“After a week of intense testing of [Apple’s MobileMe] service, I can’t recommend it, at least not in its current state. It’s a great idea, but, as of now, MobileMe has too many flaws to keep its promises,” Walter S. Mossberg reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“I am not referring to the launch glitches that plagued MobileMe earlier this month, such as servers that couldn’t keep up with the traffic and email outages that, for some users, persist as I write this. Those were bad, but they have eased considerably. Apple already has apologized for them and is giving customers an extra 30 days on their subscriptions to make up for the poor start. The problems I am citing are systemic,” Mossberg reports.
“In my tests, using two Macs, two Dell computers and two iPhones, I ran into problem after problem. One big issue is that while changes made on the Web site or the iPhone are instantly pushed to the computers, changes made on computers are only synced every 15 minutes, at best. Apple has admitted that this is a problem, and says it is working on it,” Mossberg reports.
“If Apple does get MobileMe working smoothly, it could be a terrific service. But it’s way too ragged now,” Mossberg reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: 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.
Related articles:Apple’s MobileMe and iWeb continue to have major issues – July 18, 2008
Apple’s MobileMe Team apologizes to customers, gives users free 30-day extension – July 16, 2008
MobileMe users demand refund from Apple – July 14, 2008
Apple’s MobileMe service delayed ahead of iPhone launch – July 10, 2008
Is anyone else getting a lot of spam since the conversion to @me.com e-mails?
I had been on teetering on the 3G purchase, but finally decided to go for it.
I’m giving MobileMe a trial run now. Had all the problems many had. I can accept that. What I still can’t accept is the crappy product this is for $100 a year.
My suggestions for immediate improvement:
1. Include a customized domain name with the cost;
2. Allow for IMAP to gmail and others. Why should I have to forward my GMAIL account here;
3. iPhone needs a setting to customize the sent from / reply to e-mail address;
4. Option for iPhone consolidated in box; and
5. I know this is pushing the envelope… but a database for web programmers. I would then kill my hosting account with another vendor. Prefer — MySQL.
I know #5 will never happen, and I suppose I can live with that. But the other 4 – MobileMe and iPhone changes would make me a subscriber when my trial ends. Without those, no money from me.
“Apple screwed the pooch with their MobileMe launch.”
MOOF ! ! !
iPhone launch screw ups…
MobileMe launch screw ups…
What’s next? I haven’t had the time to read the full Lord Mossberger review yet, but does he mention the lack of full IE support? How ridiculous is that?! It’s by far the most used browser ANYWHERE, every other developer can make Web 2.0 and AJAX work on IE7, but not Apple? What a load of crap.
And here come the “IE is crap” flames… Whatever your take on IE, you can’t disagree with the FACTS I’ve presented.
well, I’ve been using the “Back to My Mac” and “screen sharing” from the office to home and I am in love!!!! I’ve always wanted the “home server” but had no desire to shell out the cash for a dynamic IP address to make everything run smoothly. Now I have access to the 600gb of music sitting on my kitchen table hooked up to an aging g4 iMac. Music streams great… no lag or buffering needed! seriously, this is the best thing EVER!!!!! The best part is, after years of trying to figure out a way to make this happen, I found it by accident. I have no problem throwing down $$$ every year to keep this option.
the best side effect – I can now freak my roomate out by cranking up really bad songs in iTunes without being there! HAHAHHHA!
Seriously tho, best.feature. ever. at least for me! Now, we’ll see how my opinion changes once I play with the rest of the services.
Still no major problems here.
MobileMe had a rough start the first week, but it’s working fine for me now. I absolutely love the wireless syncing of my contacts, calendars and bookmarks. Even if it were only every 15 minutes on the iPhone, it would still be worth it. I hated having to manually sync via USB so that recently added data would sync.
When I enter something on my Mac and want to see it right away on my iPhone, I just click the “Sync Now” option in the iSync menu on the top right corner of my Mac’s screen. Funny how nobody ever mentions you CAN manually execute a sync whenever you want. I mean, while I’m sitting at my desk, do I really need my iPhone to be updated more than every 15 minutes with the stuff that’s on my computer?
If you’re gonna shut your computer down or pack it up to bring it with you, just do a quick sync before you go. If you’re leaving your Mac running, then just walk away, your iPhone will get the info you JUST updated within 15 minutes. If you updated the info on your computer more than 15 minutes ago, your iPhone already has it!
I waited until the week following the release of 2.0 and MobileMe and I have had no trouble at all.
For some people, MobileMe’s web gallery alone will be worth the price of admission. I have never seen any similar service that is even close to being this easy to use. It does everything except take the pictures for you!
I do understand that some people have experienced service interruptions; and the performance of the MobileMe website is still sluggish. But what we are witnessing here is the not very graceful introduction of something that’s going to be really good. Just wait.
I really like the push email to my account. Some of the photo gallery is working in a squirrelish fashion, but otherwise, it’s not bad. I do wish I could pick a set of pictures to upload from the iPhone instead of one-at-a-time.
Great concept, let’s get it working 100% of the time and the planets will once again align.
I’m maintaining the faith.
“All great achievers need to fail miserably sometimes.”
Except lately Apple is failing ALL THE TIME.
I’ll chime in as well and say that I’ve been having good luck with Mobile Me. No problems here!
is anyone using the webmail and when they reply to a message it immediately saves a draft? This is great but then when I hit “send” it doesn’t delete the partially saved draft.
I am using a Vista computer for webmail at work. It pushes nicely to my home and now I have 6 drafts at home too.
maybe you guys should give RIM some credit for how reliable their email service is…
@Mac User since 1984;
No, you are not alone. No glitches here, not enough to scream about anyway. Push works fine, battery life is good on the iPhone & it gets the messages 90% of the time before my Mac does!
Since I get a corporate discount, that discounted amount is fine by me for the good service I’ve gotten since it was free lo those many years ago!
Funny name and some small glitches like the one above but over all this is much better than .Mac was, I’m getting a lot more use out of it already. It works well for me (2 macs and an iPhone) and will probably get better.
“maybe you guys should give RIM some credit for how reliable their email service is…”
Except for all those dead nights that morphed into dead DAYS?
LOL! You need a better example…
The problems will be resolved, I suspect if some of you were in the room with this, you’d might get a clue as to how complicated this really is and sometimes no matter how much testing you do, you cannot anticipate what will happen under real live conditions.. Which is why some people are having no issues and others are.
Course, making sure that the features were documented and not trying to change the meaning of “push” would have solved some issues from the start.
@baritus
I agree. I think things will work better and I am happy that things eventually will be really slick if you are a person who uses multiple devices.
@ anyone:
I’ve never used idisk (even with .mac) and am wondering a question: Is the only folder that isn’t password protected the /Public folder? Can any access the other folders if they have the password? Can more folders be created?
Thanks
neither apple nor microsoft know much about cloud services…I would have preferred to see a google partnership here
No Mobile Me probs here.
i had .mac and i love my mac, ipods and iphone, but apple screwed the pooch on this one.
their customer support has been down right negligent and their advertising failed to mention some key pieces of information (ie. MobileMe won’t sync with Outlook if you are using exchange which most of the working world uses).
still got love for you apple, but you need to get these problems resolved and do some damage control.
I have 2 3G iPhones and both work as advertised with MobileMe. No email down time, no refusal to sync. At first I thought I did have a problem with contacts not syncing but that turned out to be that 15 minute delay between a change in your Mac and seeing a change on your phone.
Now if they would only fix whatever the problems are with that pesky 1% group then maybe they can get on with providing me with A SIMPLE PERIODIC REMINDER BEEP when I’ve missed a call or message. (How stupid not to have that.)
Well finally somebody speaks up on this. I agree with another poster that had anyone else said it, the nasty flames would have begun. Mossberg is right. My MobileMe has been down for one whole week now. I have missed a number of important emails, but took the initiative to contact those from whom I was expecting messages and have them send me information to another address.
Apple has really disappointed a true fan this time around. I live with Apple products and I am one of the greatest advocates. Do you know how embarrassing it has been to tell people my email (Apple Email) has been down for a whole week and no explanation or estimated time to restore has been provided?
This is why I like Walt–He says it like it is.
He usually is as rabid for Apple as most of us here, but when it’s bad, he says so.
That speaks highly of his credibility, and makes his Apple recomendations that much more valid.