“On July 16, Apple took the very unusual step of sending an apology to all MobileMe members, saying that the launch ‘was a lot rockier than we had hoped.’ Fortunately, the letter went on, ‘we have worked through those problems and the Web apps are now up and running,'” David Pogue reports for The New York Times.
“It also said that Apple would stop using the word ‘push’ in its advertising until Macs and PCs did their syncing nearly instantly. It concluded with an apology, and a free one-month extension to every member’s subscription,” Pogue reports. “Unfortunately, MobileMe’s problems were nowhere near over.”
“People [have] started calling it ‘ImmobileMe’ and “‘MobileMess,'” Pogue reports.
“Maybe it wasn’t such a hot idea for Apple to launch four enormously complex initiatives — the iPhone 3G, the App Store, the iPhone 2.0 software update and MobileMe — all on the same day,” Pogue writes.
“It’s a little mind-boggling that today, nearly two weeks after MobileMe’s official opening, Apple still hasn’t solved the problem. That’s got to be a record in the short history of cloud computing,” Pogue writes. “But the real problem is how Apple is responding. For a company that’s so brilliant at marketing, it seems to have absolutely no clue about crisis management.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “klapka” and “Citymark” for the heads up.]
Just in case anybody missed our Take from Mossberg’s excoriation of Apple’s MobileMe earlier today, we’ll repeat it here: “Apple screwed the pooch with their MobileMe launch. First impressions mean everything. See: Newton. It’s painfully obvious that heads should roll over this mess. To those responsible: you failed. Miserably. If Jobs hasn’t axed you yet, he should have. He probably wants you to try to fix it first, but, come on Steve: “Bozo Alert!” Get someone on this who knows what the hell they’re doing. Apple MobileMe employees: Don’t worry, it’ll be fine, we hear that Microsoft is looking for people; you’ll fit in just fine up there. In fact, so far, this whole MobileMe thing is positively Microsoftian, and that’s being overly kind.”
We’re pulling all ads for MobileMe until further notice. If we miss some or one of them slips through via third-party ad network, please do not subscribe to MobileMe until Apple gets their act together. We’ll resume running ads for MobileMe when we’re more confident in the service.
BRAVO, MACDAILYNEWS, FOR BANNING MOBILEME!
We urge all people to do the same!
BOYCOTT MOBILEME!!
I know 2 people (out of 5 people) who have had their MobileMe email down for AN ENTIRE WEEK now!!! That’s a 40% email failure rate… for an entire week… for a PAID SERVICE!
APPLE, THIS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!
GET YOUR FU**ING ACT TOGETHER, APPLE!
IN THE MEANTIME:
BOYCOTT MOBILEME!
Mine has finally been stable since the last outage. I can’t say the same for others. Pogue is right. Apple SCREWED up royally on this one. It will take a miracle to win over new customers for this service or keep the olds ones after their service expires. BAD job Apple!
@ goddess
I know of two..
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Pogue and Mossberg
@bizlaw
Throwing more people at the problem does not work with software related projects, like it does for example for building pyramids. Increasing the number of programers can actually have the exact opposite effect. If you don’t believe me, ask Microsoft Vista team.
@MacBill
Tut tut! Just a little bit extreme, and loud too.
Mobile Me is working fine for me. True, computer changes don’t happen right away (unless you force it to sync NOW), but it does work.
I have my calendars working on 2 macs, and an iPhone, and I am sharing Bookmarks on 2 Macs, a Windows XP computer, and my iPhone. Works fine.
Still not having any problems with MobileMe.
Is has been working great for me. I love that I don’t have to physically sync my iPhone and Mac together – that was very inconvenient when I had to run out to a meeting. But I feel really bad for those who are still having problems with the service…
Even the best, most trusted companies can make mistakes. We’re all human for God’s sake. Apple has proven their reputation for producing wonderful products that consumers love.
I agree that it was too much for Apple to launch so many separate offerings on the same day. But in the end, the problems will be worked out and it won’t take too long.
We all just move on. No need to make such a big deal out of this really. Hasn’t Apple always strived to give consumers what they asked for? They normally come through in the end. I don’t fault them too much. In a month, it will all be water under the bridge.
For the entire first week after it switched over from .mac, MobileMe was a total nightmare for me. However, for the last several days it has finally been working just fine here. But I still wouldn’t recommend it to anyone until Apple gets all of the bugs out, as its obvious some users are still having major issues.
Only thing that doesn’t still work is the commenting system from iWeb’s published sites.
I think people are over exaggerating the real problems behind mobile me. It’s been working just fine for me this so far. Everything syncs just fine and the speed has improved dramatically since the first weekend.
No problems here. In fact, I’ve now taken a renewed interest in the iLife apps, been tagging photos, making web pages, uploading to mobileme, doing fun stuff. I just can’t wait until the iLife apps are rewritten so that only changes are synced, rather than having to upload the whole website because of a type-o. It will come in iLife 09 and will probably only run on Snow Leopard. Boy, I can’t wait for that pussy.
Since day four after the mobileme launch, I have had absolutely no problems at all with the web application (I use mail, contacts, and synching). MobileMe may have some bugs, but I have not experienced them. I recommend MobileMe to everyone.
Love my MobileMe!!
Syncs everything beautifully.
Despite some initial confusion on my part, all the pieces of MobileMe that I care about have worked flawlessly from day one.
Don’t see entirely what all the fuss is.
But I use Google for email.
Google had a glitch the other day too (independent from the phone as far as I can tell).
All the sudden it just put a whole month of my emails in the trash.
Yikes!!!
Compared to that MobileMe’s been a saint!
Excoriation???
How’s that word of the day calendar working out for you MDN?
Geez… You really think 99% of the dweebs who read MDn know what that word even means? Just say “tore ’em a new one” next time… hehe
My luck has been pretty good.
I did have a problem with calendars syncing like others here, but by deleting the MobileMe account on my iPhone, and then adding it back, I then got all my calendars back on my iPhone, save for birthdays.
For that, I am trying “Dates to iCal”.
http://www.nhoj.co.uk/datestoical/
If after the free trial, Apple hasn’t found a solution, then I will buy it. Gotta have birthdays on the phone!
My ‘Address Book’, my MobileMe ‘Accounts’ and my iPhone ‘All Contacts’ are all different. As are my ‘Calendars’. Must be me. Apple tech reps, second level, suggest leaving it a week or two before calling back. Not a great answer.
“Excoriation???”
I thought that was what Feldman did to Haim on that lame A&E;reality show.
Oops. Make that A&E.
I’m not exactly sure what mobileme can and cannot do – just as long as my .mac addres is ok, I’m good.
Another happy customer here too. I read somewhere that only a very small percentage of customers are experiencing problems. Sounds like the typical Apple crowd: it’s only the very few that make the loudest noises….
Come on people…
It seems that there are a bunch of fair-weather fans out there. I have not been exempt from some problems with the move to MobileMe. Mostly, I just prefer the sound of “@mac.com” to “@me.com” That aside though…
I still have some intermittent issues but I also know that Apple has been a much better company to deal with than many others (including other industries.) I certainly appreciate a free 30-day extension to my account and I have definitely enjoyed the nearly error-free experience with my new iPhone 3G.
If you’re going to rail on the company that has brought you such great products in the past because they stumbled on a product (yes it was big stumble and unexpected but if it was expected, it would have been advertised) then maybe you should get off the bus and go back to Windows.
Simply firing everyone involved with MobileMe is not a realistic solution, they created it, they should fix it, who else has better knowledge of the design and the build? Besides, if you think there are problems now, imagine if all the people involved were suddenly gone…
As for pulling MobileMe advertisements…are you serious?
I was on .mac and was ported over to MobileMe without choice. That would be okay but it’s still not working well. It’s a lot better than the first day, but my calendars have to work between three computers, and it’s not reliable. That’s kind of scary since I rely on synching accuracy and having synch failures is pretty unnerving. Also, I upload movies from iMovie 08 for friends, family, and business associates, and am having connection problems between iMovie 08 and my gallery with a pop up screen asking me to either sign in to MobileMe or try a trial…and I’m signed in already but still can’t upload to the MobileMe gallery I’ve have already been using. That’s frustrating. Dot Mac worked fine.
Although it’s going much better now, I still don’t trust MM to handle my data right, so I keep paper copy backups for iCal. It has definitely been an unApple-like mess, and irritating.
I’m not going to cancel just yet. I believe Apple will solve these difficulties and it will eventually be a fine program. Next time, give me a choice before I have to be “upgraded” to a new computing paradigm. I don’t want Apple or anyone making those choices for me. I prefer to volunteer.