Will Apple’s MobileMe overcome its initial blunders? Apple launches MobileMe Status blog
MobileMe had its share of problems when it launched along with the iPhone 3G, and the apps store because of that Apple issued an apology and added 30 days of free service to all MobileMe users. Users trying out the 30 day trial version also received an extension. Recently some MobileMe users recently experienced data loss.
If you log onto Apple’s MobileMe website you’ll notice a new section. Recently, Apple created a MobileMe Status blog. If you check out the first post it’s basically an apology of the problems that people experienced during the initial launch. You’ll also find an unsettling tidbit, “We particularly regret to report the loss in the affected accounts of approximately 10% of the messages received between July 16 and July 18.” Definitely not what a user wants to read.
One of the biggest selling points for the MobileMe service was that Apple promised to bring corporate type synchronization to the average user. That’s right your email, contacts, calendar and appointments would be automatically synchronized. If you have a lot of contacts and calendar information this definitely saves time on doing that manually. This feature was a huge selling point for many people (including myself) who wanted to see enterprise features available to the regular user.
Unfortunately, the push technology that was discussed at the WWDC ‘08 wasn’t happening instantaneously. I’ve been using the MobileMe trial version for a few weeks. (Thanks to the extension of service I can now test it out for 60 days. I tested it out on my computers.) I have a 17″ MacBook Pro, PowerMac G5, MacPro, HP DV6000t, and an iPod touch. If you were updating information from the MobileMe website or your iPhone, the integration was done automatically. I noticed that if I made changes on the MobileMe website changes were made instantly to my other devices; however, the reverse wasn’t true. When I made updates on my computers the changes weren’t seen instantly in on my devices. It took fifteen minutes, many times more before changes were updated.
Apple is aware of this issue and released a statement that this issue is being addressed. In fact, if you check out the first post written on the MobileMe Server blog it states that “The team has also fixed over 70 bugs including one that was preventing MobileMe IMAP mail folders from syncing correctly between the web app and Mac OS X Mail or Outlook, plus others correcting display issues in Calendar and in general enhancing the performance of our web apps.”
MobileMe obviously wasn’t ready to be launched along with the iPhone 3G or the iPhone app store. It would have been better if Apple had held off on it until it was. Of course, launching the MobileMe Status blog won’t magically fix the problems that plague MobileMe but it’s a great sign that Apple will keep its users up-to-date. The blog comes as a surprise, Apple usually keeps quiet about issues facing its products. Software updates are usually released with very little explanation about the fixes involved. (That is something that has always annoyed me.)
If you’re want to check out the stat of Mobile Me log onto the MobileMe status page or access it via the Mobile Me Status RSS feed.
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