Jonathan Feldman writes for Informationweek, “This just in from Apple: ‘MobileMe ends June 30. Although there are good standards-based ways to make your contacts and calendars available, we will arbitrarily disable those features in OS/X until you upgrade your operating system and, we hope, purchase new hardware from us.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Number one, this is not “just in,’ Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the end of MobileMe on June 6, 2011. Number two, what Apple actually stated via a reminder email sent to MobileMe users last week is the only thing that should be placed in quotes, unlike the hack Feldman has done above, is as follows: “MobileMe ends June 30. Remember to download your Gallery photos, iDisk files, and move your iWeb sites before that date.”
Feldman writes, “OK, maybe that’s not the way Apple put it, but that’s the message I hear. In my personal life, Apple is starting to drive me crazy with planned obsolescence. And now that the iPhone is a part of many of our enterprise deployments, Apple’s planned obsolescence will start to drive us crazy at work, too… Apple’s plans to change the dock connector on the next iPhone… That’s fantastic if you’re an Apple shareholder, but it’s annoying and expensive if you have to replace a fleet of iPhone accessories every time you replace your organization’s iPhones.”
MacDailyNews Take: As if simple adapters wouldn’t be available. (They certainly were the last time Apple changed connectors from FireWire to the current 30-pin Dock Connector in 2003.)
“Is innovation really supposed to work like this? I don’t think so. Here’s how it’s supposed to work: Supplier comes up with compelling value proposition for buyer. Buyer gladly parts with cash so that buyer can benefit from innovation,” Feldman writes. “This planned obsolescence thing is simply a message that not only will you buy the BMW of smartphones, but you will replace it on Apple’s schedule, not yours.”
MacDailyNews Take: Informationweek is to be commended with hiring the disabled, but minimum mental requirements really should be required for writers. Perhaps Feldman should be tasked with floor care or something less demanding.
This is exactly how innovation is supposed to work. The $99/year MobileMe has been replaced with a “compelling value proposition,” Apple’s free iCloud. And, Apple is not forcing you to buy a new iPhone, dummy.
Full piece – Think before You Click™ – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Even more than feigned indignity, whining about concocted nonsense, and making unsubstantiated claims (where’s the proof of “customer revolt,” dummy?), Jonathan Feldman loves email. Lots and lots of email.
Send him some here: jf@feldman.org
Don’t email him. He’ll just write another article about how the brainwashed “fanbois” went crazy, proving whatever blah blah blah.
Ignore informationweek.
ask him if they wrote about Nokia Lumnia 900 “planned obsolescence” that microsoft just announced last week.
A phone that just started to sell 3 days ago and Microsoft just say it will be obsolete to use Windows 8 at the end of the year.
Never mind the fact that the dock connector has remained unchanged since the days of the first ipod. How many other connectors last that long?
With a great new iPod 5 comes a great new dock connector and charger. Problem solved! A non-issue.
I mean iPhone 5 – duh.
Well, no. The first iPod had a Firewire connector.
I have not moved to Lion yet because of business related software. However, I like the way AAPL moves away from old technology or they will turn into a Microsoft.
I recommend you skip Lion entirely and wait for Mountain Lion, if your hardware is compatible. [Just being helpful fellow fanboys!]
He don’t know Apple customers, they didnt just pop up and they arent lifelong customers for nothing.
I love it when Apple makes changes. Gives me an excuse to tell the wife we got some upgrading to do. Keeps me on the bleeding edge. Bring it on, Apple. I cannot wait.
I hope we’re on the same page about filling up this nimrods inbox with truth.
I just watched a new HP PC get installed at work with a PS2 Mouse and Keyboard …
I’m typing on a Mac Pro with an ADB keyboard (through an adapter).
We recently bought 4 48port quality HP switches. They had to be configured in a specific way for us. Guess how? Com port!
I asked the engineer configuring it: Really? Not one person at HP saw the 48 high speed shiny ports and thought: This is stupid!
Had not even occurred to the engineer how silly it was…….just got out the good old laptop with the good old com port and went about his business….
The interface to the switches’ internal operating system (OS) to configure them through the communications port (RS232) via Hyper-terminal is a security measure. This is to prevent someone with external access from hacking into the system if you disable telneting through the Ethernet interface. Also for administrative reasons the OS can be firmware upgraded through the com port without piggybacking on the Ethernet ports which might otherwise have been fully occupied – this is so you don’t have to unjack a cable connection to the Ethernet port while doing administrative work on the switch. The com port is there for a reason and not because it’s backward to use it instead of an Ethernet port. Besides the baud rate needed to communicate with the com port at maximum would only be 128kb/s in the event a software upgrade is needed, otherwise 96000b/s is more than adequate to perform administrative tasks. The Gigabit Ethernet port would be overkill in every single use case.
What Apple’s doing to its paying Mobile Me subscriber base is ridiculous. You buy into Apple’s reputation and sell. You entrust mountains of data and photographs and websites to Apple you build up over years of use, essentially your families whole electronic life to Apple, only to have it all pitched out for really no good reason.
Whats funny? Apple sent me an email with instructions on how to get my files from my iDisk. The funny part, the instructions say to mount iDisk in the Finder. Well..you can’t do that anymore. I fired up a pbook with leopard since it still has that option in the finder..but it can’t connect to my iDisk.
Just look at iWeb for instance. A great little program fully integrated with iLife to make building a quality website simple and easy. Now all those websites are being chucked out. For what? No more room on the massive server farm they built?
In comparison nothing even really compelling in iCloud other than it’s free.
GmanMac – I recently moved my iWeb websites from Mobile me to my free Comcast.net web hosting. I have one iWeb site set up as my ‘home page’ and then all of the other multi-page iWeb sites link to that ‘home page’. When I moved over to Comcast.net, the only think I had to do was open VIEW > INSPECTOR and change the links between my ‘home page’ and each of my other iWeb sites from “One Of My Pages” to “An External Page” and enter the appropriate URL. I then published from iWEB by entering the FTP information for Comcast. The only time consuming part was re-uploading all of the website information.
GmanMac – For each of the multi-page iWeb sites, the internal links work without having to do external URLs. On them I had to use an external URL only to link back to my Home Page.
I will continue to use iWeb for my personal web sites. Granted they are fairly simple … mostly just photo pages from vacation trips and such.
Moved my iWeb hosting to MacHighway, still using iWeb for now.
M…. Go > iDisk > My iDisk (command + shift + I)
Mounts just fine here…
Will not connect with Leopard.. and my other home computer is running Mountain Lion.. there is no option for iDisk anything in ML.
I don’t recall seeing iDisk in this menu with Lion either.. but I could be wrong.
Will try with my Snow Leopard iMac at work tomorrow. My work proxy blocks iDisk though..
Never mind… You can still log into Mobile Me.. backing up now.
They seem to be on Mirosoft’s payroll. I get a free subscription I glance at and then immediately trash.
A waste of electrons, ink and paper. This month they tossed me a free print copy to entice me, again. I DID look it over, rolled my eyes and trashed it. The same “Information” is freely available on the web, nothing new, not worth my eye time.
Wow, Apple would be on top of the food chain IF ONLY they did what Infomrationweek suggested.
Apple earnings time up soon, so its open season on FUD.
Feldman should make sure to back up his writings onto his Syqyest drives.
Man, I used to LOVE my Syquest EZ Drives! While others were slowly writing to big ass floppies (ZIP drives) and dealing with the “click of death”, I was writing to my SCSI EZ Drive. Those 135MB hard drive carts were AWESOME (until you dropped one on a hard surface, but still). Ah, those were both dark and exciting times for computing.
not NOT looking forward to all my iPod and iOS cables and accessories becoming obsolete.
Adapters…
Certainly it won’t be change for change’s sake. If they do in fact change the connector, it will be to offer some added benefit: smaller form factor to allow for thinner, lighter device, or more room for other components (where do you think they’ll get space to add NFC or other tech if nothing gives), or larger battery. Also, maybe some new tech to improve the connection, like MagSafe, or higher sync speeds. (Get’s me thinking… what if it were a mini-thunderbolt magsafe cable?)
Anyways, the benefits will justify the “obsolescence” of the the “legacy” hardware.
i will miss the public folder on the i disk the most , whenever i had some win doze dummy who could not open an attachment or pdf in his mail client or the file exceeded size limits i just popped it up on the old public folder and sent them to the page and let them push the little arrow to get their stuff
the cloud does not seem to have that feature . i accidentally moved my stuff to the cloud with out realizing i could not access it on my old mac . i am now happily typing on my new i mack apple forced me to bite the bullet . it did not hurt much and it was good for me.
Progress requires change learn to live with it.
Anyone know where I can get leaded gas for my 1965 Dodge? Also, maybe they also know why my analog, terestial TV no longer picks up any channels?
Dock Connector is 9 years old. In the same period I bought 4 generations of Siemens wireless phones. Every damn one has a different connector so I had to buy separate chargers for the for different rooms. Complete mess and a greedy way to alienate customers. Changing a 9 years old connector to a smaller one is called evolution. I’m actually looking forward to the smaller connector.
True but then there’s folks that dont beleive there is a Darwin let alone in evolution
Yes, there really was a person named Charles Darwin.
No, Darwinian evolution has never been proven to have happened.
And, yes, sometimes you have to let old technology go, so you can make room for newer bad better technology.
“No, Darwinian evolution has never been proven to have happened”
That’s only reckoned by those who Are still stuck in their old ways;-)
You really ought to widen your education. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is just that…a theory. A theory is an interpretation of observable phenomena backed up by empirical data. It allows other experimental work to proceed in an established framework in order to build on humanity’s knowledge.
In the absence of more compelling evidence, a theory can be considered ‘proven’ or ‘established’ and will remain so until someone comes up with a better one.
Electricity is still only theory about the movement of particles – do you not believe in that too?
This is NOT planned obsolescence! It is, in fact, saying that 10 year old technology needs to make way for the future. Planned obsolescence is when something is intended to break or become obsolete in a relatively short time. No one could say that the many years the 30 pin dock connector has been with us is in any way “short” in tech-years (if anything we should all be wondering why they didn’t do this ages ago).
Also, if the new connector is in fact a micro-USB, then one could conceivably argue that Apple is only doing this to comply with European standards (a reasonable and legitimate excuse). Personally I doubt that is the reason, but “what do I know?” 🙂
I missed this completely – when did Apple announce the new connector??? Can someone point me to the correct link? I’d like to have some actual facts at hand to compare to the article writer’s assertions. Thanks!
I think the facts are right after the article with factual information on the iPhone nano Apple is going to announce any day now.
Which is right after the 7″ iPad Apple is working so hard on.
You mean like the connection for every cell phone (from the SAME company) I bought in the past that used a different charger/connecter for EVERY cell phone I ever bought.
We all need to get a life! MDN talks from both sides of their mouths and that is unbecoming to astute Apple products disciples. If the article targeted MSoft, then MDN is “having at it” like there is no tomorrow but seeing the articles speaks to Apple MDN goes off with excuses like a kid peeing it’s pants at the Mall!
Come on Man!
What a dipshit.
Well, to lock out the most recent OS, Snow Leopard from iCloud is simply Bullshit.
No other way to put it.
InformationWeek has been courting me for YEARS to sign up again for their free subscription. Now you know why I entirely ignore their rag. 🙄