MobileMe
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A month later, it's still Mobile 'Meh'
Yesterday, Mobile Me was down again, underscoring how little the service has improved since its introduction last month. Pockets of users have been affected regularly by outages and slowness since the service first came online. MacRumors calculates that Mobile Me has been up 96 percent of the time (that is, down for 13.5 hours) over the last two weeks. As a Mobile Me subscriber, I wonder if the opening-day trial subscriptions will matter in yet another month: that's when, for many (but not all) the 60-day trial period expires. If those disappointed with the service choose to flee, then perhaps the server load will decrease, and performance will improve for the rest of us. Of course, we all read Steve Jobs' leaked email, and surmised that he gave many more expletive-laden tirades before the memo was released. We have a promise from the top that service will improve by December, and that's some solace, but what of the meantime? And what of the blog? Your friend and mine, David G., hasn't posted a thing since July 29, promising an update post that never arrived. Until then, I suppose all we can do is watch the support page, keep calm, and carry on.
Ars: Jobs agrees MobileMe not up to Apple's standards
How often does Apple admit a mistake? It's a once-in-a-blue-iMoon occurrence, but now that Ars Technica is reporting the contents of an internal Steve Jobs all-hands email regarding the MobileMe launch challenges we can add one more instance to the tally board. Jobs apparently acknowledges that trying to rush the MobileMe migration while pushing iPhone 3G hardware and iPhone 2.0 software out the door (not to mention the iTunes App Store) may have been too much to bite off at once.The money quote from the letter (yet to be confirmed by TUAW sources) is here:"The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services," Jobs says. "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."Ars also notes that MobileMe management will now be centralized under iTunes exec VP Eddy Cue, who will be leading the charge for all Apple internet services across the board. We've all been through the MobileMe ups and downs during the first weeks of the service; it's nice to know (belatedly) that Apple top brass is clued in.
MobileMe gets new leadership, Jobs admits Apple made a big mistake
Not that anyone could really dance around the facts of the matter at this point, but in an email to Apple employees sent today, apparently Steve said, "It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store. We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence." Apple exec Eddie Cue appears to taking the much maligned service under his wing (as well as the App Store, adding to his original gig as VP of iTunes), hopefully making good on the other bit in El Jobso's email where he resets Apple's call to action on .Mac's replacement: "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." We'll see about that!Update: You can check out the actual here email here, if you're looking to see how Jobs uses em-dashes as bullets.
Easy iWeb Publisher 3.0.3
Although I've written a book about iWeb, I often tell my clients to avoid using it for their websites if they're planning on hosting anywhere but on MobileMe. Why? When you post to MobileMe from iWeb, you "Publish" and your site is uploaded. Minor changes to a site only take a few seconds to upload, since iWeb uploads only the changed files to your web server. That doesn't happen when publishing to other servers. Instead, you publish to a local folder, and then usually upload the entire folder to your web server. That can take a long time with a large site.Plyxim's Easy iWeb Publisher 3.0.3 fixes that problem. The shareware ($7 donation requested) application makes it simple to publish to any web host. It's an ftp client that takes the local folder you've published your iWeb site to, compares it to the folder on your web server, and then uploads just the files that have changed. I've found that Easy iWeb Publisher works much faster than most dedicated ftp clients when syncing iWeb files that have been changed, added, or deleted. Until Apple fixes iWeb '08 to make publishing easier for people who don't use MobileMe, this is a great way to work with your own hosting.
The wrong kind of 1%
MobileMe account holders trying to contact Apple's email outage chat support service have been promptly and brutally cut off if they're not on Apple's list of the "1%" of users affected -- and in one case, even if they are.Some TUAW readers have been in touch to tell us that when they tried to get chat support for MobileMe email, they were quickly given this automated (or hastily pasted-in) response:"I'm sorry, according to our records, you were not one of the members affected by the email outage that began on July 18th. MobileMe Mail 24-hour chat support is a temporary measure designed specifically for users whose accounts were affected by that outage. For help, please visit http://www.apple.com/support/mobileme/ww for access to all of our support resources. I apologize for any inconvenience."But one of our correspondents was doubly displeased, because he insisted he had been one of the 1%. But here was Apple telling him he hadn't -- and not giving him any chance to argue the matter.It's that "according to our records" bit that seems to be the problem. What if Apple's records are wrong?Thanks to Bill and Dom for the tip.
MobileMe update: mail restored to 1% of users, syncing issue resolved
Good old David G., the mysterious author of Apple's MobileMe Status blog, has good news for that unfortunate 1% of MobileMe users who couldn't use their email accounts. All email services, including 'historical messages,' have been restored (it is unclear if this means all messages are back in their right place).Apple has set up a special MobileMe Mail Dedicated Chat Support to help those folks who had email issues sort everything out. If you were one of the chosen few, head on over there to discuss what happened with a friendly, and helpful, Apple support tech.In addition to resolving the email issue, David G. says that nasty syncing issue (you remember, the one that was wiping people's iPhones of any and all contacts) has been corrected as well. Most MobileMe users didn't see this issue, and for the few that did it seems to have sorted itself out, however, if you're still having this issue check out Apple's KB article for the solution to your syncing woes.Hey, David G., since it looks like you have MobileMe under control can I report a bug about the MobileMe Status blog? Thanks! There is no way to link directly to a post, like the post I'm talking about right this second, which makes it hard to make sure people see the entry I'm talking about. I'm sure you just forgot to click a button in iWeb or something.
MobileMe: the case of the vanishing iPhone contacts (Update)
Another day, another new way for MobileMe to anger folks. Today we are hearing lots of grumbling about people seeing their contacts and calendars disappearing from their iPhones after a sync with MobileMe. Luckily, it looks like it is only the iPhone that is wiped, the contacts/events are still on their Macs.Wyn called Apple support and they suggested disabling automatic syncing and manually syncing to clear up the problem. That gives a new definition to push.This seems like a good time to remind people to back up your data before you enable any sort of automatic syncing. Read on after the jump to see how to backup your Address Book and iCal events, just in case.Thanks to everyone who sent this in and thanks to FailMe for the graphic.Update: It is 8:30pm on the east coast of the US, and Apple has just posted this note on the MobileMe System Status: "Some MobileMe members may be unable to sync new, edited, or deleted contacts, calendars, and bookmarks over the air between computers and mobile devices (iPhone and iPod Touch). Service will be restored ASAP. We apologize for any inconvenience."
TUAW Talkcast reminder: Sunday 10 pm ET
Last week's talkcast had to be cancelled on short notice when our host of the week had to deal with a dental emergency, but we're back this week and eager to take your calls and questions. In particular, we want to hear about your App Store and MobileMe experiences (good, bad or indifferent). Join us later tonight, Sunday July 27 at 10 pm ET for this week's show, hosted by Mike R. (back from vacation and looking forward to hopping back into the hot seat) and featuring the usual cast of drunken reprobates. We might even find time for some trivia and giveaways! You can join the conversation on TalkShoe by using the shiny browser-only client; you can also use the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client that we all know and love. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. You can also listen in on the Talkshoe page or call in on regular phone or VOIP lines: dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077. Written by Michael Rose
Apple admits to lost MobileMe messages, bad karma
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. For the rest of you MobileMe subscribers, Apple has added server capacity, tuned the software to scale better, and fixed over 70 bugs to date. So the question is, how's MobileMe working for you?%Poll-17308%
Unlucky 1 percent of MobileMe email users may get relief
How big is one percent? If it's a surcharge on your restaurant check, not that much; if it's a point on your mortgage, ow. If it's a chunk of .Mac/MobileMe email account holders who are left hanging for a week without access to their email... well, let's just say that anyone in that select and sorry lot who used a mac.com email address for professional or vital communications is justifiably furious right now.The good news, if you can say that under the circumstances, is that the outage that started July 18 may be coming to a close. Apple has posted a tech note on the ongoing issues, launched a blog to cover the MobileMe introduction challenges, and provided some additional details about what happened. As of 10 pm PDT last night, the one-percenters should be able to log into MobileMe webmail and retrieve messages from the July 18–25 outage window, though none from before the problem started are available yet. Apple also warns affected users NOT to change MobileMe passwords, aliases or storage allocations until the problem is cleared up, so be alert. As the problem was triggered by a "serious issue" on one of Apple's mail servers, some messages got dropped in the bit bucket and will never come back (unless you have them cached in a local client like Mail.app, Entourage, Thunderbird or Outlook). Apple's statement: While the vast majority of your email messages will be fully restored, a small percentage of email messages in the affected accounts have regrettably been lost. This includes approximately 10% of messages received between 5:00 a.m. PDT on July 16 and 10:20 a.m. PDT on July 18. We sincerely apologize for any email messages you may have lost. Apologies are well and good -- but considering the MobileMe terms of service, that's about all you can expect to see, as Apple isn't liable for lost business or damages due to the outage. If there's a lesson in this, maybe it's that mission-critical users should own their own domains and public-facing email addresses, so that they can redirect incoming mail in a crisis. Depending on a single provider for mail (even ones with a reputation for reliability) can bite you.Written by Michael Rose. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Pogue and Macworld chime in on MobileMe
David Pogue, the New York Times tech columnist, posted his review of MobileMe last week and despite its problems he thought the service itself showed promise. It looks like a little of that promise is wearing off. The latest post to David's New York Times blog, titled 'MobileMess,' isn't exactly the kind of press coverage Apple is used to as of late. In his post Pogue dings Apple for marketing MobileMe in the wrong way, and for failing to be up front with MobileMe users during all the 'rough patches.' Apple declined to comment for the story.Macworld has also taken MobileMe for a spin, and they give it 3.5 mice out of 5. The good include push to the iPhone, the web interface, and lots of storage. The bad points should look familiar by now: push doesn't work for everything and the service isn't reliable.
Uncle Walt on MobileMe: Pass on it for now
MobileMe has been off to a rough start. The mail outages aren't good and giving people free time to use a service that doesn't work is a cold comfort. Sadly, the bad news just keeps coming for MobileMe.Walt Mossberg, Personal Technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, is generally an Apple fan but he isn't gaga for MobileMe. Even discounting the amount of trouble Apple has been having keeping MobileMe up, Mossberg points out that even when fully functional the service doesn't work well.He points out the push that isn't really push, the sluggishness of the web interface, and a host of issues with syncing data with Outlook on a PC. Walt suggests you wait before buying MobileMe.How has MobileMe been treating you? Let us know in the comments.
iLife '08 update adds MobileMe support
As Scott already posted, iLife '08 just released a slew of updates. Although Software Update says that over performance and general compatibility issues were addressed in most products, the biggest change is MobileMe support for all iLife '08 applications.iPhoto, iWeb and iMovie are now properly linked with the MobileMe service. This should be welcome news to iWeb customers who have been unable to maintain or update elements of their MobileMe (nee .Mac) pages since the transition earlier this month.Likewise, galleries and movie can now be published directly to the newly branded mobile offering. You know, assuming you can get the service to work.
Apple adds another month free for some MobileMe trials
For our friends and neighbors in the UK (and elsewhere: see the update below), the MobileMe quagmire continues to fester. Infinite Loop is reporting that some users were erroneously charged to the tune of £121, and Apple is offering those users another free month of service. Apparently, when someone tries to create a trial account in the UK, a 50p pre-authorization is placed on the user's credit card. (Not unlike buying fuel and paying with a credit card.) Unfortunately, instead of 50p, someone mashed the keypad, and users were billed £121 instead. For debit card users, it's worse: the money is actually removed from your account, of course. Once the mistake is corrected it takes as much as a month for the funds to reappear. Apple is, of course, refunding the charges for credit cards, and "working to have these holds removed earlier" for debit card users. These users now have four months to try the service. Update: According to some of our commenters, this affects users in Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Canada too. Wow.
Are you affected by MobileMe mail outage?
What's up with MobileMe email? In recent days we've been hearing from a lot of very unhappy MobileMe subscribers. They're unhappy because their email accounts have been inaccessible.David told us: "Some MobileMe mail users have been without mail access for four days straight now."At the time of writing, the MobileMe status report says: "1% of MobileMe members cannot access MobileMe Mail. We apologize for any inconvenience."But TUAW reader Drew told us: "Just got off the phone with AppleCare and they tell me MobileMe email is going to be down for 2-3 days, and that it's the whole system, not just the 1% as noted on the support site. Those of us that use .me as a work address are hosed. Normally I wouldn't care but I have 2 photoshoots to coordinate Sunday. Is it me, or does this feel like a M$ launch?"Well, readers, you tell us. How has MobileMe mail been for you over the weekend? Thanks to everyone who contacted us about this issue.
iPhone 3G and firmware 2.0: one week later
We know it's been a whirlwind week of either: a) patiently sitting outside your local Apple store, b) losing touch with family, friends, and significant others while buried knee-deep in your new phone / firmware, or c) desperately trying to ignore the iPhone. But it's time to come up for air and take stock. We're all aware that things didn't go quite as planned with Apple's trifecta (iPhone 3G, firmware 2.0, MobileMe) launch last week, and we're just starting to see the fallout from last Friday's debacle.The most prevalent complaint we've been hearing from users concerns ongoing issues with the phone's new firmware, which has delivered on a lot of its promises, yet is also exhibiting frustrating bugs that make us think this one needed a little more time in the oven. In particular, we've experienced -- and have been assailed with reports about -- painful lag times when typing, as well as choppy, clunky behavior while scrolling through or searching contacts, calls which can't be answered, and even outright crashes while receiving a call. Some owners have encountered repeated forced quits while trying to use the App Store, while a group of our editors vented about an SMS issue which not only grinds the phone's performance to a halt, but makes the keyboard inaccessible altogether.When you toss in problems other users are having with email, MobileMe syncing, and assorted minor kinks (trouble rotating Safari anyone?), it seems obvious that there's cruft beneath this firmware creating hiccups in usability. Coupled with 3G reception concerns, the company's continuing struggle to get MobileMe working as advertised, and rumors that 2.0.1 is already in the works, you get the impression that everyone is looking for a little relief here... Apple and its customers alike.So, how's your first week been?
Apple apologizes for its MobileMe mess, admits bungle on "push," offers 30-days free
After six long days, Apple has issued an official statement on the debacle that was / is the MobileMe transition, and has offered a 30-day extension to contracts as an olive branch to disgruntled users. According to a form letter being sent to subscribers, the company openly admits that the switch to MobileMe was "a lot rockier than hoped," and claims that the service is now running smoothly. Additionally (and somewhat surprisingly) Apple rescinded its use of the word "push" to cover all of its services, conceding that while there is indeed push to-and-from iPhones and the "cloud," computers are still being polled every 15 minutes... which is the same as .Mac (and honestly Apple, you didn't know that wasn't technically push?). We suppose this would be all well and good provided that MobileMe was actually functioning as advertised, but indications from readers -- and our own testing -- suggest otherwise. Customers are still having difficulties with email and syncing between iPhones and the cloud (duplicate messages, deleted messages that don't leave the inbox, etc.), the advertised "auto-complete" on mail addressing doesn't function at all, and calendars are plagued with small moving / deletion problems, as well as being unable to sync subscriptions... and that's just off the top of our head (see the company's support forums for more). The 30-day extension is a nice gesture Apple, but we're thinking customers would prefer a service that works as advertised.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Apple extends MobileMe subscriptions by 30 days
Apple has extended every MobileMe subscription by a month, due to the exceptionally ornery transition this past week. "The .Mac to MobileMe transition was a lot rockier than we had hoped," Apple spokesman Bill Evans told Macworld. "We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge." An email sent to subscribers noted that "we have worked through those problems, and the web apps are now up and running," but several pages of comments from our readers suggest otherwise. TUAW staff with MobileMe accounts agreed yesterday that the service is mostly working, but still quirky. Also in the email, the MobileMe team has promised to stop using the word "push" to describe some aspects of MobileMe's functionality "until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too." This might suggest they're closing the loop on MobileMe's push technology for all connected devices. Hopefully this goes a long way to assuage the burning, burning rage that MobileMe users have been feeling recently. (You can read the full letter, after the jump.) Thanks, Rick, Frank, Mark, Chuck and James for the tip!
MobileMe not so pushy
Many commenters and bloggers hither and yon have noticed that MobileMe lacks "true push" capabilities, even though Apple uses the "push" buzzword extensively to describe MobileMe services. A commenter in a MacRumors thread about the subject took screenshots from Apple's site, showing they had removed the phrase "Push happens automatically, instantly, and continuously." In its place, Apple clarifies that changes from the iPhone and web apps are updated instantly on connected computers, but not vice versa. Apple also notes in a Knowledge Base article that changes "made on your computer will be synced to the MobileMe 'cloud' once every 15 minutes (or every hour in Mac OS X 10.4.11)." That, to me, doesn't sound like "push," it sounds like "sync." The term "push" still applies, however, to me.com email, as that shows up immediately (in my experience, at least.) Calendars and contacts, though, not so much, apparently. [Via BetaNews.]
TUAW Review: MobileMe
MobileMe, the successor to Apple's lackluster .Mac service, is poised to bring subscribers into the realm of "cloud computing," one of those nauseating phrases that's been around for a while, but nobody has a better term for. MobileMe provides email, calendaring, contact management, photo sharing, and online file storage to Windows, Mac, iPhone, and iPod touch users for $99. A family pack subscription is also available for $149, which adds four 5GB accounts to a standard-sized 20GB account (making 40GB of storage total). Users can also add 20GB or 40GB of storage to their account for $49 and $99, respectively. MobileMe got off to a really rough start last week, but we still don't know exactly where the hangup was during the transition. I know I'm interested to know what happened, but for now, let's just all be glad that it's working, and have us a look-see at what's new. After the jump, join me for an in-depth look at MobileMe's features, and how they compare to .Mac and other free services available elsewhere on the web.
