MobileMe
I spent most of last night working with Apple's new MobileMe service. Steve Jobs is right. It's not yet ready for prime time.
MobileMe is an interesting concept. It's meant to synchronize e-mail, contacts and calendars across multiple devices (Macs, PCs, phones), but my one evening with MobileMe was full enough of frustration to make me cancel my free trial account. Me? Cancel a free account? Yup.
Let's start with e-mail. Folks currently using Web-based e-mail (such as Gmail, Yahoo! or Hotmail) need not apply, as your e-mail generally doesn't require any synchronization. Folks using IMAP clients will find limited utility here as well, as IMAP handles most e-mail synchronization without help.
What about contacts. Sure, I would love to have my contacts updated automatically (and instantly) across all my devices. MobileMe doesn't quite do that. I waited 30 minutes for my iPhone to pick up even a single contact from MobileMe, then surrendered. I'm going back to Plaxo for (free!) syncing across computers and using my daily iPhone charge as an opportunity for contact synchronization via USB. Is Plaxo perfect? Heck, no. Among other things, it doesn't sync contact photos. But it does keep my names, addresses and phone numbers in sync.
And calendars? I had calendar sync across multiple computers, years ago on my Linux box. I still have no idea (except perhaps financial incentive) what has kept Apple from producing a calendar with quick, automatic syncing from one of our fine Unix-based boxes. iCal has been out for quite a while, but it's Google that provided omnipresent calendaring. Would I like to use an Apple product for my calendar? Something that doesn't require continual connection to the 'Net? You bet. But do I need to pay $99/year when I'm already using the Google product? I don't think so. We've been waiting so long for a decent Apple solution that I don't think calendaring will be Jobs' killer app any time soon.
What I'd really like is an Apple app to keep my iphoto libraries in sync. MobileMe doesn't do that, either.
So, why not keep playing with MobileMe? It was that 30-minute pause with no updates on my phone.
But give it a try for yourself. Perhaps you'll have better luck!
MobileMe is an interesting concept. It's meant to synchronize e-mail, contacts and calendars across multiple devices (Macs, PCs, phones), but my one evening with MobileMe was full enough of frustration to make me cancel my free trial account. Me? Cancel a free account? Yup.
Let's start with e-mail. Folks currently using Web-based e-mail (such as Gmail, Yahoo! or Hotmail) need not apply, as your e-mail generally doesn't require any synchronization. Folks using IMAP clients will find limited utility here as well, as IMAP handles most e-mail synchronization without help.
What about contacts. Sure, I would love to have my contacts updated automatically (and instantly) across all my devices. MobileMe doesn't quite do that. I waited 30 minutes for my iPhone to pick up even a single contact from MobileMe, then surrendered. I'm going back to Plaxo for (free!) syncing across computers and using my daily iPhone charge as an opportunity for contact synchronization via USB. Is Plaxo perfect? Heck, no. Among other things, it doesn't sync contact photos. But it does keep my names, addresses and phone numbers in sync.
And calendars? I had calendar sync across multiple computers, years ago on my Linux box. I still have no idea (except perhaps financial incentive) what has kept Apple from producing a calendar with quick, automatic syncing from one of our fine Unix-based boxes. iCal has been out for quite a while, but it's Google that provided omnipresent calendaring. Would I like to use an Apple product for my calendar? Something that doesn't require continual connection to the 'Net? You bet. But do I need to pay $99/year when I'm already using the Google product? I don't think so. We've been waiting so long for a decent Apple solution that I don't think calendaring will be Jobs' killer app any time soon.
What I'd really like is an Apple app to keep my iphoto libraries in sync. MobileMe doesn't do that, either.
So, why not keep playing with MobileMe? It was that 30-minute pause with no updates on my phone.
But give it a try for yourself. Perhaps you'll have better luck!
posted by Prof. G. at
12:15 PM (permalink)
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