Apple's misleading "Mobile Me" Claim Exposed

[questionfear]

Apparently Walt Mossberg had the same issues we've all had: From today's column

[Pupator]

Apple patiently explained each of my problems, sometimes helping me with workarounds, sometimes claiming they were rare, other times saying that it was working on fixes.

So I guess you have to be Walt Mossberg to get good support from Apple. 2 weeks later and all I get are auto-generated e-mails (why do those take 10 days anyway?) with links to FAQ articles based on the category I put my question in - certainly not on any one actually reading the question!

[questionfear]

So I guess you have to be Walt Mossberg to get good support from Apple. 2 weeks later and all I get are auto-generated e-mails (why do those take 10 days anyway?) with links to FAQ articles based on the category I put my question in - certainly not on any one actually reading the question!

Yes but you can take comfort that even being Walt Mossberg doesn't get you a working version of Mobile Me.

[rkevwill]

Well, imho, Mobile Me is certainly not ready for prime time, especially on the PC side. Its working pretty well for me, and other than the initial snafu's, it seems to be working pretty well on the mac side. That said, they shouldn't have come out with the PC side until it was working properly. Obviously something is getting lost in the translation there.

However, I have to say, I have seen MORE than my fair share of issues with PC software, even from Microsoft. As I have said before, those of us who are long time mac users can point to all the crippled applications that have been foisted on us via previously only Windows apps.

It will all eventually get worked out, but if I was a PC guy (or mixed use) I would CERTAINLY be getting a refund now (is that possible?) and wait for it to be seamless and as perfect as possible. Heck, thats one reason folks like Blackberry so much. "Most" of the time, it works flawlessly doing the things its supposed to do, through the blackberry server to outlook and exchange servers. Even after all these years however, our corp (um like over 25,000 blackberry users) still have some glitches from time to time. Its what keeps the IT guys employed

[berylrb]

I agree with rkevwill, it doesn't do folks like Pupator any good our hope in Apple to do what they do best, bring to market stuff that works, but in this case for sure they missed the boat somewhere.

Is this the sign of a shoddy Apple future? I don't know it scares me reading reports like this, link, where Apple is alleged to have cut margins for the premier back to school quarter to make a run at market share by lowering prices ... It's not that I'm a greedy shareholder or anything, I just get nervous at radical departures from the norm when it comes to companies I invest in.

Is this another sign of the core or heart of Apple changing? I think we need to give Steve some credit first, one gaff does not declare a pattern.

Like one site suggested I think a company that was on a role, became rather puffed up, you know arrogant, and thought they could role out a massive product change (.mac to mobileme) in the veil of their "usual" secrecy, ... man were they wrong!

So for now, I'll keep my money on "pseudo"-innovation, and human error, not a change in heart like Starbucks.

[Dyvim]

I'm still getting the occasional weird message (like my trial being expired when the control panel shows 78 days left on my trial) and Calendar Events added from my iPhone make it to me.com but not to Outlook on my PC. (Edit: actually they do make it, but only appear in list view, they are invisible in the Day/Week/Month view- so the Calendar item is sent across but is somehow corrupted so that it won't appear. Pupator- you should try viewing your empty calendars in "All Appointments" (list) mode- they might actually be there.)

That said, I also haven't had any catastrophic problems like Pupator. I synced my Contacts and Calendars from Outlook on my PC up to me.com with no troubles. Everything appeared in my new MacBook and also on our 2 iPhones as well as in me.com. I just recently bought my first Mac and had no good idea of how to import all my PIM info to it as well as keep it in sync with my PC. So far MobileMe is serving that purpose at least. I had thought about using Google Contacts and Gmail Calendars, but they don't hold all the info (all the populated fields) that are contained in my Outlook records. (And frankly Google Contacts import feature sucks since it can't even properly import contacts that are exported from Outlook in .csv format- all the addresses and anything else it can't parse end up as notes.). So while nowhere near perfect, it's the best thing I've seen yet for my peculiar circumstances (PC + Mac + 2 iphones). I still have 2.5 months to decide whether it's a keeper or not.

[RobbM]

Is this the sign of a shoddy Apple future?

Like one site suggested I think a company that was on a role, became rather puffed up, you know arrogant, and thought they could role out a massive product change (.mac to mobileme) in the veil of their "usual" secrecy, ... man were they wrong!

Frankly, I think that Apple has come under pressure to make the iPhone what users want, truly. The first version was what Apple wanted it to be, and it worked. But as usual, the critique was the closed system, which has been a critique of the MacOS for years (but compared to the first iPhone, the MacOS is practically Linux!). Now with the second iPhone, Apple has decided to try to give the people what they want while keeping the platform mostly a closed system. In many ways it worked (and is working), but in many ways it hasn't. Primarily in that some 3rd party apps (and their developers) need more access to the iPhoneOS to work properly. This is a growing pains situation: Eventually Apple will come up with a set of APIs for the iPhoneOS that allow developers the kind of access they need and the developers will learn to make good apps that work within the parameters allowed to them.

As for MM, I'm with beryl: Too much to quickly. I think it should've been rolled out in stages, desktop first, then iPhone w/o push, then push for desktops and mobile.

[RobbM]

Well, things may be looking up. If you haven't seen, Apple has started a "blog" to keep us apprised of the MobileMe status.

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/status/

I find the first sentence of the current post precious: "Steve Jobs has asked me...." OK. So the author has the authority of the almighty (little "a", of course), and the use of "me" makes it seem like a real person is writing the post. When we get to the bottom of the post, though, "me" remains unidentified.

So that's why I call it a "blog": Except for the personal pronoun, we have no evidence that a single person is responsible for the post. And of course, there's not anyway. But if you're going to get personal, go the whole 9 yards.

A nice touch, Apple, but still kind of disingenuous.

[z22 2006 User]

Yeah it is weird. Who's the man behind the curtain?

[berylrb]

Well, things may be looking up. If you haven't seen, Apple has started a "blog" to keep us apprised of the MobileMe status.

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/status/

I find the first sentence of the current post precious: "Steve Jobs has asked me...." OK. So the author has the authority of the almighty (little "a", of course), and the use of "me" makes it seem like a real person is writing the post. When we get to the bottom of the post, though, "me" remains unidentified.

So that's why I call it a "blog": Except for the personal pronoun, we have no evidence that a single person is responsible for the post. And of course, there's not anyway. But if you're going to get personal, go the whole 9 yards.

A nice touch, Apple, but still kind of disingenuous.

good catch RobbM, ... it is encouraging eh, 70 bug fixes in how many days.

On the other hand I don't have anything to compare it to, is that like normal for a release or really over the top?