Archives by Tag: MobileMe
Five Reasons to Abandon MobileMe (or Avoid It in the First Place)
1. Constant downtime
Apple’s MobileMe service seems to be down more often than its up. I know that this is just an illusion, and that Apple could easily provide statistics to disprove it as a valid fact, but the reality is undeniable: downtime has been a major problem for MobileMe since its launch and continues to be a problem to this day. Don’t believe me? Do a Google search on MobileMe downtime and read through any of the over 34,000 search results.
2. Glacially slow web interface
When Apple can be bothered to keep MobileMe online, the Web interface of the application is so sluggish that it’s practically unusable. Five to ten seconds to load the login screen, five to ten more to load my inbox, and five to ten after that if I want to switch folders. That’s acceptable? In what universe is this okay? This is a product that Phil Schiller promised us at WWDC was going to be just like using a desktop application. Thirty seconds to get to my archived items folder is not what I’ve come to expect from my desktop e-mail app, Phil. And it’s even worse than what I’ve come to expect from other Webmail applications.
Apple’s advertising copy for the Web interface of MobileMe reads like this:
Access and manage your email, contacts, calendar, photos, and files at me.com. All with feature-rich web apps so easy to use, you might prefer them to your desktop applications.
Seriously, they need to stop advertising this part of the service in the same way that they stopped advertising MobileMe as a truly “push” e-mail service. That description just is not accurate.
3. Push e-mail annoying rather than helpful
MobileMe’s “push” e-mail service doesn’t actually push to the desktop as it was supposed to, but it does work as advertised on the iPhone. And that, my friends, has been part of my problem with it. Early on, Apple advertised MobileMe as “Exchange for the rest of us”. The goal was to provide to Apple fanatics the same crack that CrackBerry users were already hooked on: always-on, instant e-mail. But the truth is that “the rest of us” don’t really need push e-mail, and that it’s kind of more trouble than it’s worth.
Every time my iPhone buzzes to announce the arrival of a new message, I feel compelled to check it. This is a huge problem. Most of the personal e-mail I get is BACN, if not outright SPAM. And of the e-mail that isn’t BACN or SPAM, there’s not much that requires immediate action. There’s no reason that I couldn’t be checking my personal e-mail once an hour, or even once or twice a day. I’m a big believer in the Inbox Zero philosophy at work, and in Getting Things Done, and all that. At work, I have Outlook set to check for new messages once an hour. And I’ve been immensely more productive since making that change. MobileMe seduced me into thinking that push e-mail would be a good idea, but it really isn’t, and I should have known better.
4. Lack of community
MobileMe’s Gallery feature is pretty slick, but there’s no community built up around it, and it doesn’t really seem to be designed with community in mind for the future. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed the Flickr community since moving to doing photos exclusively on MobileMe. It’s just not as much fun. I didn’t get a lot of comments on my photos at Flickr, but I did get some, so there was always the chance that a photo there might spark a conversation. Over at MobileMe gallery, I feel like I’m posting in a vacuum. And while that might be okay for some people, it’s just not the best option for someone who’s social.
5. Cost prohibitive
MobileMe should be free. There, I said it. All of its features, aside from the quick and easy synchronization of iPhones, PCs, and Macs, are available elsewhere on ad-supported or relatively cheap-to-use Websites. There is no reason that Apple should be charging for this, and they certainly aren’t making a good case for why it should be paid with the undeniably bad service they’ve provided so far.
Geek Force Utterz #018 - Abandoning MobileMe
I’ll be following up today’s episode of Geek Force Utterz with a full-fledged post on why I’m abandoning MobileMe and why you should consider abandoning it too (or consider avoiding it in the first place, if you’re not already a subscriber). So, I’ll keep this one short and just remind you that if you can’t see/hear the embed above, you can always listen to the call right on Utterli.com. Thanks for listening!
iJustine Has Nice Apps
PHOTO: The Winnies 2007 2179.jpg by luismi1985 on Flickr CC BY
Internet celebrity iJustine has five screens worth of apps on her iPhone, and it’s really something that you have to see to believe. I have only two screens worth of apps at the moment (Twitterrific, Facebook, AIM, Last.fm, Remote, Pandora, PhoneSaber, Tap Tap Revolution, and Recorder, in addition to the standard issue apps) and even I find that excessive at times. But five screens? I wouldn’t know where to look for anything. I really wouldn’t.
In other Apple news, a man said by one insider to be as demanding as iJustine’s hero Steve Jobs has been placed in charge of the company’s shaky MobileMe service. Apple vice president Eddy Cue is now heading up the MobileMe team, writes Apple Insider.
Those who are familiar with Cue know him for managing the iTunes Store to resounding global success, but he was also a force behind .Mac and the ever popular Apple Online Store. “It’s the not-sexy part of the company, but it’s the guts that make all of the sexy front ends actually work,” says von Rospach, who crossed paths with Cue during his years of managing Apple’s email lists.
Cue’s teams have long been self-contained, von Rospach adds, spending most of their time in “uncharted territory,” implementing technology that never existed before on large scales “under really scary conditions.” Over the years, he’s earned the respect of Steve Jobs by delivering projects on time, to specification, all while keeping “the darn thing(s) a secret” in the process.
As a MobileMe user, I can only hope that the faith this “insider” has in Cue will eventually be rewarded. MobileMe has run pretty flawlessly for me, but I know it’s probably only a matter of time before it once again crashes hardcore, as it did at launch. When it does crash again, I’ll be very interested to see how swiftly and how decisively Cue takes action.
My iPhone Is On A Shelf, And Not In My Hands
The iPhone 3G that I ordered just about two weeks ago is on a FedEx truck right now, about to be delivered to my local AT&T store. Am I excited? In a word, yes! But I’m also sad. You see, my wife and I lead such busy lives that we probably won’t be able to get down to the AT&T store until Wednesday. That’s two whole days that my iPhone is going to be sitting on a shelf, within driving distance of my house, and not in my pocket, where it belongs (four days, if you count the fact that it’s been sitting in a nearby FedEx sorting facility since Saturday evening).
To keep myself occupied, and to get myself prepared, I spent some time over the weekend backing up the contact lists from both my phone and my wife’s. I also cleaned up our iCal calendars and organized our Safari bookmarks. Tonight, assuming that a miracle does not happen and that Stephanie and I do not end up home early enough to hit the AT&T store before dinner and bed, I am going to sign up for a free trial of Apple’s MobileMe service. MobileMe got off to a rocky start, as I wrote about on Friday, but over the weekend Apple launched an official MobileMe status blog (Mashable weighs in on this development) that reports many of the services major issues have been resolved or are finally in the process of being resolved. An online Apple Store support person reiterated that message to me during a chat about iPhone cases on Saturday evening.
My hope is that MobileMe will be ready for primetime by the time my birthday rolls around at the beginning of October, which will be, coincidentally enough, right around the time that my free trial runs out. We’ll see.
Worth Your Consideration 012 - A GF5 Linkdump
- I really, really, really hope that Marco Zaldivar wins his lawsuit against T-Mobile over “mandatory” text-message fees. I think it’s ridiculous that the company told Zaldivar that turning off text-messaging was “impossible,” especially when, according to Red Tape Chronicle writer Bob Sullivan, “Verizon, AT&T and Sprint allow consumers to shut down delivery of unwanted text messages.” Me, while I’ve sent and received a few text messages in my time, I wish I had known I could turn them off altogether. I think they’re relatively useless when free alternatives such as e-mail, instant messaging, and Twitter exist. But maybe that just means I’m old.
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine star Hugh Jackman made an unannounced appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, and he brought footage from the forthcoming film with him, footage which apparently included a fan-favorite from the comic books who has thusfar not appeared in the X-Men film-franchise: Gambit. I’ve never been as nuts about Gambit as some of my contemporaries, but Newsarama’s description of the trailer as a whole does have me excited. I really dig the X-Men film-franchise (including the oft-hated-upon third installment), and I can’t wait for this one.
- The Unofficial Apple Weblog thinks apps for the AppleTV are a good idea and I wholeheartedly agree. I probably wouldn’t turn on regular cable TV at all if my AppleTV could tell me the weather and get me some other basic information like that. And I would be giddy like a schoolgirl if I could watch Viddler videos on my TV (a suggestion that TUAW makes). Apple, are you listening?
- ...apparently not. Apple continues to face major problems with the rollout of its new MobileMe service. While MacWorld gives MobileMe a relatively good review, known Apple enthusiast David Pogue (New York Times) has some serious concerns about the way that Apple is handling a crisis that’s affecting some 20,000 MobileMe users: “This is an airplane that’s stuck on the runway for hours with no food or working bathroom. And the pilot doesn’t come on the P.A. system to tell the customers what the problem is, what’s being done to fix it, how much longer they might be stuck, and how he empathizes with their plight. Instead, he comes on once every three hours to repeat the same thing: ‘We apologize for the inconvenience.’” I intend to give the new service a spin over the weekend, despite the bad reviews, but I’d been hoping that Apple would bowl me over with this service, and I’m not so sure that’s going to happen now.
Topics: Apple, Marvel Comics, Geekforce Reserves
