Unlike Google, Apple doesn’t subscribe to the “Release Early, Iterate Often” model of software and service publishing. Even so, that’s how things have turned out with MobileMe. On Friday, Apple published updates to its MobileMe News pages detailing improvements to the service.
“As part of an update to the MobileMe web applications, you can now access [...]
Of all the file syncing solutions available, one of the most popular is Dropbox. As one of the solutions that is also cross-platform compatible, many Mac users have embraced Dropbox as a more reliable and robust solution than other alternatives, like MobileMe’s iDisk. Diehard Dropbox users can now rejoice as the Dropbox team is at [...]
It was announced alongside iPhone OS 3.0, and its absence has been a conspicuous, if minor, cause for analyst concern. Today, though, Apple finally released its official MobileMe iDisk app for download via the App Store. As was announced previously, the app allows iPhone and iPod touch users to wirelessly share and view files from [...]
According to a report in Friday’s Charlotte Observer, North Carolina lawmakers are falling over themselves to entice Apple to build a state-of-the-art server farm in their backyard — specifically, Catawba or Cleveland county. The carrot they’re dangling? In this case, nothing short of a multimillion-dollar tax break.
According to a “state official” with knowledge of the [...]
MobileMe, Apple’s online personal information management (PIM) solution, has withstood quite the controversy. While some of the more fortunate subscribers, like myself, have had only positive experiences, others had to wait several months before syncing worked without reporting cryptic errors or silently failing.
My only gripe was the buggy MobileMe web site. Problems were numerous, such [...]
No wonder this went unnoticed by most people. In the grand history of non-newsworthy news, this is right up there.
Two days ago, Apple updated their MobileMe News page with the announcement of 24/7 Live Chat support. If you have a problem with MobileMe, and the topics on the main support pages don’t help, you can [...]
It seems all but confirmed by Apple that video capabilities will be present with the next-generation iPhone. It may be in a few months. It may be next year. But what I’m really curious to know is what will video recording on the iPhone look like? There are a wide range of possibilities and [...]
After a short period of downtime in the early hours of the morning, MobileMe has emerged with a slight refresh to the interface, numerous speed improvements, and changes to the interface for the Mail, Calendar and Contact apps.
The login page has also undergone a minor re-design, aiming to provide more information and delegating less space [...]
One of the things demoed by Phil Schiller when MobileMe was introduced was the ability to easily share files on your iDisk with others. The idea was that you’d select a file on the iDisk, choose to share it, and then add password protection and/or an expiration date for the link.
Then you’d key in the email address(es) [...]
This might just be incredibly coincidental timing, but Apple is announcing that they’ve finally brought the Windows side of their MobileMe personal data syncing service up to snuff, only shortly after it’s come to light that Microsoft in working on their own similar service, currently dubbed “My Phone.” Either way, Windows users who are also [...]
One of the perplexing limitations about MobileMe is its inability to sync birthdays in iCal to the iPhone and iPod touch. As you may already know, iCal can take birthdays from Address Book and add them into a special “Birthdays” calendar, which is really a subscription calendar.
But while the latest updates to MobileMe now allow [...]
Jealous of MobileMe users but not willing to part with $100 and/or wary of its seemingly persistent problems? Have no fear, Google’s here.
Google Sync Beta, that is, which is now available for the iPhone (and Windows Mobile, but c’mon, honestly). With it, you can sync your Google Calendar and your Gmail Contacts over the air, [...]
This past weekend, Ed Oswald of Technologizer published a piece about how Apple seems to have stolen his contacts as if they owned them. The gist of the article is that he canceled his MobileMe account — without taking any actions to save his data beforehand — and thinks it’s Apple’s fault that the contacts left [...]
The MobileMe trial began to seem like it was going to go on forever, since Apple kept tacking on more time to make up for having released a half-baked service to begin with. Sadly, not so. My own trial term recently came to an end, but by the time it did, I’d become fairly dependent [...]
A little while ago, Google released a free iCal-to-Google Calendar sync tool called Calabaration. I don’t believe that Calabaration works very well, given how it generates a new calendar group within iCal and has limitations on how the Google Calendar can then sync to MobileMe. So I reached out to BusyMac, the makers of BusySync, [...]
Apple’s documentation for changes in the recent 10.5.6 system update includes a line of interest to MobileMe users on the Mac:
Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on a Mac automatically sync within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or the web at me.com.
So we now have “push” for those items on [...]
Recently MacLife magazine reviewed Apple’s MobileMe service. My problem with the review is that it lists something as a negative that continues to spread misinformation:
Doesn’t “push” your email instantly, rather every 15 minutes.
This is wrong. In this article I’ll touch on what gets synced with MobileMe, when it occurs, and why I’m happy with it.
First, [...]
I have been using MobileMe, and its previous incarnation DotMac, for just over two years. Everyone has talked about the great features it has as well as some of the near-misses. However, I haven’t seen anyone point out a major flaw in MobileMe — how it does not compare to Enterprise class offerings.
With MobileMe, we [...]
Apple’s replacement for .Mac has had a very rocky start, and has a long way to go before its ready to compete with free alternatives. Many users do not want to move away from MobileMe because of the deep integration with the Mac desktop, while others are reluctant because its hard to find another single service [...]
In a previous article I explained how in the last year I’ve moved the majority of my data to the Cloud. By utilizing MobileMe’s syncing mechanisms, I’m able to do this without sacrificing the “comfort” and “safety” of having all my data local. This not only saves me from worrying what I’d do if all [...]