.Mac Revamped and Rebranded?!

MAG does not dabble in rumors, however after seeing substantial evidence, we believe this post is definitely a hot story! Following the 10.5.3 update yesterday, our friends over at Deep Apple dug up very interesting strings in the codes for iCal, Safari and Mail. Apple has removed the term .Mac and has instead replaced it with the placeholder %@ . 

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.”; "

So what does this all mean? We can't be sure until WWDC, however, some have speculated that this may hint at tighter integration with the iPhone.