At the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced the next evolution of its .Mac service, MobileMe.

A cloud storage solution that handles e-mail, calendar items, contacts, photos, and other documents, it will arguably compete with Microsoft's Live Mesh, as well as several other data synchronisation start-ups like SugarSync.

MobileMe will replace Apple's consumer website service, .Mac, and adds to that service additional storage (.Mac's 10GB gos to MobileMe's 20GB), plus support for the new iPhone and for Windows PCs.

The big pitch for the new service is its synchronisation capabilities. E-mail to your MobileMe account will be pushed to your phone. Photos you take on your phone can be automatically uploaded to your Web-based MobileMe account and shared with your friends.

The concept is that the iPhone becomes just one way to view your data and your community. If you're in front of a full-screen Web browser or sitting at your Mac or Windows desktop, you might prefer to use one of those larger interfaces instead, but with MobileMe, everything you do will be updated to your iPhone immediately.

The service is being pitched as "Exchange for the rest of us," referencing Microsoft's corporate e-mail solution that offers excellent shared calendar features and e-mail and contact sync across devices and the Web. These are features everyone deserves, and Microsoft has been late, to say the least, at offering this kind of service to consumers.

Apple's current .Mac accounts will upgraded to MobileMe automatically when the service becomes available in July. A 60-day free trial is available on Apple's website, after which the service will cost AU$119 a year for 20GB of storage. A Family Pack, which includes one 20GB master account and four other accounts with 5GB of storage each, is AU$179 per year.

A guided tour of the MobileMe service is now available on the Apple site.