Before iCloud became the backbone of the Apple ecosystem, it spent more than a decade evolving through three distinct services: iTools, .Mac, and MobileMe.
If you've got an iPhone, you've got an iCloud account. Sure, you might only have the base account, but you're still signed up for it.
And for most of us, we probably actively engage with iCloud to some degree. After all, iCloud is what Apple uses to store your Messages, Photos, Notes, Contacts, and software backups, and it powers Find My.
But how did Apple get here? While iCloud launched in late 2011, Apple actually began taking its first big steps into subscriptions as a service, or SaaS, eleven years prior.
So here's the story of how iCloud became iCloud, and the shoulders of the three prior giants it stood upon.
The year was 2000, and Apple was looking for ways to convert Windows users to loyal Mac fanatics. And what is one of the best ways to lure people in?
That's right: free stuff.
On January 5, Apple launched iTools. It was a collection of services available to those who were using Mac OS 9.
The first was iCards, which was electronic greeting card software. It lets you create greeting cards that you could send via email to friends and family.
It may not sound like it, but this was pretty big. In the early 2000s, sending greeting cards via email was a huge deal.
Image credit: BasicAppleGuy on Threads
It also included iReview, which gave dedicated reviews of internet content. Unfortunately for iReview, it would be the first of the iTools products to go under; it was cancelled in 2001 after failing to attract traffic.
KidSafe was essentially Apple's take on Bess or Net Nanny, services that would only allow children to visit pre-approved "safe" websites. KidSafe was discontinued in mid-2001, one month after iReview was killed off.
HomePage was another offering, and allowed users to create a personal website without any sort of backend coding. Even more interesting, as Phil Schiller pointed out in 2000, it was available for free.
HomePage gave users templates, free images, and allowed for drag-and-drop customization. It also featured integration with Apple's iDisk.
And if you're curious about iDisk, it was yet another iTool. Effectively, iDisk walked so iCloud could run.
Users were granted 20MB of free personal internet storage, but they were able to purchase up to 400MB as part of an annual subscription. If you wanted that whole 400MB of storage, you'd need to fork over $400.
Those with a HomePage could use a file sharing template to publish the contents of an iDisk folder to the web, enabling sharing with anyone who came across your HomePage.
And last but not least, we had mac.com. While it certainly sounds like it was a place to buy a Macintosh computer, it actually was an email hosting account.
Users who utilized mac.com addresses got an @mac.com email address. Not only was it a great way to show your allegiance in the PC-Mac battle, but it worked as free advertising for Apple, too.
And then there was .Mac
iTools existed, more or less, in its initial state, for a little over two years. However, when July 2002 rolled around, Apple rebranded it to .Mac.
This brought a lot of changes, but perhaps the most significant was that it was no longer free. As you could imagine, that didn't go over particularly well.
The service offered a few new features to make up for its sudden price tag. Notably, Backup launched with the service, allowing users to archive their data to iDisk, CD, or DVD.
Users also got McAfee Vriex, an antivirus program, for free. Well, it was free until 2005, at least.
In 2007, .Mac got a few notable upgrades.
The first was that anyone who had a .Mac account got 10GB of "free" storage that could be split between their email account and iDisk. Users had the option to purchase additional storage up to 30GB.
Finally, and fatally, MobileMe
MobileMe wouldn't launch until 2008, when Apple acquired me.com. MobileMe would lay the groundwork for the deep ecosystem integration that we know and love about Apple products today.
"Think of MobileMe as 'Exchange for the rest of us,'" then-CEO Steve Jobs said.
"Now users who are not part of an enterprise that runs Exchange can get the same push email, push calendars and push contacts that the big guys get."
And then there was MobileMe
At launch, MobileMe allowed users to sync emails, folders, and messages across platforms, the way that iCloud does now. And, it even allowed you to check many of these apps from the web.
Users could still choose to create a @mac.com email address, or if they wanted, one emblazoned with @me.com.
At this point, Apple was still charging for the service. The base MobileMe platform cost $99 per year and came with 20GB of storage. Users could also upgrade to a "Family Pack" for $149 per year, which included one master account with 20GB of storage and four Family Member accounts with 5GB of storage each.
MobileMe also saw the launch of Find My iPhone in 2009. This precursor to Find My allowed users to use the web to locate a missing iPhone on a map, play a sound, change the password, or remotely erase content.
MobileMe survived for four years after launch, eventually being discontinued on June 30, 2012. Apple had announced iCloud in 2011, so it didn't exactly come as a surprise, but many users were sad to see it go.
iCloud
As stated above, iCloud was announced in October 2011. Jobs made the announcement at WWDC 11, saying that it would replace MobileMe, which had been considered a failure.
Unlike MobileMe, iCloud would launch as a free service as part of iOS 5 and OS X Lion. No longer would users be expected to fork over at least $100 a year.
"iCloud is the easiest way to manage your content, because iCloud does it all for you and goes far beyond anything available today," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services.
Apple's Eddy Cue was instrumental in helping to launch iCloud
"You don't have to think about syncing your devices, because it happens automatically, and it is free."
This alone ensured that people would use the service. But it also refined features that its predecessors never seemed to get right.
Photo Stream, which would eventually get rolled into Photos, allowed users to take a picture on iPhone and see it on other devices, including Apple TV. Documents in the Cloud gave users an easy way to manage, edit, and save iWork documents across all devices.
iTunes in the Cloud allowed users to download new music purchases to all devices, meaning users could purchase music on their Mac and find it on their iPhone later.
Other features introduced included Find my Friends and improved cross-device management of Contacts, calendar, and Mail.
It may have taken eleven years to get to iCloud, but it's interesting to see how Apple got there in the end. And, it's just as impressive that Apple's managed to expand upon iCloud in the nearly 15 years after its launch.
