Comments on: MobileMe: What it Syncs, When it Syncs, and Why I’m Staying With It

By: Frank Kucera

Frank Kucera — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:53:48 +0000

I have been having sync issues with my mobile me for now going on a month and a half.
I have been on line with mobile me,3 to 4 trips to apple stores,spoke with 2 or three genius called apple care and still have not resolved my problems.
With syncing my calendar events from mac book,desk top,IPHONE and mobile me.This was working very good and i started to have issues i emailed mobile me and they told me i had to much data and to many calendars i reduced that and i now can open up calendars in mobile me but it will NOT sync from iphone to mobile me calendar every day for mobile me to iphone some times??but it does not update my ical!!!I am very frustrated and this is suppose to be a tool to help us but this has become a problem for me I NEED HELP EVERY WAY I HAVE TURNED I GET NO HELP!!!!! I have only been a Apple person for 4 years and i have a G5,4 LAB TOPS i think they are great but the mobile me help sucks.

By: Impaler

Impaler — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 18:30:32 +0000

Oh, Tom, you’re wrong about mail not being pushed. It can still check at regular intervals, but it uses IMAP IDLE to deliver messages to Mac OS X Mail, Outlook 2007 in Windows, or other clients that support IDLE, instantly. I often get e-mails in Mail within seconds of sending test messages, or when I know when it coming.

By: Impaler

Impaler — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 18:19:29 +0000

@ Mark,
there really is a surefire way to avoid loss of data–and both iCal and Address Book offer solid archiving. Every time I’m at my iMac, I perform these two operations–takes 20 seconds each, and I’m good to go, if the cloud decides to misbehave, I’m covered. They’re also backed up with my Time Machine backups–and it’s saved my skin a couple times.

In iCal, go to File/Back Up iCal. This will create a single archive file of all your calendars in iCal. In Address Book, go to File/Export/Address Book Archive. Same deal–every piece of data in your address book is backed up, including photos, groups, etc.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 18:14:05 +0000

When I read articles like Tom’s, I get SOOO tempted to take the leap to over-the-air syncing. But I’m still not willing to take the risk when I continue to see comments from anguished people looking for their lost data. Sorry if this is the wrong forum for this question, but could Tom or anyone else describe a sure-fire backup scheme for Address Book and iCal that I could implement before throwing the switch on over-the-air syncing? Thanks!

By: Apple Makes Changes to MobileMe: We’re Finally Where We Should Have Been From the Start | TheAppleBlog

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 03:36:48 +0000

[...] outlined how MobileMe synced in an earlier article. What it boiled down to was that for Leopard users all items in the MobileMe control panel would [...]

By: Morrowbie

Morrowbie — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:26:57 +0000

Oh ya, one more thing, MobileMe ERASES my iPhone contacts. I have tried many times, and it always erases them upon sync.

By: Morrowbie

Morrowbie — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:25:51 +0000

I have a MacBook Pro and an Air. I use MobileMe to sync my mail, and frankly’s its irritating. EVERY TIME I switch computers, I get notified that Google Mail’s setting are being changed. “Stores Notes on Server” switches from yes, to no, and back. Every once in a while another account will get its SMTP port switched, usually to blank from 587 (or back).

Does Apple even test this software before releasing it on the world?

By: Mike O'Connor

Mike O'Connor — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:24:45 +0000

You can get around the 15 minute delay by turning on the preference to show sync status in the menu bar. Then, you can use the “Sync Now” item there to push out your changes immediately.

By: Mike O'Connor

Mike O'Connor — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:24:45 +0000

You can get around the 15 minute delay by turning on the preference to show sync status in the menu bar. Then, you can use the “Sync Now” item there to push out your changes immediately.

By: Mike O'Connor

Mike O'Connor — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:24:45 +0000

You can get around the 15 minute delay by turning on the preference to show sync status in the menu bar. Then, you can use the “Sync Now” item there to push out your changes immediately.

By: Mike O'Connor

Mike O'Connor — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:24:45 +0000

You can get around the 15 minute delay by turning on the preference to show sync status in the menu bar. Then, you can use the “Sync Now” item there to push out your changes immediately.

By: Charles

Charles — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:36:40 +0000

The one issue that I have is that you cannot change the email address on the push email account… I am stuck using IMAP without push just because I use the iPhone for business.

Until Apple stops requiring your personal email address to go out to the world.. they will always lag Blackberries in business.

It it really annoying to me.

I’ve heard of a few hacked ways of using things like gmail as your outgoing server but it still shows your .mac email address.

Has anyone figured out a solid way to get the push and have an alternative email address?

Thanks,
Charles

By: Impaler

Impaler — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:29:41 +0000

I love MobileMe too! Right now, though, Outlook 2007 on Windows XP SP3 seems to really mess everything up. I recently also discovered I can use Exchange at work to push updates to contacts, calendars and mail over the air, so I’ve gone to Exchange for contacts/calendar/email, and MobileMe for email and bookmarks. Works like a champ, and I can leave my Exchange account connected directly to Outlook without having to deal with risky .pst files.

By: Sportyemen

Sportyemen — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:37:34 +0000

Apple always the first & the best (:

I love Apple

By: Tom Reestman

Tom Reestman — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:06:15 +0000

Alex,

I agree with you that MMe is even more than what I mentioned. I didn’t bring up the photo gallery (which I love) or, for that matter, Web publishing (which I use for a family blog), because I concentrated on syncing the various options for Mail and MMe’s control panel.

However, the photo gallery _IS_ synced, and I should have mentioned that. If I modify an existing one it’s sent up or down (as the case may be) between MMe and the desktop. You’re right, I missed that one. Thanks for the catch, so here it is:

Photo sync is via timer, and controlled via a MobileMe preference in the Aperture or iPhoto app. You can select Manual, or various times as often as hourly.

If I add a photo to a desktop gallery (I use Aperture, but this applies to iPhoto as well) it’s pushed to the web gallery when the time hits. Same is true if I add a photo to a web gallery (say, via iPhone email). Personally, I don’t want my photo software hitting the web every hour looking for gallery changes that don’t occur very frequently (for me, at least). I have my setting on Manual and just do it whenever I make a change.

By: Sven Rafferty

Sven Rafferty — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:41:14 +0000

The Automatic setting in MMe on the Desktop unfortunately isn’t on a true 15 minute timer. I’ve done many tests, updating contacts, iCal, and such, and watched the Sync screen. In most cases, it syncs *within* an hour usually between 45 and 60 minutes. I don’t know if there is an idle-watch command and due to my aggressive work day it takes longer or what, but I have yet to see it sync consistently every 15 minutes.

Because I am in out of the office at times and I make adjustments to my schedule on the Desktop which contain address and name information, I can’t hope and wait an hour for the stuff to get to my phone. Because of that, I continue to let iTunes and iPhone AutoSync (no longer available) truly push my updates to the phone.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:44:14 +0000

I love the syncing but I’ve lost contacts twice so far. Fortunately, being a former Newton user, I took the precaution of having a primitive back up (I had my contacts stored in an email to myself).

The problem with the syncing is that if the data gets corrupted on one device (say the Mac), that problem gets propagated to the MMe and then the iPhone.

I now try to remember to manually backup my contacts in the address book on the Mac. Contacts seem to be the most vulnerable to going AWOL.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:35:34 +0000

“Many think MMe is just email, contacts, and calendars, but that underrates the service. ”

So why the hell didn’t you talk about the other features of the service??!!

People need to realize that their money gets them more than what you are mentioning. Especially if your goal of this post is to dispel misinformation about the service.

Online photo gallery ring a bell? And how great that is at updating and sharing your photos online?

Your article is about 80 percent done. You should revise it.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:15:20 +0000

I tried Mobile Me and was so impressed I switched to the paid version only a few weeks into the trial. I’ve not had any problems and can understand the frustrations of those who have, but I think what Mobile Me offers is excellent value, especially push email and iDisk.

Now, if only I could send email from my existing address instead of me.com…

By: Phil Bowell

Phil Bowell — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:10:02 +0000

Does MMe not work with Mail.app’s IDLE feature? I use that with my GApps GMail account and it effectively gives me push email. Couple this with BusySync for my iCal and I’ve got a good push sync setup going. The only thing I’m waiting for is for BusySync to add the GMail contacts sync they are working on and I’m good. iPod touch sync is dealt with by NeuvaSync which works well, although they need to add the ability to differentiate calendars for perfection.