I’m not in Apple rumors business, but… hell… why not?
Apple will rename their .Mac service soon. Hints are everywhere in Mac OS X 10.5.3 update.
iCal’s Localizable.strings file contains the following string:
/* Label of .Mac button in iCal's General preferences. %@ is the new name of Apple's online service (was .Mac) (remove -XX02)
Safari has the following lines in its Localizable.strings:
/* Title of .Mac alert sheet, with .Mac brand name subsituted */
"You need a %@ account that has syncing enabled" = "You need a %@ account that has syncing enabled";
Same with Mail’s Prefs.strings:
/* Title of button used to open the .Mac system preference pane. */
"AOS_SYNC_BUTTON_FORMAT" = "%@…";
/* Descriptive text for .Mac Sync. */
"AOS_SYNC_FORMAT" = "Use %@ to synchronize Accounts, Rules, Notes, Signatures, and Smart Mailboxes.";
Almost everywhere “.Mac” has been replaced with %@, which means that the name of Apple’s online service will be inserted programmatically by applications.
I looked into binaries to find out what the new name is, but it seems like apps take this value from /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Mac.prefPane /System/Library/CoreServices/AOS.bundle (thanks, Mike!), which still has the old name. It seems like it will be updated via Software Update once Apple renames .Mac and — boom! — all your apps will have the new name.
Kudos to DeepApple [ru] for finding strings in iCal.
Update: next post: "Mobile Me" name found!
PS Find out about Mac journal software.