“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
Push finally started working for me last night. First time since the launch, I’ve got three of my friends who still don’t have it running.
@MobileMe non sell
its $80 on amazon
I love MobileMe. Since I got my new iPhone, I have only connected it to my computer maybe 3 times for a backup and to sync something I downloaded. I can now buy my iTunes songs, get my apps, have my calendars and bookmarks sync’d w/o having to tether to my desktop. It seems to me one of the things people bitched about when the iPhone first came out was no wireless sync’ing. Now they are bitching again because it exists???
And all this mess at the expense of .Mac services many of us valued!
I WANT MY ICARDS BACK!!
edit that above post…. my iphone just sync’d with mobile me, and I lost ALL my contacts.
I’ve had a mac since ’84, and .mac since just the idisk days. This is a total screw the pooch apple. Worse that the iMovie 08 launch.
Oops! Forgot my signature:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/macsmiley/2652541101/
And the “MDN are mindless fanboys” crowd instantly evaporates.
I’m just gonna turn the thing off in settings and sync it with the computer manually. Sad really, cause it worked fine with the gen 1 iPhone.
What’s so sad about the failures in the launch of MobileMe is that this will both leave a bad taste in the mouths of new Apple customers (of Macs, iPhones and iPod Touches), and will act as a deterrent to sales of iPhones. Some day, we might find out what the root causes were. I’m sure it’s a mix of technical failures, bad programming, poor management and hubris.
While Steve Jobs isn’t in there doing the coding, the failures point to a black eye on what has been an incredible run for Apple. Year after year, we’ve been delighted and amazed at how well Apple has done things, so the failures many of us are experiencing with MobileMe only amplify the shock.
I’m a long-time Apple customer. I’ve used .Mac from day one. Seeing that many of the functions of .Mac, homepage, iDisk and other components have been disabled (or in the case of HomePage, as of October, it will be turned off), functions that I have come to make a critical component of my business, I am upset. Why turn these off when thousands, if not millions of people like me consider this to be the reason why we pay $100 per year?
Looking back, I wonder if Apple reached too far, and spread itself too thin, trying to have everything ready at the same time as the iPhone 3G launch. Would it have made sense to have delayed the launch of MobileMe? Perhaps waiting until everyone inside Apple knew that the software was rock solid would have made sense – you never get a second chance to make a first impression. I also wonder if the development team for MobileMe had designed in enough scale to handle an explosion of new users worldwide – my hunch is that architecturally, somebody really goofed on the back-end programming of the databases and servers.
Another concern for me is that it’s not like the team tasked with this was starting from scratch. .Mac wasn’t perfect, but it got the job done. I wonder (without knowing if this would be possible architecturally) to have built parts of MobileMe on top of .Mac, which might have allowed for a smoother transition. The bottom line though, and I work for a software company, is NEVER SHIP UNTIL IT’S ROCK SOLID. That’s rule #1. Rule #2: re-read Rule #1.
I see a world of potential in MobileMe. But it boils down to execution and the ability to scale. If you look at the Apple Support message boards for MobileMe, there are a ton of very frustrated and upset customers. It’s simply not the experience that we have come to know, love and expect from Apple. This episode will likely ruin a few careers. My hope is that Apple can fix this quickly, LEARN from the mistakes, continue to reach out to make things right with its customers, and do much better going forward. This appears to be as much a failure of management, project planning, architecture, programming, testing and quality assurance. If you work in software like I do, a failure like this hits just about every software company eventually. In my experience, it’s usually some mid-level VP who created a fiefdom inside the corporation, and their arrogance and bad management causes a boulder to roll down the hill. But that mentality is poisoning what should have been a brilliant moment for Apple.
Sad.
Let’s hope it gets better. And soon.
mine’s working great so far, especially with the iPhone
I would like for my calendar subscriptions to sync, though
I signed up for a mobileme trial account after launch and I still can’t log on to the website to try the web apps. Now I signed up via the US side of things, but I’m currently traveling in Mexico, so I don’t know if my IP address is keeping me out of logging in on the site. (I had the same problem for a long time trying to download the iPhone SDK kit, Apple not allowing those outside the US to download it. That has since been resolved.)
I am, however, able to login via System Preferences … but it’s squirrelly about my login. It seems for the Apple ID login, either appending the “@me.com” works as well as leaving it off entirely, but if I don’t consistently login with the same format, it’s as if I logged in as another user and then my sync settings get all screwed up.
A couple of early glitches, but MM has been great for me ever since. However, neither my anecdotal evidence nor Walt’s tells the whole story. Clearly, even though some of us are having great experiences, many are not. Until everyone gets the benefit of the god experience, MM is not a success.
I haven’t even been able to renew my account without getting the cryptic “ERROR” page. They really must not want me as a customer.
Maybe the ERROR is that I’m giving them another $100.
“if anyone but uncle walt had said it..”
Not true. You imply that everything Apple does, no matter how good or bad, people just swallow it and and ask for more. If anything Mac users tend to be pickier than most, I mean how could you be considered picky and be a Windows user.
No. If somethings rotten, people aren’t going to give Apple a free pass. Usually if people are vocal against a tech writer about an Apple article it’s usually because the article is full of inaccuracies and FUD.
“What major product launch has Apple not screwed the pooch on recently?”
MacBook Air.
iPhone 3G. (Sorry, waiting in line doesn’t count.)
Application store
how about those for starters.
AND, they STILL haven’t fixed the comment issue when publishing to iWeb, even though they updated it yesterday.
I have been using .Mac since December 2000 and I’ve been enjoying it, that is until the change to mobileme. Boy this sucks!
I’m glad I can sync my iPhone in iTunes! Using mobileme will delete all contacts on the phone at random occasions which is a little inconvenient. Calendars are a complete mess while using iTunes will get them all on the iPhone.
No syncing of bookmarks, they are only pushed towards the iPhone.
Pushing of my .mac mail will work sometimes, but it is as Mossberg explains, using custom mailboxes on your mac will delete those messages on your iPhone.
Mobile Me website never displays accurately what’s on my mac, although I’ve been resetting sync data from mac to mobileme over, and over and over.
For now my account WON’T automatically renew in 90 days
I agree. MobileMe.com stinks so far. I’ve used Mac.com for years….loved it. But since the switch….nothing but slow response, etc – it’s frustrating and has led to the first time I’ve considered cancelling it.
MobileMe is something that should be free, not something that should cost $100/year. Why can Google offer so many web services for free (including free email and storage) but Apple needs to charge for it?
Apple is not infallible. Can you say Apple III?????
But, I think MobilMe is a good direction to go, and is a big part of Apple’s future plans to integrate all the various Apple devices. So, they will work on it and they will get it right. As my old grandpappy used to say “Never buy release 1.0” or something like that.
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I could not agree more.
So far, MobileMe’s syncing ability has been working fine (if you accept the 15 minute delay.)
Calling something Microsoftian is never kind.
Bookmark syncing from my G5 to my iBook hasn’t worked for weeks. I hoped MobileMe would fix this. Fat chance. I’ve tried all the workrounds, resets, fixes, I could find and none worked. If I wasn’t so attached to my .mac address I’d cancel my subscription. Dot Mac / Mobile Me is Apple’s biggest pile of s— and the frustrating thing is it could be really good.
Apart from the horrible name and a rocky first few days, I am very happy with MobileMe. (After I checked the new ‘Use IDLE command if server supports it’ box in the MobileMe Mail account’s advanced preference box it seems to push my mail OK.)
But there is clearly a significant number of folk whose experience has not been so good, and Apple needs to fix that soon.
Am I a fanboy – maybe.
The key issue here is that Apple are pushing the boundaries to deliver exciting new services in linking phones, computers and the web.
I’ve experienced many many company tech introductions and upgrades that have been complete disasters – it seems to go with the IT territory. Apple are attempting to deliver services to vast numbers of people who all want every feature to work instantly.
Should Apple do more public, free betas, maybe. Should they sip payment dates if the service isn’t as advertised, again yes.
Let’s just look at what turds Microsoft have delivered recently to add some perspective to the failings of Apple.