Despite All the Problem’s MobileMe Is a Great Service

MacNewsWorld’s Chris Maxcer reviewed the MobileMe Service, and claims that, despite the rocky transition from the previous .Mac service, it is well-structured and a pleasure to use.

Maxcer, by his own admission, hasn’t experienced many of the problems others have suffered with this transition. Those who have (this writer included) may feel a little less charitable about the failures of this transition. That being said, we all should acknowledge that gApple is one of the few companies who will take responsibility and try to make amends while trying to fix the problems.

MobileMe is Apple’s newest incarnation of its online storage, email, calendar, contacts and photo-sharing service, which launched 11 July, which was also the launch day for the iPhone 3G and the App Store. As has been widely reported, the service quickly broke down for many users, who found themselves without email service for days and days.

When it appeared, last week, that the problems had been worked through, it became apparent that there was still a glitch — since some users still had trouble with their email.

“Apple acknowledged the issue on its MobileMe support site, noting, “1 percent of MobileMe members cannot access MobileMe Mail. Service will be restored ASAP. We apologize for this service interruption and are working hard to resolve the problem.” Apparently, one of Apple’s MobileMe servers failed, taking down some customers’ e-mail access at the same time.”

It appears that part of the problem was the large number of customers who were signing up for MobileMe as they purchased their iPhones. Because as we all know now, the demand for the iPhone 3G outstripped even the most optimistic expectations.

Okay, so they were some of the problems. Why is Maxcer writing about this? Because he wants to acknowledge the problems and dispense with them, moving on to what he finds “cool about MobileMe”.
He writes, “First of all, the new MobileMe interface and structure totally rocks. It’s cleaner and more intuitive than .Mac’s versions, and the Web implementation of the applications is snappy and responsive — nearly on par with using a dedicated client. What’s even better is that the applications are placed together in the same browser window, making it easy to switch between Mail, Contacts and Calendar. It’s not exactly integrated into a single application, but it’s closer than tracking down three different applications on your Mac OS X desktop (Mail, Address Book, iCal).”

It’s possible to make a quick reply without opening an email message y just typing it into a text box and hitting the Send button.

“Heading back to the land of “push,” the synchronization is improved over .Mac’s implementations — again, more intuitive than before. Plus, MobileMe makes it easier to sync calendar and contacts, giving you better access to your data from any Web browser. Best yet, it gives you the ability to keep your iPhone synced without having to connect it to a Mac or PC (though for songs, videos and podcasts, you still have to directly connect).”

It is also much easier to make photo albums online that you can share with friends and family. “Now it’s built-in, and once you populate an album with photos, you get an easily disseminated direct URL (uniform resource locater). And visitors, at your discretion, can add their own photos to your albums. Personally, I’d like to see the albums support slide shows on par with what iWeb ‘08 produces — perhaps in a future iteration.”

iDisk has a folder structure which is better-looking, and in which you can open folders and upload files more easily; there is also an improved design to the Web browser interface.

Maxcer acknowledges that, yes, there has been negative press surround the MobileMe launch, and yes, he hasn’t been one of those customers burned by the migration, but encourages all of us to look at the positives which are already available in the service. There are many; and the problems will be addressed. Ultimately, it is a great service which is ambitious and which delivers well on many of its promises. And since it is Apple, we have to believe that they will deliver on all of the promises shortly. Maxcer also points out that there is still more to be hopeful about: “What’s even more important, I believe, is how Apple has structured MobileMe — like the tantalizing empty spots left open on the original iPhone, Apple has left plenty of room to add cool new features to MobileMe.”

MobileMe — the Good Outweighs the Glitches

First, the glitches. Apple’s MobileMe team has acknowledged the rocky transition from .Mac to MobileMe in an email to MobileMe (and .Mac) customers. Core services made the transition relatively easily, but the web applications ran up against some problems. These have been corrected, for the most part. The one remaining problem is that sync-time between iPhone and PC or Mac is not instantaneous yet; it has been taking up to fifteen minutes. The MobileMe team has stated that they will refrain from using the term “push” until the sync is instantaneous between all points. Their email stated, “We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.__We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.”

Does this mean that Apple has made a mistake in judgment by switching up their .Mac service? Apparently not. Two reviews give the new MobileMe service high marks. It seems there’s much good to the changes that have been made according to both Michael Muchmore of PC Magazine and David Pogue of NYT.

Pogue writes, “Apple’s new MobileMe service works by storing the master copy of your e-mail, calendars, address books, Web bookmarks, passwords, and preferences information in the cloud. Whenever your machines are online, they connect to the mother ship and update themselves. When you edit an address on your iPhone, you’ll find the same change in Address Book (on your Mac) and Outlook (on your PC). If you send an e-mail reply from your PC at the office, you’ll find it in your Sent Mail folder on the Mac at home,” Pogue reports. “Once everything’s ready, the magic is impressive. Make a change on your Mac, watch it appear on your iPhone and your PC. Add a new friend to the address book in Outlook Express on your Windows XP machine, and watch it appear in Windows Contacts on your Vista PC. Change an appointment in iCal on the kitchen Mac, and know that it will wirelessly sprout onto your traveling spouse’s iPhone four states away. And your Web bookmarks are the same everywhere.”

Given the way we all juggle and struggle with ever-increasing information, appointments, to-do lists and contacts, the ability to have total sync-up is astonishing. Pogue continues, “On Macs, MobileMe can keep even more stuff synched, including your passwords and preference settings… [and] there’s a fourth place where you can work with your data: on the Web. At Me.com… There’s actually a lot more to MobileMe than sync, since it also retains most of the features of the old .Mac service.”

So what are those features? Michael Muchmore writes, _”Foremost among the upgrades are redesigned Web interfaces and the increase in storage to 20GB (up from 10GB). You can divvy this space between e-mail and storage in whatever proportions you like. The redesigned look of MobileMe’s applications much more closely resembles the Mac interface. The very same icons as those you see in the dock for Mail, Address Book, and Calendar show up on the top of your MobileMe page. I should note that the app was more stable in Safari than in Firefox.”

Users of the .mac addresses will not lose them. They still function for email, websites and gallery URLs. A .me equivalent will be added. Anyone who is a new signup to the service, however, will have only the .me addresses available to them. The .mac addresses continue to work for iTunes purchases and the Apple Online Store. The old addresses will still work also in iChat, but it should be noted that a new address in .me will be a separate chat identity.

When you log into the me.com service, a change is evident in the service’s interface. Says Muchmore, “There’s no longer a portal-type page showing all the services in a menu down the right side. Instead, you’re always inside one of the apps, with icons along the top to switch you to one of the others. When you first sign in, you’re taken into iDisk, and the first time you switch to another app, you’ll be presented with a choice to view the Getting Started with MobileMe instructional QuickTime video.”

Except for the interface change, iDisk has remained unaffected in this transition. The installable Backup 3 software, which manages the automated file and folder backup to your online iDisk storage, is also unchanged. The Back to My Mac remote control between Macs still works in the same way. iDisk is accessible from the Finder. Also remaining is support for and integration with iLife apps; these include iWeb site publishing, photo and movie sharing from iPhoto and iMovie.

There is more to the MobileMe service, but suffice to say here that Pogue and Muchmore agree, it’s a winner. Both take a look at the variety of alternatives to the services offered by MobileMe — some of them free — and draw the same conclusion. That MobileMe offers one very important thing that the others don’t: integration with clean, elegant interface.

Says Pogue, “MobileMe is the usual Apple value proposition: you might be able to find less expensive versions of its features online - various sync, backup and file-transfer sites - but none have the integration, polish and automation of Apple’s offering.”

To read the full articles, see:
PC Mag
NY Times

Transition to MobileMe Complete

An Apple company representative has affirmed that the transition from .Mac to MobileMe has been completed. Apple confirmed that it faced more difficulties than anticipated in the transition, and this caused a delay in the launch of the new service.

All aspects of the service should now be fully functional.
“With the exception of the MobileMe web apps, all of the following services are now available: Mail, iDisk, Sync, iChat, Back to My Mac, and all published pages including Galleries and iWeb sites,” Apple states.

It will be necessary to complete the OS X upgrade to access all the services of MobileMe, which offers push email, calendars, contacts and functions seamlessly with iPhone’s mail, contacts and calendar applications. It also works with Mail, iCal and Address book on the Mac, and with Outlook on a PC.

MobileMe costs £59 per year.

MobileMe Launches

Why the heck did they have to change the name? Chris Maxcer of MacNewsWorld asks, “What if MobileMe is as dorky as the name implies?” Or what if some of the .Mac features are removed and not replaced? What will happen to my iWeb pages and websites? How about information stored on iDisk?

Apparently, there is little to be concerned about. So, let’s take a look. Maxcer writes,
“Fortunately, MobileMe is more about increasing the functionality of the existing .Mac applications than it is about running roughshod over Apple’s former online service. Better yet, based on the all the materials Apple has provided so far, MobileMe is shaping up to be a compelling upgrade to .Mac.”

Okay. What else? .Mac email addresses will continue to work “indefinitely.” Simultaneously, Apple is creating the “upgraded” version “yourmail@me.com” (Will anybody really use an email address @me.com?) iChat IM handles will continue to work, but also get the upgraded versions that will reflect me.com.

All the popular .Mac services will remain — the iWeb sites will be fine, sharing photos and movies from iLife will continue, syncing our Macs, accessing iDisk from the Finder in Mac OS X, using Back to My Mac.

However. There may be a problem for .Mac customers with older Macs, because of the limitations with Mac OS X. Because of new technologies used in this upgraded version, MobileMe will only work successfully with Mac OS X 10.4.11 (fully updated Tiger) or later. And Apple recommends that users run Mac OS X Leopard, 10.5.x

So, if a Mac user has an older Mac, MobileMe could present problems. Maxcer says, “Apple hasn’t offered any details about older Macs, nor has it made any assurances that these customers will be able to use .Mac-based services as-is at all after the upgrade to MobileMe. It’s hard to say what MobileMe features will work correctly with older Macs.”

This is something you might want to discuss with your Apple tech team, especially if you’ve paid for the .Mac service and depended on its reliability, despite working on an older Mac.

If you have stored Web bookmarks on .Mac and didn’t sync them, when MobileMe service begins, the standalone .Mac Web application Bookmarks will disappear. In all fairness to Apple, there has been ample warning of this on its website, in its emails to customers and on many of the Apple-watcher websites and blogs.

The most talked-about change in MobileMe is its ability to sync information between the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Macs. It can also “push” changes immediately between their iPhone, iPod and computer. It will still be necessary to dock in order to sync movies, television shows or music. Another welcome improvement — iDisk now has a new Web interface which is more closely in line with the Mac OS X Finder. Users can drag and drop files within iDisk which speeds organisation.

The price for MobileMe remains the same as it was for .Mac, while the storage has doubled from 10GB to 20GB For those of you who complain about the cost, keep in mind that there are no advertisements or pop-ups to drive you insane while you are trying to reading your email or use your browser.

To read the complete article see: http://www.macnewsworld.com/rsstory/63730.html

And stay tuned for more information as MobileMe gets poked, prodded and examined by the reviewers.