MobileMe, like .Mac before it, has been rife with problems. Let’s face it. .Mac and MobileMe have been a black eye for Apple since it dropped its iTools service, which ironically enough, seemed to be far more stable when it was free.
Year in, year out, I’ve paid for .Mac like a loyal Apple fan. I’ve never really used the webspace for anything significant. There was far too little space for putting up many photo galleries. iDisk was never something I had a ton of use for. The email was good, but the lack of reliability really killed it for me. It became mostly about the syncing.
Is the syncing worth $99 per year? For now, for me, it is. I transitioned not so long ago to Gmail, but opted to transition back when MobileMe was announced. Considering the renamed service’s track record since the renaming, I have to question whether I jumped back in too early.
While running an online service is no doubt not a trivial affair, the fact is that countless other companies run similar services (sans the syncing) with uptime that’s far superior with tech support that, shockingly enough, is actually accessible. Those services are even cheaper. The lack of support access is probably the worst part of it.
We pay an excessive amount for this service (particularly those of us not using an iPhone) and we can’t even get a person on the phone to get help when the reliability goes in the toilet. This situation has gone on long enough. A free month is a bit too little, a bit too late. It’s time Apple put someone in charge that can execute and deliver a product worthy of the company’s name. .Mac never was and it’s beginning to look like MobileMe never will.
TOTALLY AGREE. It's maddening that I have paid Apple something like $700 for the privilege of using .mac (and now MobileMe), plus several hundred more for Applecare, and none of that entitles me to phone support. It's even worse that the one semi-real time support option for .mac (online chat) has been removed entirely now that MobileMe is live.
Does Apple really think that keeping one's "whole life in sync" is trivial enough that enduring several days of back and forth support via email is acceptable? I sure don't.
Let's see - my iMac G3 still syncs, but my Powerbook G3 (Pismo) doesn't.
Hmmm - Backup would backup to the iDisc.
Help, Apple, save us!
Thank you for saying -- succinctly and publicly -- exactly what I have been ranting about to friends ever since MobileMe went live on Friday!
As a Tiger user, I've been unable to sync anything since the transition, and an e-mail to tech support was met with a form-letter response that was irrelevant and useless. If Apple is going to charge for this service (and charge handsomely), it needs to provide REAL support. And the sop of a 30-day extension is meaningless when the service doesn't work and there is NO WORD as to whether or not it ever will for Tiger users.
Thanks again, Derik!
Yeah well... I thought I was getting off easy. The only effect I felt was the lack of web-apps for a couple days. But today, all the contacts on my iPhone disappeared for several minutes. It freaked me out. But they were all still available on me.com and my Mac. They need to get this straightened out!
Also, If you have used the Google Maps web widget in iWeb to place a map - it is broken.
Your inserted Google Map (only if placed by the handy google widget) now displays the a mobileme page.
well said derik!! now lets hope that someone over at apple is actually listening.
I was thinking about moving a small office over onto MobileMe for e-mails, calendar, contact functions, etc. It is very appealing as a totally integrated solution. But there is no way I would risk it now, knowing the historical problems of .Mac and watching the troubled upgrade to MobileMe.
It's weird; Apple is all about seamless integration between software and hardware, and now services too. Which is great, but if one part falls down, then you're really stuffed. Until they can guarantee 99.9% uptime, I'm keeping essential services, like e-mail, away from Apple.
It's a real shame - I'd love it to work as advertised!
Given the history of all of MobileMe problems, why would anyone expect it to be reliable?
DavidB said, "I'm keeping essential services, like e-mail, away from Apple."
That has quickly become my philosophy for all things Apple. I love Apple's OS and the interface; beyond that, I stay away from their apps & services as best as possible. They seem to do things in a half-baked kind of way anymore. Coincidentally(?), this started happening particularly around the time they started making their stuff accessible to PC users. Hmmmmmmm.
It's enough ! Basta !
I hear ya! I would agree, I hang on to it because of all it could be not because of what it actually does.
What kills me the most is my year is up in like two weeks and from what the site says my card has an issue, which it doesn't. Go ahead and try to update any account info right now, it just thinks and thinks. The extention on the accounts is said to take a few weeks to take affect, well, I guess I'll be expired by then.
Go ahead and try to get some tech support.
I'm wondering if I could get more value out of $100 of crack at this point.
I've heard a lot of people say that we should cut apple some slack because this is a big transition, but I'd like to point out that the squeaky wheel gets the oil.
People have been arguing about problems that they've had with .mac for years. It is my hope that upper management at apple will finally see that they need to do more about this then simply change the name, add a widget here, and give it a new coat of paint.
Using the same people/tool without doing anything new and expecting different results is insanity.
Not to mention the lack of Rich Text in web email like gMail and Yahoo Mail have. Bleh,
Hey Derik! Just tell us how you really feel, bokay?
Hmpfff... grrrtkkk... shhhhhtttt... krsktpfrkbrv !!! arg !
A topic that has come up again and again on our show is the threatened demise of your favourite, independent record store due to our digital music climate. Terry McBride recently called the indie record store "the last great musical community centre". Across Canada, many of these great stores continue to survive... some thriving, some hanging on by a thread.