Apple revamps MobileMe iDisk features

[AppleInsider]

MobileMe web applications have received another facelift, with new features including a revised iDisk module that enables easy file sharing using a system Apple first debuted with its iWork.com experiment at Macworld Expo.

Using iDisk

MobileMe's iDisk is a WebDAV-based cloud file share that subscribers can access from the me.com website or mount on their desktop as a volume. Support for iDisk is automatically configured when a user sets up his or her MobileMe account in System Preferences or the MobileMe Control Panel for Windows. In Mac OS X, users can even sync their iDisk locally, so that its files are available even when the system is not connected to the Internet.

Files uploaded to iDisk are private to the MobileMe user, outside of two special folders: Web and Public. Documents copied to the Web folder, including sites posted by the iWeb application, are hosted by the MobileMe web service.

Files copied to Public are available to anyone via http://public.me.com/user. The subscriber may choose to only allow visitors read access, or can enable read and write access via the MobileMe pane of System Preferences. The Public folder can also be assigned an access password for more selective sharing.

Shared Files

The newly enhanced Shared Files feature allows users to select a specific file from the iDisk web interface and share it using the same system Apple debuted in iWork.com. The system sets up a short URL to the shared file along the lines of http://files.me.com/user/31sk02. You can manually email the link to others, or you can enter email addresses directly in the sharing configuration sheet (below) and enter a brief message.



Unlike sharing access to the Public folder, Shared Files allows the subscriber to make the link valid only for a set number of days, weeks or months, with the default being 30 days. The shared file can also be assigned password protection.

If shared users are specified at creation, they will receive an email with a download link. Otherwise, the file is highlighted in a new Shared Files section on the iDisk webpage (below) for keeping track of the currently shared files. The user can click a Sharing Options button to resend the file to new users, extend its valid sharing period, change its password, or stop sharing the file.



Along with the change, Apple also updated the iDisk icon to closer match the iDisk icon presented in the Finder of a volume with a cloud on it. Apple also changed the Account pane from a user silhouette to a gear icon similar to that used by System Preferences or the iPhone's Settings. The previous iDisk interface is shown below. Note that HomePage and Groups features under web sharing, held over from the .Mac era, are slated to disappear at the end of July.



iPhone Integration

Apple has also outlined plans to expand iDisk features to allow iPhone users to access their iDisk files and to directly share files with other iPhone users via the Public folder.

Apple highlights Office and iWork documents, PDFs, and video files as examples of documents users can share via iDisk if they are too big to send via email. Other users can then receive a shared link for downloading directly from their own iPhone, or browse other users' published files using the Public Folders feature.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[ascii]

iDisk performance is extremely poor. My Internet connection is 16Mbit down/1Mbit up, and yet while browsing iDisk, a painful experience, Activity Monitor says there is only 5-6k a second coming down.

Is it the Webdav protocol? Are there not enough servers or bandwidth allocated to the service? I don't know, but features such as the above are wasted development effort if the basics (performance) aren't there.

[elliots11]

So if trying to view .doc or or rtf or PDFs using this iDisk for iPhone, would it look at them via the Internet or download them to a cache for reading?

[tadunne]

but the better sharing features were added back in Feb!?!?!

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/news/2...ith-idisk.html

[lowededwookie]

Originally Posted by elliots11

So if trying to view .doc or or rtf or PDFs using this iDisk for iPhone, would it look at them via the Internet or download them to a cache for reading?

It will be a cache.

It doesn't matter what OS or what software you run, anything opened across a network will be opened in a file that is cached to the local machine. Any changes made get written back to the original file however.

[sinX]

Originally Posted by tadunne

but the better sharing features were added back in Feb!?!?!

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/news/2...ith-idisk.html

Ya, they were. I think they got confused with the recent changes.

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by lowededwookie

It will be a cache.

It doesn't matter what OS or what software you run, anything opened across a network will be opened in a file that is cached to the local machine. Any changes made get written back to the original file however.

Except you can't change the files on the iPhone anyway.

This is all nice and all but I wish Apple would get their finger out and put together a mobile device that can actually edit files and has a file system and so forth. There are lots of folks that don't want or need the full laptop experience and laptops are so last century anyway.

No documents and no document editing is iPhone's Achilles heel IMO.

Edit: If they at least came out with an iDisk app for the iPhone and had an area to hold the files, then others could write word processors.

[dreyfus2]

Originally Posted by ascii

Is it the Webdav protocol? Are there not enough servers or bandwidth allocated to the service? I don't know, but features such as the above are wasted development effort if the basics (performance) aren't there.

It is a mix of both, as far as I can tell. I normally see a significant performance increase when accessing the iDisk though a third-party software such as SpeedDownload or Cyberduck. The Webdav implementation in the Finder is awful. But even using these tools, the iDisk is still a lot slower than some free services like Dropbox. Heck, even "free" downloads from services like RapidShare are faster.


I am not really getting the article, too. Besides the changed icons, all these features are available since months?

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by dreyfus2

... I am not really getting the article, too. Besides the changed icons, all these features are available since months?

Exactly. And if we want to be picky, the desktop icon is still pink and the web icon is still blue, so it's not that "unified" anyway. Even the news about the "expected" iDisk for iPhone app is weeks old.

[PXT]

Is the use of WebDAV the reason I can't access my iDisk folders from the office, where they use IE6? If the content isn't available on all browsers then you can't rely on it. TMT ( too much technology ).

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by PXT

Is the use of WebDAV the reason I can't access my iDisk folders from the office, where they use IE6? If the content isn't available on all browsers then you can't rely on it. TMT ( too much technology ).

I have accessed iDisk folders from Windows before, but that may have been with mapped network drives, not through a web browser.

[Cubert]

I think Apple is very close to justifying the $99 price tag for most users. Currently, MobileMe has a narrow audience, and I think a lot of people will choose to not renew their membership after a year unless Apple adds and refines its features - which, thankfully, they are still doing.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by Cubert

I think Apple is very close to justifying the $99 price tag for most users. Currently, MobileMe has a narrow audience, and I think a lot of people will choose to not renew their membership after a year unless Apple adds and refines its features - which, thankfully, they are still doing.

I’ve had it for 5 years and have never once paid $99. Last year I found a .Mac family pack for sale for $69. I’m sure it was a mistake that was meant to be for a single license, which is the common price for .Mac/MM. I bought 3 copies, put in all serials and got an additional 36 months plus the 3 free months we got for the initial MM hiccup when it went live in 2008.

Considering all the services you get —the best ones for me are rarely ever even mentioned— I find the price well within reason. Though, now that I back up with TimeMachine, the backing up of all my settings is less important than it used to be.

[spliff monkey]

This is all old news for the most part. Hey it's a holiday what should we expect. LOL Anyway, I have a synchronous 4MB connection. uploads have worked very well since I upgraded, but I have noticed that 3rd party utilities did make it more reliable before I upgraded. I've been using dotmac since they first released it and I think they've done a pretty good job of making the service worthwhile. I questioned it for years but with so much space, better finder integration, easier file sharing etc. I don't wonder if I should be paying for it any longer. All they need now is better iphone integration and extended "cloud" services.

Only thing I wonder now is why they ignored it for so long though It makes me think they felt that "technology" (broadband) and users needed to upgrade before it really became a major concern for them. That sounds like "apple philosophy." LOL I paid $100 a year to be a beta tester for the first 9 or so years. Ah what we can only observe in hindsight.

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by PXT

Is the use of WebDAV the reason I can't access my iDisk folders from the office, where they use IE6? If the content isn't available on all browsers then you can't rely on it. TMT ( too much technology ).

IE 6? You have to be joking. That's barely even a browser.

If you want to use ten year old technology, you can't expect things to always work. The computer world moves a tad faster than that.

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by solipsism

... Considering all the services you get —the best ones for me are rarely ever even mentioned— I find the price well within reason. Though, now that I back up with TimeMachine, the backing up of all my settings is less important than it used to be.

Indeed. People are always complaining about the price of MobileMe, but even at full price it's less than the price of a couple of cups of coffee per month.

People will pay a hundred a month for cable, but will balk at $8.00 for MobileMe.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2

IE 6? You have to be joking. That's barely even a browser.

If you want to use ten year old technology, you can't expect things to always work. The computer world moves a tad faster than that.

You do have a valid point. Even IE7 isn’t fully supported, though I don’t recall any specific issues or limitations with using it.

Supported browsers for me.com are Safari 3 or later (Mac OS X and Windows) and Firefox 2 or later (Mac OS X and Windows). Internet Explorer 7 (Windows) is not fully supported.

And the reason for the browser limitations are…

MobileMe uses Ajax and Dynamic HTML to simulate the look and feel of desktop applications within the user's web browser. Applications on me.com include Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Gallery and iDisk access. Most of the me.com web applications are built on top of the open source SproutCore Javascript framework.

[anonymouse]

Originally Posted by solipsism

And the reason for the browser limitations are…

IE (all versions) is pretty much a nightmare to code for in an AJAX/DHTML situation. This is ironically, among other reasons, because MS rigidly adheres to the wording of standards in some important instances (while flagrantly disregarding it in others). So, to achieve certain effects in IE, you may need to, for example, iterate over, in JavaScript code (i.e., very slowly), the entire DOM structure of a page to find a set of elements you need to perform some action on whereas in Firefox and Safari you can find these quite easily using DOM methods. Setting element style attributes can also be problematic.

Frankly, I'm not surprised that they don't bother to try to fully support IE.

[NasserAE]

Originally Posted by solipsism

I’ve had it for 5 years and have never once paid $99. Last year I found a .Mac family pack for sale for $69. I’m sure it was a mistake that was meant to be for a single license, which is the common price for .Mac/MM. I bought 3 copies, put in all serials and got an additional 36 months plus the 3 free months we got for the initial MM hiccup when it went live in 2008.

Considering all the services you get —the best ones for me are rarely ever even mentioned— I find the price well within reason. Though, now that I back up with TimeMachine, the backing up of all my settings is less important than it used to be.

You still can get MM family pack for around $85 on Amazon (sometimes) and ebay. I bought a family pack last year for $65 and I wish I bought more than one.

[technohermit]

Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2

Indeed. People are always complaining about the price of MobileMe, but even at full price it's less than the price of a couple of cups of coffee per month.

People will pay a hundred a month for cable, but will balk at $8.00 for MobileMe.

Hell, push email to my iPhone is worth the $100. I pay that for 3 fully hosted domains, though. .Mac was not worth the money, but I had it anyway (been on it since '04.) Now that the iPhone is out, MobileMe syncs everything, and it's push. Those two features are IMO, necessary, and I just think back to what I was paying for prior to MobileMe. .Mac sucked, MobileMe ==roxx0rz.

Edit: What I meant to say about the domains is that for $100 a year I get good disk storage and ample bandwidth, FTP, domains of my choosing, etc., etc. The features of a webhost for $100 are far, far superior to the options you get with iDisk and MobileMe. That said, push email has no substitute and $100 a year is worth every penny.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by technohermit

Hell, push email to my iPhone is worth the $100. I pay that for 3 fully hosted domains, though. .Mac was not worth the money, but I had it anyway (been on it since '04.) Now that the iPhone is out, MobileMe syncs everything, and it's push. Those two features are IMO, necessary, and I just think back to what I was paying for prior to MobileMe. .Mac sucked, MobileMe ==roxx0rz.

Edit: What I meant to say about the domains is that for $100 a year I get good disk storage and ample bandwidth, FTP, domains of my choosing, etc., etc. The features of a webhost for $100 are far, far superior to the options you get with iDisk and MobileMe. That said, push email has no substitute and $100 a year is worth every penny.

Yahoo has Push email for the iPhone which I believe is free, though last time I tried it with the original iPhone it was far from reliable. There are plenty of services that will push your email for free, I think many use Exchange so you get the sync support of contacts and calendars, too. If the free ones come with caveats then you can get simply that push feature for small price that is well under the $69 average price for MM.

I personally use Gmail, but I like the Push so my Gmail forwards all my mail to MM, which usually gets sent to my iPhone before my Mac gets it from Gmail checking every minute. For sending back from my iPhone I have set up Gmail as my SMTPs so my MM is invisible to everyone.

[technohermit]

Originally Posted by solipsism

Yahoo has Push email for the iPhone which I believe is free, though last time I tried it with the original iPhone it was far from reliable. There are plenty of services that will push your email for free, I think many use Exchange so you get the sync support of contacts and calendars, too. If the free ones come with caveats then you can get simply that push feature for small price that is well under the $69 average price for MM.

I personally use Gmail, but I like the Push so my Gmail forwards all my mail to MM, which usually gets sent to my iPhone before my Mac gets it from Gmail checking every minute. For sending back from my iPhone I have set up Gmail as my SMTPs so my MM is invisible to everyone.

My brother in law rides the same crazy train as you, S . I personally use Google for the search, but steer well clear of them for personal email. I like the .mac email, and didn't ever bother to forward this and that from other mail addresses. The sync feature of contacts, as I add them from the road on my iPhone is great. The push is great. iDisk, not so much. Apple is improving the service still, so I hope the best is yet to come. I will certainly be supporting it for another year when mine renews in January.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by technohermit

My brother in law rides the same crazy train as you, S . I personally use Google for the search, but steer well clear of them for personal email. I like the .mac email, and didn't ever bother to forward this and that from other mail addresses. The sync feature of contacts, as I add them from the road on my iPhone is great. The push is great. iDisk, not so much. Apple is improving the service still, so I hope the best is yet to come. I will certainly be supporting it for another year when mine renews in January.

I’d rather change my phone number or my girlfriend before I change my email address, so I won’t make a paid-for email service my primary account.

[bigdaddyp]

Originally Posted by solipsism

I’d rather change my phone number or my girlfriend before I change my email address, so I won’t make a paid-for email service my primary account.

I agree with you on that one. I have a msn email address that I still use that I have had for around twelve years now. I keep it so that people I have not talked to in a long time can still easily reach me. I don't mind changing girlfriends once in a while but boy does my wife get pissed when she finds out.

[bulk001]

Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2

Edit: If they at least came out with an iDisk app for the iPhone and had an area to hold the files, then others could write word processors.

QuickOffice and DataViz both offer word processors on the iPhone. Neither is perfect but both are a good start and QO does actually access files that you have copied over to your iDisk and allow you to edit them.

[wally007]

Originally Posted by technohermit

Hell, push email to my iPhone is worth the $100. I pay that for 3 fully hosted domains, though. .Mac was not worth the money, but I had it anyway (been on it since '04.) Now that the iPhone is out, MobileMe syncs everything, and it's push. Those two features are IMO, necessary, and I just think back to what I was paying for prior to MobileMe. .Mac sucked, MobileMe ==roxx0rz.

Edit: What I meant to say about the domains is that for $100 a year I get good disk storage and ample bandwidth, FTP, domains of my choosing, etc., etc. The features of a webhost for $100 are far, far superior to the options you get with iDisk and MobileMe. That said, push email has no substitute and $100 a year is worth every penny.

can i host www.example.com website on mobileme service or will apple dictate what domain i can use ? i already have web hosting service but i'd change if apple alowwed me to use my old domain.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by wally007

can i host www.example.com website on mobileme service or will apple dictate what domain i can use ? i already have web hosting service but i'd change if apple alowwed me to use my old domain.

It doesn’t appear that Apple actually hosts the domain, but there are other issues with using iWeb to publish or web.me.com/<name> as a web address. Primarily, the lack the of server-side code. I don’t require much, but PHP is one of the things I would need and you just can’t do it.

• http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1107

[spliff monkey]

It would be great if apple actually supported fully functional web hosting, but I always thought that would be a dream. PHP is essential but so is SQL. It burns me every month to pay for my website hosting knowing that I could almost use my MM hosting, but since I'd rather build my own CMS and website over Iweb (LOL, templates) I can't. Though maybe I can make a joke out of it and rebuild my sites with Iweb for comparison. Funny thing is, Apple assumes that their customers are all idiots who can't program, but the truth is we're buying their frigging computers specifically for programming, editing and photography. As a matter of fact it's the preferred platform overall for creative types. It's an interesting dichotomy in their view of they clientele. Buy a Mac, be creative, but since you too stupid to really be creative we'll just hold your hand. Apple use to think their users were creative, now we're just creative idiots who need our hands held. I hate the fact that they usually ignore the "power users" when it comes to their products. I hate the fact that "power users" is even a category of computer user. Technology manufacturers really need to stop making products and services for the lowest common denominator. I understand the reasoning but Christ All Mighty, you're killing the art and craft of every major occupation out there by the very fact that everything is "idiot proof" and by making it "idiot proof" the quality and craft of photography, design, editing etc are are lost in a sea of templates. It was a better world when things we still hard to do.

[wally007]

Originally Posted by solipsism

It doesn’t appear that Apple actually hosts the domain, but there are other issues with using iWeb to publish or web.me.com/<name> as a web address. Primarily, the lack the of server-side code. I don’t require much, but PHP is one of the things I would need and you just can’t do it.

• http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1107

oh nos , i didnt realise that. no php or sql ? thats no use to host any somewhat interesting website

[str1f3]

Originally Posted by spliff monkey

It would be great if apple actually supported fully functional web hosting, but I always thought that would be a dream. PHP is essential but so is SQL. It burns me every month to pay for my website hosting knowing that I could almost use my MM hosting, but since I'd rather build my own CMS and website over Iweb (LOL, templates) I can't. Though maybe I can make a joke out of it and rebuild my sites with Iweb for comparison. Funny thing is, Apple assumes that their customers are all idiots who can't program, but the truth is we're buying their frigging computers specifically for programming, editing and photography. As a matter of fact it's the preferred platform overall for creative types. It's an interesting dichotomy in their view of they clientele. Buy a Mac, be creative, but since you too stupid to really be creative we'll just hold your hand. Apple use to think their users were creative, now we're just creative idiots who need our hands held. I hate the fact that they usually ignore the "power users" when it comes to their products. I hate the fact that "power users" is even a category of computer user. Technology manufacturers really need to stop making products and services for the lowest common denominator. I understand the reasoning but Christ All Mighty, you're killing the art and craft of every major occupation out there by the very fact that everything is "idiot proof" and by making it "idiot proof" the quality and craft of photography, design, editing etc are are lost in a sea of templates. It was a better world when things we still hard to do.

I didn't realize that people who couldn't program were idiots. Thanks for proving how smart you are.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by spliff monkey

Funny thing is, Apple assumes that their customers are all idiots who can't program, but the truth is we're buying their frigging computers specifically for programming, editing and photography. As a matter of fact it's the preferred platform overall for creative types.

I wouldn’t go that far. iWeb is a simple consumer-level product for those without webcode knowledge. While I would like PHP and SQL (now that you mention it) I do understand their perspective on this. Neither is too hard to learn but they aren’t for the basic user as they aren’t WYSIWYG either, and there are plenty of options for Mac users who do want to build more dynamic sites.

[BenRoethig]

Mobile me is finally getting interesting. What I would really like to see in the future is a user account sync option for those with multiple computers. Changes and files would be automatically transferred to your other computer(s) when on your network transparetly.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by BenRoethig

Mobile me is finally getting interesting. What I would really like to see in the future is a user account sync option for those with multiple computers.

What exactly do you mean? You can set your .Mac/MM account sync on multiple machines and have them merge or replace the sync info between all accounts on different machines. Thye’ve had that for years.

My biggest gripes with MM is that Find My iPhone and Remote Wipe can be too easily turned off within the iPhone’s Mail settings. But more importantly, the account preferences syncing, iDisk and probably some aspects of the service are sent in plaintext. The authorization is encrypted but everything else can be easily snooped on a public network, which is why I now only sync manually when I’m on a secure network.

[techpr]

This is OLD news, since February we have the Sharing feature active. The only thing new is the upcoming iPhone iDisk App, still waiting for it.

[coolfactor]

Originally Posted by PXT

Is the use of WebDAV the reason I can't access my iDisk folders from the office, where they use IE6? If the content isn't available on all browsers then you can't rely on it. TMT ( too much technology ).

IE6 is old and stale. Talk to your IT department about their plans to update your infrastructure.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by coolfactor

IE6 is old and stale. Talk to your IT department about their plans to update your infrastructure.

For a frame of reference…

— Internet Explorer 6 was released on August 27, 2001 (Eight years ago, a few month before Windows XP launched)
— Internet Explorer 7 was released on October 18, 2006 (Almost 3 years ago, when Apple’s 10.4 “Tiger" was only halfway through it’s release cycle)
— Internet Explorer 8 was released on March 19, 2009 (Now that IE8 is out at least they can move to IE7 if they like to be behind)

[coolfactor]

Originally Posted by BenRoethig

Mobile me is finally getting interesting. What I would really like to see in the future is a user account sync option for those with multiple computers. Changes and files would be automatically transferred to your other computer(s) when on your network transparetly.

Yes. The iDisk architecture is dated and needs to be improved a lot. Competing services like Dropbox are far more transparent. iDisk should follow Dropbox's approach of using standard folders on the computer and seamlessly synchronizing those. MobileMe users could specify arbitrary folders to sync using MobileMe, and those folders become accessible via iDisk, regardless of where the folders are on the computer. Right now, if you want to sync your Documents, you need to have 2 copies of your Documents folder, which just complicates the entire process.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by coolfactor

Yes. The iDisk architecture is dated and needs to be improved a lot. Competing services like Dropbox are far more transparent. iDisk should follow Dropbox's approach of using standard folders on the computer and seamlessly synchronizing those. MobileMe users could specify arbitrary folders to sync using MobileMe, and those folders become accessible via iDisk, regardless of where the folders are on the computer. Right now, if you want to sync your Documents, you need to have 2 copies of your Documents folder, which just complicates the entire process.

I’ve been asking for this option for years (through Apple’s developer site, not in a whine fest on AI). I think being able to right click on a folder or file and be able to share it right where it resides would be very user friendly. While still being able to move the file/folder around the system freely, with a special icon appendage so you know it’s shared with just a glance. Also, perhaps an app or a Pref Pane that allows you to see and manage all your shared folders and files quickly.

[SinisterJoe]

Originally Posted by PXT

Is the use of WebDAV the reason I can't access my iDisk folders from the office, where they use IE6? If the content isn't available on all browsers then you can't rely on it. TMT ( too much technology ).

WebDAV is often supported at the OS level. In Windows you can add a WebDAV file share through My Network Places Center Sharing something or another. I forget what they call it but it's there.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3264

[spliff monkey]

Originally Posted by solipsism

I wouldn’t go that far. iWeb is a simple consumer-level product for those without webcode knowledge. While I would like PHP and SQL (now that you mention it) I do understand their perspective on this. Neither is too hard to learn but they aren’t for the basic user as they aren’t WYSIWYG either, and there are plenty of options for Mac users who do want to build more dynamic sites.

Yeah you're right. It would be nice to have a robust back-end so that one wouldn't have to mirror services that otherwise could be combined for simple personal stuff.