts you can replace it with.

About the service

Using MobileMe, you can send email, sync contacts and calendar between iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac or PC (for Mac, keychain synchronization, widgets, settings, dock items, Mail accounts). Access to data through the Web interface. In addition to mail and contacts, you can use the gallery to view and share photos and iDisk to store and share documents online. MobileMe includes 20 GB of online memory, which can be allocated to store letters, photos, movies and documents.

Prices

• A one-person annual subscription to MobileMe, as well as a subscription to a service, costs $ 99.
• For $ 149 you can subscribe to the family version. The subscription includes a main account of 20 GB and 4 additional 5 GB each. Additional 20 GB users can purchase for 49 dollars, and 40 GB - for 99 dollars a year.

Prices do not vary significantly for different countries of the world, for example for Russia the price of an annual subscription for a single person is € 65.29 (after the expiry of the free subscription), and in Europe € 79.00

Synchronization

Trying to solve the problem of synchronization between several computers, I came across a website fruux.com offering the same name synchronization utility for contacts, calendars, notes and bookmarks . The program has grown to version 0.9.6.6, it works quite stably and is updated frequently.

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Looking through the roadmap on the developers website, in the near future they promise:

• sync settings
• version for iphone
• web interface for viewing and editing

Unlike MobileMe, there is no PC client, mac only.

iDisk

Honestly, I heard about the dropbox in one of the releases of Radio-T and did not look for anything else. My needs are covered completely.
The amount of disk space is 2Gb. For storage of my projects and documents as well as synchronization 1Password and Omnifocus'a enough. For everything else, I use the EverNote + Premium subscription. To whom 2Gb may seem a little can buy 50Gb and 100Gb for $ 9.99 and $ 19.99 per month, respectively. Just like MobileMe, I have a client for Iphone which seemed to me much more convenient and functional.

IDisk Benefits

• Works much faster than iDisk
• Version control and the ability to return to previous ones are supported.
• Installs on any OS (Mac, Win, Linux)
• Symbolic links (symlinks)

Gallery

For storing photos using flickr.com . The free service implies the ability to download 100 megabytes of photos every month. One of the advantages of flickr is the huge support for the programs that work with it: screenshot managers, Iphoto support, like MobileMe’s corporate client for Iphone.
Not a bad opportunity to work with images and have a dropbox'a.

What's left overboard

First of all: Push mail and synchronization of calendars, contacts, bookmarks with Iphone. What kind of opportunity will be in the fruux version for Iphone, but let's talk about how often this is needed? Quite often you have to sync your phone with iTunes.
Find my Iphone: shows on Google Maps where your phone is currently located + the ability to remotely block or delete data from the device. Yes, an interesting killer feature, but in our realities IMHO is completely useless + nothing prevents the attacker from simply turning off the phone.
Mail: everyone already has one or more mailboxes on gmail or Yandex. Another albeit with a beautiful domain dubious pleasure.

For those who decide to try

For those who decide to try there are several opportunities to save: buy on ebay or join the so-called “family”, such offers often slip through the community “ru_mac” in LiveJournal.

Conclusion

My reasoning does not pretend to be the ultimate truth.
MobileMe service has the right to life, offering great opportunities “out of the box” without doping, which, in general, as always with Apple. Just not everyone is willing to pay money for what can be obtained for free or for other money. Other companies (google, yandex) have similar opportunities, bookmarking synchronization is in every decent browser, etc., but I consider those services and applications that I have listed as optimal.