According to recent speculation, Apple is launching a complete overhaul of MobileMe this summer that will include a streaming option for media like music, movies, photos and videos recorded through an iPhone. Steve Jobs himself said in an email from last year that MobileMe would get “a lot better” in 2011. The fact that Apple is working on making MobileMe free in more sections, and more powerful and feature-rich when it comes to cloud-based access to files and media, seems pretty much obvious at this point.

The problem is “how”. With the rumors floating around, all kinds of speculation have arisen lately: cloud storage for your entire iTunes library, through a subscription à la Dropbox; cloud storage through the existing MobileMe plans; cloud storage for free. The list of possible implementations goes on and on. Yesterday, The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple weighed in with an interesting theory about a user’s Mac as a the actual cloud behind MobileMe’s streaming:

Instead of trying to provide everyone with cloud storage, I believe Apple will use MobileMe as the brain of the cloud service. The actual storage will be on our individual machines. In effect, in the cloud.

MobileMe would handle the settings and streaming settings, the files would reside on our Macs. Jim further explains:

Here’s the thing — those songs won’t actually be on my iPhone until I tap to play them. As soon as I tap to play, it will download to my phone. You can scroll through your music library and choose something else and it will download and play.

In effect, what Apple’s doing is setting up a streaming service that you host. By using advanced caching and MobileMe as the brain behind the operation, you will always have access to your media.

The idea sounds great, for geeks. You leave your machine open, connected to the Internet and no matter where you go you’ll be able to use MobileMe as a way to stream music from your Mac. Think of it as “Back to my Media”, done through System Preferences. Genius. But here’s the problem: this system won’t work for average users – and even geeks, to an extent – for several reasons. First off, with such a streaming service you’d have to leave your computer awake, connected and accessible. So say you’re on a 7-day trip to Paris and you didn’t want to bring your MacBook, the computer would need to stay home and turned on for a week. The music stored on your computer (again, I’m talking about music but could be movies, TV shows and podcasts) wouldn’t be stored “in the cloud”: it would be stored on a computer connected to the Internet, and managed by MobileMe. That’s a huge difference. Then, there’s an issue with storage: if it’s not a real cloud-based environment, you’re going to waste space on your computer to store hundreds of gigabytes of music. At this point, you might as well consider storing your iTunes library in Dropbox and access it anywhere like I do. Because frankly, streaming is already possible today with a series of hacks and tweaks, but I want more from Apple. A system that doesn’t require to leave a computer always on for me to stream media over the internet.

So here’s what I have in mind. I think that Apple can build this new MobileMe with streaming in three ways: real cloud-based storage; a shared service like Rdio or Spotify or a combination of both. Cloud storage is what it is: you’re given a certain amount of space on Apple’s servers (perhaps in North Carolina), and you upload files. Files can be music, movies – whatever Apple decides, and you stream them from the server to an iOS device or Mac. Some say it would also be nice to be able to sync an iTunes library from the cloud to an iOS device, without the need of the cable, but I think there’s no need to implement sync as we know it. If we’re streaming media from the cloud, a caching system for offline access makes much more sense. Last, Apple might offer different plans for the amount  of space you need on the cloud (say 10GB, 50GB, 200GB, 500GB) or simply revamp the current MobileMe subscriptions.

A shared service would run a scan of your iTunes library, and find songs that match with Apple’s online iTunes database. In this way, you wouldn’t have to upload anything as the system recognizes songs you already own and makes them accessible through the cloud – which is based on a database created by Apple, not you. Users subscribed to this service would access the same files, like with Spotify, MOG or Rdio. But this concept comes with several issues and problems to face. First off, what about indie artists that iTunes doesn’t have? What about DRM? Would Apple only recognize songs I legally purchased from the iTunes Store? And what about quality of streaming – would Apple provide me with the precious 320kbps files I saved over the years or a standard file encoded in 128kbps? The problem with this “intelligent” scanning system is that it could offer a limited array of personalization, and Apple would have to convince music labels to jump over and embrace the service.

Which brings me to the third point. Apple could offer a “hybrid” service that scans you iTunes library for music and allows you to upload files that don’t match with Apple’s database at the same time. This way, users are happy because they don’t lose anything in the upload process, but Apple would still need to find a solution for music labels unhappy to give users the possibility to scan files downloaded from the Internet and upload their own.

Anyway you cut it, it all comes down to this: Apple will make media streaming as simple as possible, whether it’s about selecting music on your computer and upload it or scan iTunes for songs to stream online. There’s no doubt this will happen from the cloud to iOS, but I hope Apple will find a way to fit the Mac in this scenario as well. Many tried music streaming in the past, and a very few got it right. Perhaps MobileMe will get so better in 2011 that we won’t need to worry about music on our computers anymore.