Apple admits to lost MobileMe messages, bad karma
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Jul 26th 2008 11:44AM
posted Jul 26th 2008 11:44AM
Apple's Push-like MobileMe launch has been such a debacle that they're now in damage control mode. As a result, some poor soul has been tasked by Steve Jobs to post status updates "every other day or so." The first update is already revealing:- Last Friday, 1% of MobileMe subscribers were affected by a "serious problem" with one of Apple's mail server.
- Limited web access has been restored to those accounts but full access won't be sorted until next week.
- Of these 1%, Apple admits to losing "approximately 10%" of the messages received between July 16 and July 18.
MobileWhoCares. I wouldn't pay $99 per year for this.
I'd be pissed off if a FREE email provider's service was this bad - Steve Jobs should accept responsibility and resign. Perhaps he should focus on making CGI movies instead - at least Pixar didn't accidentally lose 10% of Wall-E...
I can't really think of a single reason anyone would pay for Mobile Me. It was a bad deal when it was called .Mac, and now it just seems to be more broken than ever.
Given how bad iTunes and Quicktime are on Windows, very buggy iPhone 2.0 software (and shoddy launch they've had, despite the sales figures), lying about Push, and the general failure of Mobile Me, I don't think that they're really inspiring a lot of confidence in the next generation of would-be switchers.
@ Mike Cearn
Sales figures don't bear out your insights, but hey I'm sure you don't work in share trading - if you do think about a career change.
Oh and by the way I'm not an Apple Fanboy, Shareholder or Fanboy, just can't stand poor analysis
I only use it because our company website is hosted by them, allowing very easy and simple updates through iWeb. I don't know any programming, so this is a blessing to me! I host our email through gmail, so email has been unaffected. I did not have access to me.com until last week, but that doesn't really matter to me because I don't ever really need it. My site has been unaffected, and that's all I care!
Oh, and I know that many of you will laugh off the fact that I use iWeb and mac.com/me.com...but for those of us that don't know and programming (or need to continuously update our sites quickly and easily), it's not a bad solution.iWeb is so easy to use, and gives me 1 button publishing. It's all I want and it serves me well!
@mymaclife
I believe he was referring to people that would consider picking up an iPhone or subscribing to MobileMe after the early adopters (in this case = beta testers) have had the first go-round.
I don't get why you guys have covered MobileMe, and not Live Mesh. Considering, Live Mesh is a device synchronization service (and free!), and works well from what I've heard, it should make sense to put this on Engadget. Plus it can work with all mobile phones, not just iPhone.
http://mesh.com/
WHERE IS GOOGLE'S VERSION? I Love Gmail, Calendar, Reader, etc. We just need a PUSH version that functions like MobileME or Exchange!
@Quikboy
I agree 100% about LiveMesh, I'm in the beta testing and it works wonderfully. I synchronize all my programming data and I can retrieve it from anywhere, plus I'll eventually be able to sync data files with my phone...yet somehow that slipped through unnoticed...
It's actually cheaper than any other hosting service out there now, if you don't count the "free" offerings from Google and Yahoo and Microsoft (I say "free" because you're always forced to watch ads with them). Apple marketing made a mistake saying "$99 a year", they really should have said "$8.25 a month" or "25 cents a day". If you compare them to Earthlink, MobileMe gets you 4x more storage and 10x more bandwidth for $1.75 less, plus synchronization of all your files and access to web-based versions of all the iLife applications so it's literally like having your computer everywhere. The only difference is that you don't have a dialup number - but you don't get dialup access with the "free" services either.
See, I already had a dot mac account. the storage space is ample, the web hosting is easily configurable to take your domain name, iWeb works perfectly with it, and iDisk is crazy useful. I already feel my $99 per year is well worth it. and i was a excited for the added features, but i haven't tried anything until i get my address book in proper order first. it will erase the differences on my iPhone if i enable it. Why aren't I fixing it now? cause i'm lazy.
@LondonConsultant
who cares about e-mails ?
comparing e-mails to 10% of Wall-E, you talk bullshit.
you are the first to throw the stone.
steve jobs will resign for 10% of fucking lost e-mails that nobody cares about, cos for me an e-mail is never lost ?
$99 ? there goes the debate over Xbox Live
@mymaclife
He was simply stating his opinion based on actual observation. He even included what you said and noted that sales figures don't back up his opinion. Apple sales figures have never represented true quality/value and have always been skewed by fanatic sheeple tendencies anyway. People would buy the iTurd if such a thing existed.
quik,
it's still in tech preview/beta, so it really shouldn't be compared until in release form. but yes, it's good stuff.
MobileFail hahaha. I wouldn't pay for this, at least not anytime soon.
Well, I am paying for it now... Signed up on July 11th. Didn;t think it was going to be soo bad !
Its become a MobileMess (As the Wall Street Journal Editor says....)
Well... enjoy flushing your money down the toilet then.
Apple is rotten to the core. iNcompetence.
Incompetence.
I always wondered what the "i" stood for.
Does it stand for "incompetence" ?
wow apple talk about QA.
more beta testing...
Judging by the stability of my iPhone 2.0 software, Apple have been sitting about basking in their own self glory than doing any QA recently.
Really, really disappointed with the quality of their software recently. I don't know a single iPhone or iTouch user who hasn't had a hellish time upgrading their device to 2.0 (myself included)
@phil, while i haven't had a "hellish time" exactly, the 2.0 iphone software is sluggish and buggy, i agree. this is really lame.
SERIOUSLY!
I used to be a fan boy, now I'm just bitter. This is what replaced .Mac? I think this qualifies as a step backward.
At least on the iPhone 2.0 update you don't notice the missing e-mail as much because your ability to respond to them lags to the point of not working (keyboard).
Go Apple!
Since i upgraded my iPod Touch to 2.0 it has been slow, buggy when it does work, and it crashes alot, and for some reason my battery life has jumped out the window... :(
For those of you who UPGRADED and are having problems, be warned: you cannot restore a Jailbroken setup when you upgrade. You MUST set it up as a new iPod / iPhone. This does suck, but that's the dues you pay for jailbreaking.
I upgraded my iPT, and until I reset it up as a brand new one, about half of the apps were not working.
@lostarchitect
No, it has been a completely hellish experience. First, it took 7 hours to activate my phone the day the 2.0 FW came out. I have had lockups, crashes while answering calls, lost data, and at times I have to tap multiple times to do something as simple as closing a browser "tab".
Then last night we are sitting at a bar and a song I never heard of was playing so I pull out my iPhone to run Shazam (a cool app that does song recognition) to find what it is. The problem - the app was gone. In fact, all my apps were gone, both free and paid ones. So I try to re-download this one app. I get the usuall UAC-esqe dialog box (you know, the same one that Apple makes fun of Microsoft in a commercial for, but on a phone it is OK), but this time it asks me for my user and pass, as opposed to the usual password. It starts downloading, then freezes during the install portion. Holding down any combination of buttons does nothing, the only thing that worked was to let the battery completely drain.
To tie this all into Mobile Me, a few months ago Apple had to change their updater because it was installing Safari in a slimy way. A few days ago I was trying to config my new video card, and discovered a new applet in control panel. When you install iTunes 7.7 they install Mobile Me on your computer. No questions asking me if I want it installed, they install more bloat that does not even work without permission.
Never had any problems with .mac and all fine since the mobileme switch (maybe people in the UK have had a better time) I however don't really use the e-mail facilities but use everything else that mobileme has to offer (and that's what justifies the price)
And as for ipod touch/iphone upgrades, better add 4 onto the 'had no problems at all list' 3 upgrades and one new purchase and all fine.
Not a 'fanboy' but hate it when ignorant people like to jump on any bandwagon going to have a dig just because they have nothing better to do with their time. there are far less 'fanboys' about than there are 'hateboys'!!
@paul-i
Wait, so people are having problems with Apple software, and they deserve being called ignorant? Apple has said there are problems, and calling the people who are encountering problems ignorant makes you, by the very definition of the term (as much as you may protest), a fan boy.
What should people be doing, keeping their mouth shut, pay their monthly fee (and, like with the Touch pay to download the software) and praise Apple? I could go on and on listing bugs with this software update beyond those I listed above (how my phone is now always hot, goto wikipedia.com and try entering a serch term and watch Safari go into an epileptic fit, how the app store says there are 3 software updates, install one of them and it forgets the other 2 until hours later, and more), but I am just ignorant! These are not Apple bugs, we are all just haters.
@nohone
i said **i** haven't had a hellish experience. i didn't say you hadn't, therefore your wording, when directed towards me, doesn't make sense.
Apple hasn't had QA since the mid 90's or at least nothing of real substance. Sorry but EVERY fucking product that Apple releases that is a V1 is bug infested.....says the person who had a first gen MacBook Pro before Apple replaced it with a second gen after taking it in for repairs the 4th time in 6 months. We won't even talk about SO X.0. Or the mess that was Tiger when it came out. Leopard wasn't exactly the picture of perfection either when it launched. Apple makes shit first gen stuff, lets the users beta test their wares, and fixes the problem in the next go around. The only time Apple EVER makes good is when a class action lawsuit is either looming or is obviously going to happen.
Only then do they step up and "do the right thing".
It would be nice if Apple would take some of that insane profit they make off of ever purchase and put it into some REAL QA testing. But hey. The fanbois will never hold apple's feet to the fire so the behavior will continue.
I'm not a fanboy of Microsoft or Apple, but I think it's ironic that a lot of apple supporters tout the "it just works" slogan as their reasoning for being a fanboy.
.Mac NEVER worked... nice to see MobileMe is carrying on the tradition.
fair enough, but remember: this isn't a mac. it's a service from apple. not the same thing. my mac has for the most part worked very well.
@ lostarchitect, I think he meant the dot-Mac service.
Yes, that's what he said: ".mac"
@mrbula
no, he was talking about "it just works", which is not a slogan for .mac. i really think people should be more precise with their language and actually say what they want to say.
I think it's hilarious that when a part of Apple goes south, instead of admitting they f*cked, the fanboys say " oh well that slogan doesn't apply to that division of Apple". Good Job, Mr. Jobs, Good Job...
that really is hilarious. I am sure on this basis that Union Carbide will now be claiming that the Bhopal disaster was not really THEIR DISASTER because it did not represent THEM. They would take the profits though.
.mac, me, "i"ncompetence... they are all Apple patents. Apple is responsible for them all.
How about refund people money? Making people pay for something that deserve to be no more than "beta" is just outrages.
Only Apple is allowed to get away with this kind of crap.
I think this engadget post: http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/16/apple-apologizes-for-its-mobileme-mess-admits-bungle-on-push/ says it all.
Basically they gave everyone an extra month free of charge.
Not to sound like a total fanboy buut.... Apple is a pretty customer-oriented company: price drops on every new generation product, iPhone refunds (although it was their mistake), etc. I personally haven't used MobileMe but I'm under the impression that no web service like this can last or become a success if it involves monthly/yearly fees... plus who the hell needs it... they are just trying to cover up the .mac fail with.. what's turning out to be... another fail...
I think 400 people (so far), as well as the above commenters, have misunderstood the question: "how's MobileMe working for you?" Emphasis on "you", as in, "you who are a current subscriber".
Can't speak to that? Then keep it to yourself. Don't think it's worth the price? Then don't subscribe. I don't see how it negatively impacts you.
I've had no problems.
exacly. It's an amazing service.
$99 a year? That's 27 cents a day.. That's cheap, get over it.
@superugly
Yea, it is cheap... really really crappy in fact. You DONT loose peoples e-mails if you're hosting them and charging $99 a year to. That's something only a free service could get away with.
That's not cheap you brainwashed zombie. That's .27 per day no one else pays for the same services. I have all the exact same services with almost 99.997% uptime and pay nothing. For some reason people think it's cool to have an email address @mac.com but I don't see the point. I know 3 people personally that see this as something they cannot live without and I'm entrenched in macs nearly 24/7 along with many steve zombies.
Do yourself a favor, "switch" to Google and sign up for a free push email service and have google automatically forward to that account. That way if the push service hiccups, google won't and you always have an archive.
I love Apple, but I have never loved .Mac/MobileMe.
The price is horrible for what essentially comes down to an email address with webmail. Yes I'm aware there are other features and there's always exceptions to the rule, but I'm willing to bet those features are seriously underused.
I'd rather spend money on a custom domain and real hosting than ever pay for this.
It is really very simple: $99 per year for this!??! Even if it was running full speed, that is still too much!
Apple fanboys have always overpaid to bask in the Apple light. When you think about it, Apple could charge $199 and the fanboys would still pay.
@AL
I'm a fanboy, and think this is a huge fiasco and wouldn't pay for it...
So in a sense... being an asshole sucks.
I was the one completely excited about mobileme when Jobs announced and demoed it on WWDC. Even signed up for the trial. Thankfully once I discovered I couldnt even sync my calender and lots of other stuff I simply gave up.
But I have to thank mobile me for one thing. After the keynote a lot of people argued that google apps can do most of it for free. Thanks to those comments I tried Gapps and love them.
Apple take a lesson from google. And stop charging money for a beta software.
it STILL won't sync my calenders in a timely fashion. it takes hours for a change on my iphone to show up online. i'm still on the demo, but if this doesn't get better there is no way i am paying for it.
Im in the 'one percent'; but thankfully had my email getting copied over to gmail and instructed as many people as possible to email me to Gmail! WHen you PAY for email and a service you expect top-notch quality. Ive never had email go wonkey with GMail; Hotmail or Yahoo or even my various ISPs. I remain OPTIMISTIC that this will be fixed though.. with all the attention this is getting...inc all those "journalists" that usually kiss S Jobs!
but g-mail didn't just come out so wait a few weeks and it should be operating at 100%
And people always criticize Microsoft for charging for X-Box Live, man $99 a year for this crap, I have an I-Pod Touch and didn't have any problems upgrading but man I feel for these people that pay good money to have Apple lose their damn e-mails and just say whoops
There is nothing to indicate these two groups are one and the same except your own bald assertion.
I personally despise that Live costs money and I don't pay for .Mac because it also isn't worth the money.
He never said that they were the same...
I on the other hand just signed up for the beta of windows live mesh and am loving it with no problems.
I agree ... Stick to the question.
For myself, the transition has been completely smooth - no issues.
...How did this comment get a low ranking? It's completely valid.
People are ignorant?
Who cares? Who needs it? Just more control by Steve Jobs over your life. Only the Apple Fanboys and Girls seem to care.
it's the curse of using "Me".
amen to that
Having been one of the 1percenters affected by the MobileMe(ss) problems, I'm very glad to say that my e-mail service was fully restored today. I even got an e-mail from the MobileMe team telling me that it was all sorted.
Now the million dollar (or rather 99 dollar) question is, once my (already extended) trial is over, do I sign up for a years service ?
right now the answer has to be I doubt it, but Apple have another 8 weeks or so to convince me that MobileMe is better than a hosted Exchange account somewhere else (I already have online storage + Flickr).
@DavidB: "I even got an e-mail from the MobileMe team telling me that it was all sorted."
Wow, are you saying that Apple didn't charge for that?
Well, in that case, I totally got the situation wrong. MobileMe is totally worth the money. Great service, Apple!
mobile me has worked for me since launch day. I hope I'm not the exception though. The fact thy my contacts an calendars do the auto push makes it worth the steep cost for me since I did not sync my phone very frequently before. It sucks though that apple did not think through the rollout process and is in the mess it's in now.
Ever since I lost bookmarks when syncing to .Mac in 2004 I was not interested in the service anymore. Strange that is has gotten even worse. And Phil Schiller said at WWDC: "I think we finally got it right." Apparently the iPhone development has taken its toll on Apple. Some recent products at Apple simply aren't thought through, like Apple TV and MacBook Air. And that iPhone 3G is sold out in Germany until October is also very weird. Surprised by the demand? I think not.
the email from me.com > my mac > iphone are always off half the emails available arent even there.
Where's the "i only had problems for a few hours on the first day while the whole thing was down - everything has been working great for a while now" option?
Aside from the initial launch problems, My account has worked fine. But, I would be upset too, if my account was down. Apple should make fixing these problems top priority.
Microsoft exchange works flawlessly on the iphone.
You just have to leave the enterprise stuff to people who know what they are doing.
"Exchange for the rest of us".
If I were Microsoft, I'd be asking Apple politely to stop making that incorrect claim.
Exchange may be a turd to manage, but it's rock solid.
Didn't I read that apple had decided to drop that particular slogan ?
I agree with you though, I've not really suffered as badly with an Exchange provider than I have with MobileMe.
This has been one of the sloppiest launches ever, for Apple.
Epic fail. Good thing only 1% of members were affected... so that's like 1/2 a person.
Actually published reports put it at about 20,000 people. That's a lot of bad will Apple is engendering. I kind of feel bad for them... but I kind of like watching this slow motion train wreck even more...
cough sarcasm cough
I'm just really glad that I use another email service as my main service...and that I didn't take the $30 off offered in store.
This week without having access to that account has been annoying, but I can't imagine if I actually had mail I cared about coming to my MobileMe account!
So I'm posting this from my Ubuntu laptop at home. I can't use www.me.com from here because it complains about browser incompatibility, mac.com worked just fine. I have a powerbook but I can't use it from here since the wireless on the powerbook is crap compared with the Fujitsu lifebook. Similarly I can't get to me.com from any of the Linux and Windows machines at work. The Apple solution "use IMAP" but I can only install and set up accounts on machines I own. This loses all the value of webmail. On top of that I can't see my address book or calandar.
Then there is the fact that when anyone from work mails me using my personal me.com email address the email is lost. My wife also has a mac.com email address and can't be emailed by me from work. I complained to Apple they have fixed it three times and it reverts to losing in a few days. The only reason I haven't ditched Apple yet is that all my friends and people I do personal business with, like banks, have the mac.com email address.
I've used Apple machines since 1985 but this is the worst service I've ever had. I have registered my own domain and I'm looking into an email hosting service. That way I can have an email address that is mine forever and isn't yahoo.com, aol.com, mac.com,me.com etc .
Kinda funny... if this had been a MS product launch it would have been bashed and bashed but since its the almighty APPLE, it's ok by the masses. Very hypocritical of the fanboy nation in my opinion.
Personally, I'd rather take the 1% fail of the MobileMe launch to the 20% fail of every Xbox 360 in existence.
where do you see it being OK? everyone is complaining about it.
Only 1%? Yet it seems to plague reviewers, bloggers, and common-folk alike? Seems a look like a PR figure than any actual percentage.
Response time is still very slow. still having significant sync problems. Appointments created on my of in outlook get to the cloud and my phone just fine - and then disappear from my pc. Not acceptable.
I see others with the same issues on discussion boards (some apple some not), but apple seems oblivious. Certianly support hasn't been helpful. I'm suprised they didn't suggest reformatting my hard drive.
I have no problems with my Mii. It plays tennis well. Boxing? Not so much.
This guy is LOST!
I never lost ANY of my Gmail or Yahoo! messages, I'm not even going to sigh up for the free trial with this mess.
fail!
Wow, they're doing a good job of insulating me from this, because I've not had a single issue. It's worked perfectly well, syncing and push have been fast and smooth.
I've been a subscriber since day one of iTools, and even worked on the product around the turn of the millennium. They've always done a great job of communicating issues to their customers, and fixing them promptly. That's a lot more than I can say about a lot of tech companies.
liar.
To answer the proposed question:
It was a rocky launch, but none of my data was lost. The web services, which I don't depend on, were down but all my mail made it to me w/o issue. Luckily, I'm not one of the "1%" that is effected by mail outages so I can't really comment on that.
I am having two issues though. First, the messages I get and then file or delete don't show immediately changed on the web services even if I manually sync in the preference pane. Secondly, the junk filtering rules aren't working quickly enough; so when a message is pushed (which btw works swimmingly) the few pieces of junk make it to my phone. Neither of these issues are mission critical so no big whoop.
As far as the people out there who are saying that the "fan boys" are accepting of Apple's failure y'all are dead wrong. I haven't spoken to a single person that has been okay with how this was handled. I almost see things reversed. People come to expect failure from a company like Microsoft and have been more content their recent issues, than Apple which as "just worked" for quite a while. As an 18 year Apple user, I can tell you that this is one of Apple's biggest blunders to date.
My observation is this: Apple made some big mistakes here. They advertised something and didn't follow through. Maybe they didn't do their homework on scaling vs. popularity. One thing I do know is: they'll make it right. For the sake of their growing market share, they have to.
You are right one one thing, I have yet to find a Mac "Fanboy" that is trying to say nothing went wrong. And I know some pretty bad Fanboys. I consider myself a logical Fanboy, but even those "MS SUX, APPLE RULEZ" people are like "Wow, this sucks" IF you guys don't believe me, go to an Apple fan site and find me a positive post about MobileMe. I also can't think of a launch that went wore than this. Losing personal data is a pretty new thing that I don't think Apple ever has had to deal with.
I have been waiting since the day I stood in line for my first iPhone for the .mac service to become the "Obvious Choice" for an email service for a Mac and iPhone user. I have to say, I have paid for .Mac since the day it went to a pay service, while I have been somewhat impressed with the services, I was never $99 impressed. I thought many times of dropping it, but having to change my email, and losing the @mac.com email, which actually does mean something to me, I shelled over the 99 a year, reluctantly.
I think however the "promise" of what MobileMe "could" be would finally deserve my $99 in my opinion, although I would gladly pay less if offered. :-) Either way, I am extremely disappointed in Apple for this mess. I am normally one of the last people to get angry about things Apple does, always hoping things get fixed and changed soon, but this is one situation where Apple has lost me, and thats not good. I can't even imagine having to deal with some of these 1% issues, most everything works for me except push to the iPhone, which ironically was the one thing I was most looking forward to.
All this should have been in the .Mac service years ago, now that it is here, it should work. this is very, very unApple, and I am extremely disappointed. It appears that Apple is getting this all moving in he right track and I would imagine seeing some updates to allow full Push service in the next month. This is the service I have dreamed for, its here, but it doesn't work. Apple still has my faith that they will get it all to work, but once they lose that faith from me. Thats not good. They have 55 some days to get it right, thats the day I renew. :-) Along with many other people that Started paying on day one.
And as a side note, I know there is plenty of free services, but having it all in on easy place and "supposedly" having the same company control the hardware, software, ect, should make things work better. I prefer this model and I can understand why MobileMe might not be cost effective on the Windows side with an iPhone, it provides a lot of mac only features that makes it a worthwhile service on the Mac side. Things Google just can't offer.
hi, i'm a douchebag that hates apple, rate me up
How can you people say it's BETA? Apple had a mail server crash. Has nothing to do with being BETA or not. MobileMe works for me an alot of other people.
they are implying that it should be a beta, based on its quality.
It's been sort of funny watching some of the mainstream press post glowing reviews for MobileMe, only to come back later and say "Erm, yeah, so the service actually doesn't really work"
But honestly, data loss for this?? That's horrible. That's beyond horrible. Like, I can understand a crappy unreliable service, but having to pay $100 a year only to lose a crapload of emails? I would be beyond pissed and cancel my subscription right then and there. Data loss, especially emails, are unacceptable.
Here's to hoping that Apple really comes around and fixes this. I feel bad for those Apple fans who thought this would go as smoothly as Steve "reality distortion field" Jobs said it would.
MobileMe works you whiners and $99 isn't that expensive for Apple's services. I'm using it now. I bet you pay more for booze or drugs than 1- year subscription of mobileme. People pay more for other garbage. Maybe you people need a job.
I've been using the MobileMe trial, so far so good for contacts and calendar syncing. Although I'm not a heavy @me.com email user as my GMail is my primary email. I realize my of the problems people are having is with email.