Archives by Tag: MobileMe
What Do You Use for E-mail?
Gmail seems to be the gold standard when it comes to e-mail, even if, as I believe I read recently, Yahoo’s Mail service has far more users. Trouble is, I’ve never been a big fan of Gmail. Their decision to use “labels” instead of “folders” apparently makes sense for a lot of people, but I’ve just never gotten it. Despite that, I still use Google’s Apps for Your Domain product. They offer a lot of space at a price-point that really can’t be beaten (free), and they offer IMAP access, which makes sure that e-mail I read away from home shows up as read when I get back to Mail.app on my iMac.
But the service I really want to be using is Apple’s MobileMe, which offers push or near-push e-mail access, as well as the “folder” approach to e-mail storage that I still prefer. That’s why the continued news of MobileMe outages is really depressing to me. I desperately want Apple to get this right.
Assuming they don’t get it right, does anyone out there have a suggestion for a Gmail alternative? Or is there a tutorial out there that will somehow help me learn how to use labels effectively? Geek Forcers, what do you use for e-mail?
Worth Your Consideration 011 - A GF5 Linkdump
It may be a good long while before I am able to buy an iPhone 3G. I have the money, but when you’re looking to establish a family plan with one iPhone and one non-iPhone, a trackful of hurdles come into play. First, my wife and I need to be in the same place at the same time for something other than dinner or sleep, and that might not happen again until sometime toward the end of the month (she’s got meetings on two evenings this week; we don’t get home until 7:30ish each night anyway; and I’ve got PodCamp Boston this coming weekend). Second, we can’t go to an Apple Store, where it appears that there are plenty of iPhones in stock (there was a line forming outside the Apple Store in Boston this morning, three days after the initial launch, but I’m guessing that’s just excitement and not people trying to snatch up a limited number of devices). Instead, we have to go to an AT&T Store, where we may or may not be able to get an iPhone, because they’re totally sold out.
Ugh.
So, since getting back from camping this weekend, I’ve been living vicariously through others. Here are a few of the most notable links I’ve come across.
- News Askew has released a new iPhone-optimized version of their site. I’ve been thinking a lot about coming up with a mobile version of Geek Force Five, and I’m curious about exactly how News Askew is redirecting people to the iPhone-optimized site.
- Apple’s MobileMe can apparently sync bookmarks from a Mac to a PC. According to the screenshot featured here, you can sync bookmarks into Internet Explorer, if you see fit. I didn’t know that it was going to be capable of doing this, so I’m very excited. I’ll be much more excited if it’ll sync with Firefox instead, since that’s what I’m using on my PC. Me, I’m trying to decide whether or not to give MobileMe’s free sixty day trial a try now instead of waiting until I get an iPhone. Maybe the coolness of that would tide me over.
- The iPhone App Store opened on Thursday afternoon/evening and Jason Kottke opened up comments on his site to ask people what the “cool” iPhone apps were/are. I, of course, cannot wait until I can actually contribute to this conversation. Sigh… Until then, I’ll have to live with things like the visual previews being provided by AppleInsider and others. The Unofficial Apple Weblog believes that the App Store will change the world, in case you hadn’t heard.
- On a much happier note, Apple released an update for my Apple TV in conjunction with the iPhone 3G/MobileMe launch and it’s improved the already-impressive device significantly. Aside from the updated feature list enumerated Apple TV Junkie, I am most pleased to note that browsing my purchased movies by genre has gone from glacially slow to incredibly zippy. TUAW has a gallery of screenshots.
Worth Your Consideration 009 - A GF5 Linkdump
I know it may not seem like it to those of you who are not Apple people, but I’ve actually been holding back on the number of Apple-related stories I’ve been publishing in the lead-up to the release of Apple’s iPhone 3G. There’s a ton of quasi-news coming out of the Apple sites every day now, but I’ve been trying to limit my coverage here to stories that I actually have a little something to say about.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, on with the linkdump.
- Apple will open its U.S. retail stores at 8 a.m. on Friday to launch the iPhone 3G. This is exciting sure, but the main reason they’re doing a morning launch instead of their typical evening launch is because the process for purchasing an iPhone will be infinitely more complicated than it was the last time. Customers are being asked to bring a credit card, a valid, government-issued ID, their social security number, a copy of their current wireless statement, and the naming rights to their first-born child.
- If you can’t wait until Friday to experience the sheer awesomeness of unboxing a new iPhone of your very own, then Engadget has you covered.
- Or, if you’re like me, and won’t be able to get your iPhone on Friday (I’ll be working and then camping) and are therefore thirsting for some Apple-related goodness to call your very own, check out this news about Apple’s MobileMe service. It will apparently be launching on Wednesday night. If a free trial is available at some point on Thursday, you can be damn sure I’ll be signing up for that. It should make the pain of not being able to be an opening-weekend adopter of iPhone 3G a little easier to bear.
- Or, if you hate Apple and loves yourself some Microsoft, check out this news from InformationWeek. It turns out that Redmond will soon be responding to Apple’s ubiquitous Get a Mac attack ads. The campaign will apparently operate under the umbrella tagline “Free the People.” How long until Apple responds with a “Yeah, free the people from Vista” ad?
Merlin Mann’s Take on Mobile Me
43 Folders has an article by Merlin Mann on MobileMe that I found quite good. Mann describes himself as “someone who’s had strong feelings, high hopes, and occasional disappointmens with .Mac” and his thoughts on the service that Apple is launching to replace it are pretty comprehensive. My favorite observation:
Hiya, Windows hold-outs - I don’t know enough about “Enterprise” buying decisions to speak intelligently about business adoption, but I will say that MobileMe seems like a smart way reach out to individual Windows users and say, “See? Look how easy this all is!” Similarly, a lot of people I talk to these days are down to a single Windows device, and that’s the one they have to use at work. MobileMe potentially keeps them connected to their Apple world, even when they’re on a PC.
That’s the single most important benefit of MobileMe over .Mac for me: the inclusion of Windows computers in the mix.
iPhone 3G for $199
Apple today announced the iPhone 3G, which will retail for $199. I think I may have wet myself when I heard that, and I’m about to go check and see, but I wanted to share with all of you my incredible sense of joy about this announcement before I did so.
Listen: I can actually afford a $199 product. I’m actually halfway there, in terms of how much I have saved. For me, my dying iPod, and my horrible Verizon cellphone, this is amazing, amazing news. Sure, it doesn’t come out until July 11, which is a bit further away than I would like, but that just gives me more time to save up.
How about the rest of you Geek Forcers? Are you interested in picking one up? I’m sure that I’m not the only one out there who is salivating about this. Apple has just guaranteed itself a huge boost in its marketshare, in my opinion.
Oh, and did you hear about MobileMe, which will apparently solve all of the synchronization issues I’ve written about previously? It’s only $99 a year, and it sounds great.
I am one happy monkey right now, one very happy monkey.
