Your solution does make sense. But I was just disappointed that my iPhone didn’t just revert to the same state it was in before I tried Mobile Me. I never actually synced anything to Mobile Me, though it did automatically copy my contacts to the “cloud.” Still, once I deleted Mobile Me, contacts that I had created on my phone well before I ever used the service were wiped of their informational data, e.g., my favorites folder listed a bunch of phone numbers stripped of their identifying contact names.

It just seems like this is an Apple problem because my contacts should stay as they were instead of being wiped of their data. It is a little confusing for those of us who are not Mac Geniuses.

Melanie

So tell my how it is that I need MobileMe to maintain my contacts when they were there before I even used MobileMe? I never utilized Apple’s servers before. In fact, the only time their servers came into play was when they took my contacts after canceling service.

Stop being a Fanboy and man up. Admit that Apple has no reason to delete your contact list after leaving MobileMe – especially when your contact list was there first.

Thank you,

However, when you turn off MobileMe on the phone it will wipe the phone and it’s up to you to sync from your computer. The original writer “Ed” had reformatted his computer’s drive thus loosing his contacts and calendars THEN also let his MobileMe account expire. The guy then wiped his older original iPhone by doing something wrong with sync again, although he didn’t document that part very well so it’s hard to tell.

However, I think the larger issue here, and perhaps what Ed was trying to get at, is that your average user (not the kind who obsess over Apple and technology and read blogs like we do) is not as savvy as you all assume they are. You assume everyone realizes that MobileMe is where they’re contacts are exclusively, and that if they get rid of MobileMe, they get rid of their information unless they take measures to preserve it. The average user sees their data on their iPhone, in Address Book, in Outlook, and thinks, “ah, my data is all there in that program.”

So when they cancel their account, yes, they will be surprised to find their data missing. It may not be Apple’s responsibility to keep this data for the consumer, but for the sake of preventing data loss and the headaches on the part of both the consumer and them when they complain, perhaps a simple solution would be to issue a warning when you attempt to cancel an account warning the consumer to make sure to take measures to back up their data locally.

There is a way to re-import mailboxes and address book data from Library, I dont remember exactly but I lost 1 hour doing that after “MobileMe” joke

If the account existed and there were no longer any contacts there, i wouldn’t be surprised to see a blank/wiped phone. In that case it actually sync’d the existence of an empty address book. If it was unable to contact the service, and/or the account was no longer in existence then I don’t see much reason at all for the phone or itunes or any part of the system to react on that as a reason to wipe the phone.

With that said, it is a poor man’s remote wipe. If someone steals your phone you could cancel MobileMe or simply unregister the device