MobileMe is almost dead

At one time MobileMe kept my life together and kept all my devices in sync. The main things it did for me that I cared about were Calendars, Bookmarks, Keychains and Contacts. The other stuff I saw as nice to have but not really needed. I don't want the same preferences, email config, mail rules etc on my work computer as my home computer. So why am I getting away from it?

• Bookmarks - with the switch to Chrome, Google provides bookmark sync through your Google account (via Google Docs). It works well and is free.
• Calendars - I wrote a short while ago that I was done with iCal. Google Calendar is better and its web-based so its free and everywhere.
• Keychains - Really what this is about is password management. For that 1Password rules. The 1Password guys have an odd approach to telling you how to keep your stuff in sync (they say to use DropBox and that the MobileMe iDisk stinks) but it works and is secure.
• Contacts -This one isnt perfect. Apple added the support for Address Book to sync with Google contacts a while back. Google doesnt bring over the groups etc yet.  So you can get close but not quite there. Also the whole Google versus Google Apps piece is just plain busted in all sorts of ways. More on that later.  You could work around the mac need for MobileMe by moving your contact information to a DropBox covered directory, but as far as I can tell a good integrated iPhone, multiple mac solution isnt possible yet without MobileMe involved.

So close!