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August 5, 2008

internet

Jobs fesses up to it and vows to clean up their “MobileMess”

Posted Aug. 5, ’08, 9:26 AM PT by Aayush Arya
Category | Internet

MobileMessOver at Ars Technica, Jacqui Cheng seems to have been tipped about an internal email that Steve Jobs sent out to employees at Apple. According to Jobs, the MobileMe launch and the service in its present state is “not up to Apple’s standards”. Recognizing the requirement for a change in management, Eddy Cue has now been appointed as the head honcho of all Internet-related services at Apple, including iTunes, the App Store and MobileMe, and reports directly to Jobs.

Jobs also suggests various ways in which the launch could have been prevented from being such a disaster. He reckons that it shouldn’t have been simultaneously launched along with iPhone 3G, the 2.0 firmware and the App Store. They could also have launched the features one-by-one instead of trying to pull off the massive launch at one go.

With the benefit of hindsight, of course, it’s clear that both of his suggestions are spot on. However, it’s still shocking for me that not one influential person at Apple saw this coming. They already knew the scores of problems they used to face with .Mac almost on a daily basis and still didn’t think of ensuring that nothing would go wrong before deciding to flip the switch. Twenty thousand users not having access to their email for a week is simply an inexcusable blunder, one that I wouldn’t expect even from a free service by Microsoft, let alone a paid one by Apple.

Even today, MobileMe is hardly perfect. The syncing issues still remain, with various subscribers facing several different problems. The “push” aspect of the service is still not entirely reliable. The SMTP server just conks out every now and then, leaving us unable to send any email at all. And the iPhone’s Mail client still polls the server for new messages every time you launch the app even though the “push” capability of MobileMe has supposedly rendered it unnecessary. The personal domain service does not allow ‘.ME’ domains (and most other TLDs) and the Mail web app has a problem displaying accented characters and non-standard symbols.

Thankfully, there seems to be hope at the horizon, if Steve Jobs is to be believed. “The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services. And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year.” For the sake of all the MobileMe subscribers out there and Apple’s reputation, I hope that turns out to be true.

While we are at it though, can’t something be done about the name please?

Update: Caving in to popular demand, Ars has now made the full text of the email available for your reading pleasure. There’s nothing new here but it’s still fun to see Jobs admitting, for once, that everything out of the Apple factory is not earth-shattering.


3 Comments

Smoking Chimpanzees said:

I sooo want Mobileme to work. Thing is unlike with any other service where it doesn't matter so much whether it works or not (just move to a different one), Mobileme can be so awesome if it does.

Still, I'm happy with my $20 investment in the 5 user family pack. Maybe next year when the service is fully up, I'll pay the full $100. Till then all I can do is feel sorry for those who did pay the $100 for this unreliable service :P

August 5, 2008 12:48 PM
Smoking Chimpanzees said:

Forgot to mention, nice to see you posting again. Missed me daily dose of Aayush ramblings.

August 5, 2008 1:23 PM
Aayush Arya Author Profile Page said:

Thank you! :)

August 6, 2008 4:09 AM

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