MobileMe gets quiet makeover
If you’re a MobileMe user, you may have noticed that the service somehow seems to be working better these days. It turns out that Apple has carried out a host of unannounced updates since the service launched in July.
To put it mildly, the launch didn’t go well. A much-anticipated automatic data synchronization feature worked much more slowly than was really useful. Many users lost access to e-mails, while some messages were permanently lost. Apple head Steve Jobs even wrote to employees and admitted the service wasn’t ready for a public launch and could have been delayed until it was up to scratch.
It was already known that the September update to Mac OS X took care of many of the synch problems by fixing things on the desktop/laptop side. Apple has now revealed that there was a major series of updates to the MobileMe service itself the same month.
The full list of changes includes:
- Giving smarter suggested alternatives when a customer’s first choice of account name is taken.
- Fixing problems with keyboard shortcuts, adding contacts directly from messages, using Reply All, and messages staying in the draft folder despite having been sent.
- Improved performance in Internet Explorer 7.
It’s not entirely clear why Apple is announcing the details now. As the update points out, MobileMe is largely a service that works on Apple’s servers rather than a user’s devices, so it’s easy to update and change things without having to go public.
The most likely answer is that Apple wanted to be able to point to the work it’s done to improve the service, but wanted to wait and be sure updates worked rather than risk further disappointment if they didn’t work. It’s also probably a smart idea to acknowledge all these improvements in one go rather than have an ongoing drip of problems coming to light.
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