Renew a Mobile Me Account with a Retail Box Copy

One of the best kept secret bargains out there is that you can renew your Mobile Me account for much less than Apple’s retail price. Whenever you buy a new Mac or (at least in the past) a new iPhone you have the option to buy Mobile Me for a $30 discount. You can also regularly find deals on Mobile Me Retail boxes through Amazon.com or other retailers. I recently bought one from Amazon for $70 with free shipping and no tax.

Here’s how you use a rertail boxed copy of Mobile Me to renew an existing account:

1. I suggest you turn off the auto-renew option in your MobileMe account settings. Just don’t forget when it’s time to renew. Apple will send you several reminders. If you do wait till the last minute, you can aways manually renew for full price online.
2. Order the MobileMe retail box from your store of choice. Be sure you give yourself a couple of weeks before your renewal date to allow for shipping.
3. Once you receive the MobileMe box open it up and there will be a piece of paper with an activation code and instructions for how to activate your account. These instructions may be different for non US buyers, but mine says go to www.me.com/activate
4. From there you’ll be taken to an Apple web page and be given options to create a new account, reactivate an expired account, or renew an existing account. If you click the renew or reactivate option, you’ll be prompted for your username and password. Once entering that you’ll be taken to the regular MobileMe login page and once you sign in you’ll be asked to confirm your renewal.

That’s it, whole process takes less than 2 minutes and you can usually save about 1/3 the price off the regular Mobile Me Renewal