The transition from .Mac to MobileMe was rockier than Apple had hoped. While the company is making a lot of improvements, the MobileMe service is still not up to Apple’s standards. Therefore, Apple is extending subscriptions 60-days free of charge to express appreciation for MobileMe members’ patience as they continue to improve the service.
Apple email sent to MobileMe subscribers:
We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. To recognize our users’ patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber as of today a free 60 day extension. This is in addition to the one month extension most subscribers have already received. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe’s launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around. Read this article for more details.
The MobileMe Team
• You are eligible if you are a MobileMe member whose account was active as of August 19, 2008 at 0:00 Pacific Daylight Time.
• If you were in your free trial period on August 19 at 0:00 Pacific Daylight Time, your free trial will be extended an additional 60 days.
• Your 60-day extension will be applied to your account within the next few days. You can check your account page on me.com to verify the change when it occurs.
More info here.
MacDailyNews Note: On July 16th, Apple granted a 30-day subscription extension to which this new 60-day extension will be added for a total of 90-days.
Related articles:
Former Apple employee: Eddy Cue will fix MobileMe – August 07, 2008
Full text of Steve Jobs’ memo to MobileMe team – August 06, 2008
Steve Jobs says MobileMe launched too early, not up to Apple’s standards; puts Eddy Cue in charge – August 05, 2008
Apple: MobileMe Mail, contact and calendar sync now working for all users – July 30, 2008
MobileMess weighs on Apple shares – July 28, 2008
Apple’s MobileMe highlights problems endemic to cloud computing – July 28, 2008
Apple should have launched MobileMe as ‘beta’ – July 28, 2008
Apple CEO Steve Jobs orders frequent public MobileMe status updates – July 28, 2008
NY Times’ Pogue slams Apple over ‘MobileMess’ – July 24, 2008
Mossberg: Apple’s MobileMe far too flawed to be reliable – July 24, 2008
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
sweet!!
now we get 90 days free…. way to go Apple… nice gesture.
I’ve yet to have an issue with MobileMe. Everything has worked perfect for me. I almost hope that people (other than me of course) have problems, then I keep getting free service
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Good to see Apple is compensating its customers for these problems.
No problems here, but I’ll gladly take the free 60.
Maybe, just maybe, Steve’s world will realize the mistake of devoting all their human resources to the frills like the phone, the tunes, and such is a failed strategy when the core faithful who made it all happen are taken for granted. Time to turn full attention to the Mac and the OS. Lots of ground to be made up here.
Everything was fine for me, as well, until now. This evening I have lost all messages except for my sent folder. This only affects my .me account. Anyone else have this issue? I could not find anything on Apple’s support forums relating to this.
All fine, but I love the extra 90!
30 days + 60 days should bring me to an expiration in January 2009, not December 2008. I’ll give Apple a few days to fix then, then if it’s not fixed, I’m gonna call
Customer Relations at 1-800-767-2775
and tell them to get me the complete 90 day extension of what we’re not getting anymore.
@Dance With Who Brung Ya
I totally agree. Long time .Mac subscribers have been really snubbed by this transition. I have one apartment, therefore I own one Mac. I have no need for a laptop, and the iPhone is not sold in the state I live in. Therefore, I have no need of “push” services that don’t work with my Palm Centro. Even so, why should I have to lose all the value of the ancillary .Mac services… <u>especially <i>Apple iCards!!</b></u>
There are two petitions clamoring for the return of Apple’s iCards:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ic110608/petition.html
and
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/06291970/petition.html
Feel free to add your signature to the 1,000 other voices crying in the wilderness!!
@ Dance With Who Brung Ya:
Oh come on. Do you really think that developing technologies like Multi-Touch won’t benefit Macs in the near future? The ability to optimize OS X to run on the iPhone is HUGE for the future of OS X on Macs. While Windows continues to bloat and have problems, OS X gets optimized and takes less and less space. Look at what Snow Leopard is expected to become.
Also, new developers are being drawn to the iPhone, and we’ve already seen the iPod halo effect. More and more people are being exposed to OS X because of this “failed strategy”.
@ Penelope Pickles:
Quit Mail, wait a couple of minutes, and relaunch. It should sync up with MobileMe and your messages will be restored. Happened to me this morning.
If that doesn’t do it, log out and log back in. That should force the synchronization.
MobileMe was rocky for me, at first, but it is working perfectly now, and has been for quite some time.
Thanks Apple for the goodwill.
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@MacSmiley–
iCards? Really? I’d rather have my mobile bookmarks back.
@bizlaw
I don’t see MobileMe as a failed strategy. I just don’t believe that all this exciting progress has to come at the expense of people-oriented .Mac services.
My Flickr photo of the iCard I sent Steve Jobs is pushing towards 3,000 views, almost half of which are coming from search engines looking for terms like “What happened to Apple iCards” and variations thereof. Every single search represents a distressed person who’s getting nothing but a generic MobileMe error page when they go to send that special someone that special iCard on that special occasion.
So after hard-heartedly canceling the service, Apple is too callous to even post a notification on the old iCards website. There’s simply no excuse for the neglectful way Apple has handled this transition.
@ TheConfuzed1… Web bookmarks, too.
In the last two weeks I wowed (apologies to Microsoft) my editors by putting the photo department schedule on iCal and making push changes available to anyone in the newsroom. They love it and have no idea of any Apple problems with MobileMe. Having the schedule on my iPhone is also a big big plus.
It’s been working great and so has my email.
For those that have had problems, the additional 60 days is a smart move.
Happy to hear Apple has some big plans for the future of MobileMe in addition to short term stability goals.
“Maybe, just maybe, Steve’s world will realize the mistake of devoting all their human resources to the frills like the phone, the tunes, and such is a failed strategy when the core faithful who made it all happen are taken for granted”
Oh BOO HOOO you’re so persecuted. A major selling product like the iPhone is not a frill you fool. When you wake up and acknowledge that the iPhone is actually a hand held Mac, and that this App store is bringing more developers to the Mac platform, maybe you will realize this point.
For all 100 people suing iCards, it must be a huge loss. My condolences. Grieve, move past it in time.
Have you considered Hallmark, eCards, or using some free Mail.app templates? Though you may have loved iCards, can’t you now see how chintzy they were? It’s time to upgrade. Seriously.
When I upgraded to my iPhone 3G, somehow, my iCal is not being pushed.
I’m one of those affected. I’ve not been able to sync iCal on my computers with MobileMe. MobileMe works well between the clouds and my iPhone, but there’s no synchronization among my Macs, my iPhone and “the cloud.” My fear is a sudden ability synchronize and I lose the calendar information I currently have stored on my iPhone and MobileMe due to merged information.
I’m glad to read many of you have had no issues, but this has been a pain for me over the past month.
Can we have bookmarks feature back?
MacSoftwareList.com
@bizlaw–
Sorry, but I think multi-touch on the computers is counter-intuitive and a bit of a pain. And before you ask if I’ve ever used it–yes, I have.
Another bogus gift from Apple. So you have 90 free days now added on. Thats only good if you plan on dropping it at some point. Meanwhile, you’ve paid for those months where the service was crap. Apple should have refunded you instead.
I purchased Mobile.Me on July 11th with my iPhone. I love the service. eMails are pushed to me immediately.
Contact synching has some work to be done, to get it right.
All in all, I am a very happy camper. Mobile.Me combined with the iPhone is fabulous!
“Another bogus gift from Apple. So you have 90 free days now added on. Thats only good if you plan on dropping it at some point. Meanwhile, you’ve paid for those months where the service was crap. Apple should have refunded you instead.”
wow.
epic math and logic fail. truly epic.
To R, and all those others who dis the value of iCards: you are missing the point! Or, more likely, SEVERAL points. While it may well be true that you could get a “postcard” service elsewhere – and better ones, with tunes included even – these came at a cost … advertising. The only “ads” included with Apple’s iCards were the subtle notice that you had received an Apple iCard. As for the “all 1,000 of ya”, what ever gave you the idea there were only a thousand of us missing that feature? 1. my mother enjoyed getting iCards (much more than I enjoy the competition) 2. The Mail templates only work if a. you use Mail and b. your recipient uses a compatible reader, and are quite limited.
I appreciate the added 60 days, though most of my significant problems were over within a week. I’ve lost much of my ability to host minor personal web sites in my “.Mac space”, and that matters to me.
They still haven’t fixed my inability to sync contacts. Grrrrrr…