Apple issuing invitations for MobileMe Mail beta

An eagle-eyed reader spotted something new on his MobileMe account after the completed maintenance this evening -- an invitation to join a "mail beta" for MobileMe.

What is this? We originally thought it could possibly be linked into the rumors that MobileMe may soon be free, but reader Beau quickly pointed us to a news post from Apple detailing a new MobileMe Mail beta application.

Features include:

• The ability to have both widescreen and compact views.

• Rules to help keep mail organized on any device you use MobileMe. Note that any rules set up on the beta may override rules already in place on OS X Mail, so disable duplicate rules on your Mac before giving this a test drive.

• Single-click archiving of e-mail.

• Formatting toolbar including the ability to shorten long URLs.

• Improved performance for MobileMe Mail through me.com.

• SSL security no matter where you access your MobileMe Mail.

The beta will work best with Safari 4, Firefox 3.6, and Internet Explorer 8. Additional information can be found on this support page. To get an invitation, sign into your MobileMe account through me.com and you'll see the invite in the bottom left corner. Please note that the beta is only available to English-language users of MobileMe at this time.

Thanks to Moses for the tip!