Concerns raised about lack of Mac-to-MobileMe push sync

[AppleInsider]

While Apple markets MobileMe primarily as a push service, some are now discovering that updates to the Mac don't translate to immediate updates for the web or for Apple's handhelds, raising questions about whether the new service is as full-featured as promised.

As illustrated in an official knowledge base article and supported by reports from Mac Rumors users, instantaneous data sync only occurs whenever a change is made from either the MobileMe web interface or a portable device such as the iPhone or iPod touch.

Even with Mac OS X 10.5.4 and a MobileMe update, however, Mac users just won't see the same level of speed when they make changes from the computer itself. The automatic option for sending data from the Mac is now known to be inherently tied to the operating system's Sync Services, which don't relay information except at regular 15-minute intervals -- a potential hassle for users expecting content to automatically spread within moments to all their computers and devices.

And while it's simple to override the automatic schedule with a manual sync, the absence of full computer-based push has quickly been labeled a disappointment to some users and reveals that Apple has yet to completely integrate push information with Mac OS X.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard is believed to solve the issue for business customers with built-in Exchange support but isn't yet known to have a new sync model that would deliver the updates in real time.

[fastred]

What an unfortunately ADD world we live in, when 15 minutes is "too slow"

[MsNly]

I was thinking about getting Mobile Me when I get an iPhone. I guess I might wait for Snow Leopard or for them to figure it out.

[wolfneuralnet]

I think this is worse. You cannot now see any of your subscribed calendars on MobileMe, and they are not pushed to the iPhone either.

This means that you basically cannot see subscribed calendars on the iPhone unless you turn off the push sync and sync manually with the cable. Which defeats the purpose of having MobileMe in the first place.

I expected they weren't changing the Sync model for Mac to MobileMe when the update was so small it could only have been cosmetic code, and don't think this part is really a big deal. It would be nice if automatic syncing, when turned on, triggered a sync whenever something was changed.

If I push something from MobileMe, it does trigger a sync on my Mac, so there must be a way to alert the machine that I have changed something locally! I think a quick update may fix this.

[Fotek2001]

Or how about when if you're promised that a change on one device will instantly be reflected on another and it doesn't happen... It's not us having 'ADD', it's Apple being liberal with the truth!

[rjwill246]

Originally Posted by fastred

What an unfortunately ADD world we live in, when 15 minutes is "too slow"

I actually resent the constant IMs and other intrusions, which is why 3rd party apps that can block everything until I AM READY is going to be a Godsend-- it is not as if a successful modern world depended on this. I am convinced more than ever that people want STAT for STAT' sake. Sure it is great to be able to write/talk/IM to the whole bloody world in 16 nanoseconds but by that stage the meaning of life has just been incinerated!

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by wolfneuralnet

I think this is worse. You cannot now see any of your subscribed calendars on MobileMe, and they are not pushed to the iPhone either.

This means that you basically cannot see subscribed calendars on the iPhone unless you turn off the push sync and sync manually with the cable. Which defeats the purpose of having MobileMe in the first place....

It's probably still to early to tell if it's on purpose (mobileme is still not even working for large numbers of users outside of the USA), but I have been testing all morning and it seems to me that it doesn't push *anything* from the mobileme web to my Mac.

For instance this morning, the ability to edit my contacts on mobileme (finally!) showed up, so I corrected the hundred or so that were destroyed by the move and waited patiently for them to show up. Within minutes my iPod touch had the new contacts, but my MacPro in the next room hasn't been updated at all even though it's been hours now.

The mobileme push to the Macs seems to rely on having "back to my Mac" and syncing enabled. Unfortunately for me (and thousands of others), Mac syncing was seriously busted before the change-over and has been for ages. "Back to my Mac" in particular has never worked properly for my MacPro even though I have all new equipment and am using a brand new Time Machine router etc. It seems likely that Back to My Mac and syncing must work properly before the push works, so that will leave out a huge number of Mac customers (like me.)

MobileMe has to be the worst product update in Apple's history. Seriously buggy, slow POS and it's already two days in. I am super irritated at the performance, the bugs and all the extreme hassle we have been put through over this when .Mac users are usually the core Apple customers.

The only touch of humour in the whole situation is the nostalgia engendered by the little ticker on the main mobileme page where it says that everything is hunky-dory and working fine when it isn't. If I had a nickel for every time over the last eight years when I signed on to .Mac, found almost nothing working and then looked down to see that optimistic little ticker saying everything was fine, I'd be a billionaire by now.

Seems like everything old is indeed new again.
Different branding, same shite.

[crees!]

^^
For those of you with Leopard, have you tried this?

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/13/...obile-me-push/

[sapporobaby]

I noticed this Saturday morning when MobileMe was finally working over here in FInland.

This article is 100000000000000000% correct. Way to go AI. Got all of it correct. Anyway, I digress. To make a simple two-fold test try this.

Test 1
1. Make a change on your Mac or iPod/iPod with Phone aka (iPhone).
2. Do nothing and wait.

Sometime later the changes will arrive. If you made the change on your Mac, it will arrive at the iPod/(Media device with phone)

Test 2
1. Make a change on your Mac or iPod/(media device with phone)
2. Force a sync via the MobileMe sync.

Your changes come almost immediately. This is not real push but more or less a timed push. If the phone was pushing all the time, the battery would be dead in 30 seconds. This way saves battery a bit more.

[dnman13]

Also, you still need to use iSync to change the settings for alert messages when any amount of data is changed. They should have integrated that into the MobileMe preferences....

[winterspan]

With the disclaimer that I have not used .Mac or MobileMe, It appears this is a very simple fix. If I'm interpreting this correctly, the problem is that changes to email/contact/calendar data on the respective OSX apps are not being immediately pushed to Apple's servers which update both the online MobileMe web apps and the iPhone.

So the first question would be if the opposite is working, i.e., changes made to data on the mobileme.com web apps or the iPhone are correctly notifying OSX and immediately syncing. If that mechanism is working fine, then all you need to fix this problem is a small daemon app that watches for changes to contacts/calendar/email in OSX and runs a "manual" sync. This should be able to be done quite easily by an independent party if Apple doesn't make the seemingly-simple update to their sync service.

Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2

..... MobileMe has to be the worst product update in Apple's history. Seriously buggy, slow POS and it's already two days in. I am super irritated at the performance, the bugs and all the extreme hassle we have been put through over this when .Mac users are usually the core Apple customers...

Jeeeeez, you need to chill out. "already two days in"??? You expect such a brand new, very complex, multi-component service to be bug-free and working perfectly AFTER 48 HOURS?? What Utopian universe do you live in? It will take at LEAST a few weeks and probably 1-2 months to get everything functioning smoothly. If this is a problem for you, then why would you sign-up for a brand new, wide-scale service that you know will experience hiccups and growing pains for a while?

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

*snip*
... Your changes come almost immediately. This is not real push but more or less a timed push. If the phone was pushing all the time, the battery would be dead in 30 seconds. This way saves battery a bit more.

"timed push" ? That's definitely an oxymoron. That is not how it is supposed to work..

[PUREPHAZED]

Works Great!!!!



:-P



M

[DistortedLoop]

I'm pretty sure that some intrepid hacker could figure a terminal hack to force sync services to sync more frequently than 15 minutes, no matter how deeply tied it is to the operating system's internals...

Apple did demonstrate changes on the Mac being pushed within under a minute to the iPhone, didn't they, during the keynote introducing all this stuff? Are we to believe that Phil's computer just happened to be at just the right moment in that 15 min cycle for the fast push to be a coincidence? Or am I confused and Phil only pushed in one direction? I'll have to re-watch the Road Map keynote.

On another note, I am always amazed at how quick people are to "judge" and "criticize" others who have different values and needs. So what if you don't think it important to have "real" push, or to stand in line for a phone, or to have this or use that? Why criticize those who have different wants and needs? Your values are no more meaningful to the universe as a whole than someone else's. Use your Mac and iPhone as best suits you, and let others use theirs as they see fit.

[Bartleby66]

Thank You ...

[penchanted]

Although I would like to see improvements, I can live with the up-to-15 minute delay in syncing items from a computer to MobileMe.

More troubling to me is that To-Do items created on a Mac (either in iCal or Mail) are not syncing to MobileMe. To-Do items created on MobileMe do sync to my Macs. Maybe they are still sorting things out but I hope this is addressed soon.

I also hope they implement shared calendars (as in Google Calendars). I want to be able to let multiple parties edit a calendar so that we can all see the others' schedule. Google Calendars has this - so should MobileMe.

[robinsol]

I have been a .Mac user for years. Many years. Since 2000 in fact. I've been through iTools, .Mac, and now MobileMe and I've endured all the hiccups, interruptions, and other annoyances without so much as an email to Apple Tech Support to complain. Now that I've used the service for so long, my whole "e-life" is tied someway or another into it and so when things happen like the MobileMe debacle, it really inconveniences me. I agree with the original posting about the "delayed" push with MobileMe. I also agree with one of the responders who pointed to the "Road Map" keynote and how amazingly fast and instantaneous the "push" was when it was demonstrated by Phil S.
Since this morning, my Mail app on my desktop is registering 4 unread emails. My iPhone is registering none and neither is the web mail. Problem? When I open mail, I don't have any unread emails but the counter is wrong. Not a big deal. I can live with that. BUT, I went out and saw Hellboy II this afternoon and when I came home, my Mail app was registering 8 unread emails and my iPhone wasn't registering any. I had to manually push the refresh button the phone for it to get the four, not eight, new emails. To me, that sort of defeats the purpose of this whole thing. I thought that when "the cloud" got a new email, it pushed it to my desk, wireless device, and the web mail app simultaneously. Even more curious, I read an email and deleted it on my phone. It took half an hour for it to delete off the desktop Mail app. What gives? I mean, if I wanted something this unreliable I wouldn't pay for .Mac (well, MobileMe now). This is even more frustrating because not only have I been a member for eight years but my "automatic renewal" is set up a month from now. I have half a mind not to even bother.

[iMosaic]

Originally Posted by DistortedLoop

I'm pretty sure that some intrepid hacker could figure a terminal hack to force sync services to sync more frequently than 15 minutes, no matter how deeply tied it is to the operating system's internals...

Apple did demonstrate changes on the Mac being pushed within under a minute to the iPhone, didn't they, during the keynote introducing all this stuff? Are we to believe that Phil's computer just happened to be at just the right moment in that 15 min cycle for the fast push to be a coincidence? Or am I confused and Phil only pushed in one direction? I'll have to re-watch the Road Map keynote.

I just watched the demo Phil does and he used the MobileMe Web app not the Mac side app.

[Wookie99]

Is it me or should Calendar's device feature sets be the same.
Let alone the fact that push on Calendar is not very functional right now, what good is a Calendar on MobileMe that will not allow an event reminder/alarm?

Scenario: I am on Mobile me at work or at a Cafe - I make a change to my Calendar and want to set an email reminder so that I am prompted about the event change. There is no option for this on MM. WHAT? I have to create and 'push' a TODO reminder to my iPhone or Mac to create the alarm/reminder at a later time?

The mobile professional can not take the time to deal with such nonsense let alone have to wait a specified period of time for a device to SYNC before moving on with their day.

The Calendar Dev. team was asleep at the wheel. AGAIN! But then so was the integration team that missed this glaring omission. IMHO

To the casual user this is a non issue. If Apple wants to play in the corporate space at any level, this is a poor oversight.

~W

[penchanted]

I am finding some further strangeness in the sync. For instance, it seems that if you add or delete a To-Do item on MobileMe, it will almost immediately update your Mac. But it seems to take a while when you modify an item on MobileMe and it also seems to sometimes not update the due date on the computer.

I hope Apple gets all this sync stuff resolved soon.

Also, where the heck is the "Share with" button in iDisk. I was really looking forward to this.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by DistortedLoop

I'm pretty sure that some intrepid hacker could figure a terminal hack to force sync services to sync more frequently than 15 minutes, no matter how deeply tied it is to the operating system's internals...

Apple did demonstrate changes on the Mac being pushed within under a minute to the iPhone, didn't they, during the keynote introducing all this stuff? Are we to believe that Phil's computer just happened to be at just the right moment in that 15 min cycle for the fast push to be a coincidence? Or am I confused and Phil only pushed in one direction? I'll have to re-watch the Road Map keynote.

That near-instantaneous update was demonstrated with Exchange. During that keynote, I don't remember any promises/claims/suggestions made as to the timeliness of MobileMe updates. However, they do say on their MobileMe page that push is instantaneous, which to me suggests it should work about as quickly as the Exchange demo.

But I wouldn't be worried terribly much about bugs during the first week of operation. That will be forgotten if Apple gets it right for the most part from then on. That's the problem though, with .Mac, it seems they showed little interest in making most features work consistently for everyone. It seemed to work well enough for some people, poorly for others.

[Oh Blah Dee Blah Dah]

After the MobileMe update fiasco, we don't want another strain on Apple's servers.

We just got through approximately 6 million 1G iPhones updating to Firmware 2.0 and the 1 million? NEW 3G iPhones coming online.

I hope Apple phases in the Mac-tto-Cloud push over a few months.

And think about it, MobileMe is for MOBILE updates, when you're on the go, and you are NOT at your desktop or notebook. THEN you want PUSH to be done promptly. This completes your update and your phone can be shut off, extending battery life.

When you are at your desktop or notebook, you have your iPhone WITH you. You can sync with the cable, wait for 15 minutes, or sync manually. All the while, your iPhone is also being charged.

[DistortedLoop]

Originally Posted by iMosaic

I just watched the demo Phil does and he used the MobileMe Web app not the Mac side app.

Ah, thanks for saving me the time of watching it. That explains it, and of course it makes sense that he would use the web app for the demo, since they're not trying to focus on Mac users only, but anyone with any computer.

The web app is slick, but realistically, aren't most people going to stick with their computer apps, like Mail or Outlook? I will because I have so many different email accounts on so many different services to keep track of. It's just easier with a desktop app.

[ALPICH]

I am new to the iPhone and got mine on Friday in Australia. Its a nice device but I am shocked that I can not send a contacts card via Bluetooth. This is a big omission. I mean seriously, my first bluetooth device which was a Nokia 6600 back in 2003 and it had this feature. In all the reviews I read about this device and its short coming I did not once read anything about the lack of this feature. I can't even attach contact to an email so there goes that option. For a device that is made to make things simple it has really made this simple. You just can't do it. No simpler than that.

[Oh Blah Dee Blah Dah]

After the MobileMe update fiasco, we don't want another strain on Apple's servers.

We just got through approximately 6 million 1G iPhones updating to Firmware 2.0 and the 1 million? NEW 3G iPhones coming online.

I hope Apple phases in the Mac-to-Cloud push over a few months.

And think about it, MobileMe is for MOBILE updates, when you're on the go, and you are NOT at your desktop or notebook. THEN you want PUSH to be done promptly. This completes your update and your phone can be shut off, extending battery life.

When you are at your desktop or notebook, you have your iPhone WITH you. You can sync with the cable, wait for 15 minutes, or sync manually. At the same time, your iPhone is also being charged.

WE DON'T WANT 25 MILLION MACS USING INSTANT PUSH ON DAY ONE of MobileMe.

[DistortedLoop]

Originally Posted by Oh Blah Dee Blah Dah

And think about it, MobileMe is for MOBILE updates, when you're on the go, and you are NOT at your desktop or notebook. THEN you want PUSH to be done promptly. This completes your update and your phone can be shut off, extending battery life.

When you are at your desktop or notebook, you have your iPhone WITH you. You can sync with the cable, wait for 15 minutes, or sync manually. All the while, your iPhone is also being charged.

I may need to watch the keynote after all, for clarification. LOL.

Wasn't part of the spiel in the demo the idea that your secretary or someone changes your calendar while you're out and about and the change gets pushed to your phone right away? How does your scenario deal with that situation?

To the person above who said the instant stuff was Exchange side; are you sure? Exchange has NOTHING to do with MobileMe. Exchange is Exchange and is corporate. MobileMe was called by Steve Jobs "Exchange for the rest of us."

[wheelhot]

Hmm, I guess Apple forget to mention that there is no push future in OSX like what the users expected.

Just to make it clear, what I meant is Apple forget to mention about that unlike the iPhone which has the new push feature, OS X Tiger or Leopard do not have the pushing feature so the user wont see instant update like on the iPhone.

Maybe the next software update will have push function for OS X?

WE DON'T WANT 25 MILLION MACS USING INSTANT PUSH ON DAY ONE of MobileMe.

I agree with you, look what happen to iPhone 3G launch day.

[IHateScreenNames]

I was at a family reunion this weekend, iPhone (2.0) in hand. I updated some contact info and photos this morning on the phone. No signal where we were (on top of a mountain in Vermont).

Then, at 3:00 I update a photo only of another family member and put the next reunion on the calendar (all on the iPhone) while at the Basketball Hall of Fame with a good cell connection and Wi-Fi.

At home now, Address Book still not updated and neither is iCal. Checked at me.com, also not updated.

[steviet02]

Originally Posted by winterspan

Jeeeeez, you need to chill out. "already two days in"??? You expect such a brand new, very complex, multi-component service to be bug-free and working perfectly AFTER 48 HOURS?? What Utopian universe do you live in? It will take at LEAST a few weeks and probably 1-2 months to get everything functioning smoothly. If this is a problem for you, then why would you sign-up for a brand new, wide-scale service that you know will experience hiccups and growing pains for a while?

Hahaha, you take the cake for the Apple Apologist Award this year! 1-2 months to work out bugs that were advertised as features?

Never mind the fact that all of us that had .mac were forced into this, we didn't just sign up.

[steviet02]

I haven't gone through the entire thread but what I did was to force a sync from my iMac to MobileMe, I don't mean a manual sync but a fresh sync. After that sync was finished everything works as they described with the exception of the calendar subscriptions which someone pointed out already.

[solipsism]

1) I can't get push to work for anything other than MM mail. I have forwarded my Gmail to MM and have my outgoing SMTP server and address register as Gmail so it's invisible to people sending me mail. The time Gmail receives it to the time it gets pushed to my iPhone 3G is essentially instantaneous.

2) With all the trouble with just getting MM online and then even more trouble with trying to maneuver in the app, I don't think it's a a far stretch to think that Push services haven't been turned on. I would have preferred if MM came out a month before or after the iPhone launch or if they would had taken the the free 60-day trial down for a short time. I can just imagine so many people trying to get a temp account to add to the "Apple experience" just to leave it behind shortly thereafter because it didn't work right.

3) The ability to push a sync to MM (when it's finally working right) won't be hard. It wouldn't take much for a decent developer to create a daemon that monitors the Address Book's .ABCDDB file in ~/Library/Application Support/ or iCal's Calendar Cache file located in ~/Library/Calendars for new modification dates (or even a change in file sizes if you want to get really basic) and then forces MM to do a sync. There are plenty of ways to accomplish, but this is the simplest solution I could come up with that was also transparent to the use.

[DCTenor1]

This is the text on Apple's Mobile Me web page:

"MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars in the cloud and pushes them down to your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. Push happens automatically, instantly, and continuously. You don’t have to wait for it or remember to do anything — such as docking your iPhone and syncing manually — to stay up to date."

IF it is true that Apple knows about the delay, then this is a pretty clear case of false advertising, and for people who actually signed up for the service based on Apple's promise that you "don't have to wait for it" or "do anything" (e.g. a manual override), it seems like a material misrepresentation or omission.

Of course, it's more likely to just be an oversight, and easily correctable with a software update.

However, if Apple doesn't fix this and make it true push, you can bet the class action plaintiffs firms will come at them.

(Yes, I'm a lawyer, but not the sleazy type who files class actions like this.)

[Wookie99]

I agree with you, look what happen to iPhone 3G launch day.

I'm sure that there are distinctly different server farms, as well as gateways into them, for iTunes Store, the App Store, iPhone activation, the Apple Store, and MobileMe. To put them all in one IS center with one way in and out would seem highly unlikely.

~W

[steviet02]

Originally Posted by solipsism

2) With all the trouble with just getting MM online and then even more trouble with trying to maneuver in the app, I don't think it's a a far stretch to think that Push services haven't been turned on. I would have preferred if MM came out a month before or after the iPhone launch or if they would had taken the the free 60-day trial down for a short time. I can just imagine so many people trying to get a temp account to add to the "Apple experience" just to leave it behind shortly thereafter because it didn't work right.

I agree, and one step further they should have done sequential roll outs of all the software. The big bang, all at once updating is an invitation to disaster.

[penchanted]

Originally Posted by Wookie99

I'm sure that there are distinctly different server farms, as well as gateways into them, for iTunes Store, the App Store, iPhone activation, the Apple Store, and MobileMe. To put them all in one IS center with one way in and out would seem highly unlikely.

While I am certain that there is a great deal of redundancy (both geographical and network), I suspect that much, if not most, of this resides in Apple's Newark data center which they purchased in 2006.

The iPod maker is believed to have purchased the 107,000-square-foot facility for an estimated $45 million to $50 million -- illustrating rapidly rebounding demand for -- and the dwindling supply of -- Silicon Valley area data centers, according to the report.

The complete story is at http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...t_for_mci.html

[PeterO]

IT paradigm = Methodical and incremental service & product roll-out (minimize variables) >> but Small marketing Splash


Marketing paradigm = Big marketing Splash >> but big IT technical backsplash

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by DCTenor1

When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. Push happens automatically, instantly, and continuously.

That paragraph is certainly unclear, but it's not a lie. The first sentence does not state that it happens immediately, it only states that the cloud will update the others, but without a mention of when the devices will send the update to the MM cloud.

The 2nd sentence could be construed as referring to Push from the server cloud out to the devices and merely giving a basic description of how Push works. Nothing I read stated that Push is bi-directional between the MM cloud and each device; we assumed that.



PS: Apple was clear when they wrote the sentence below...

Originally Posted by MobileMe

* Internet Explorer 7 is not fully supported. Internet Explorer 7 has known compatibility issues with modern web standards that affect Web 2.0 applications such as MobileMe. You can use Internet Explorer 7, but you will not have access to all MobileMe features and will experience slower performance.

[scchang]

Originally Posted by penchanted

Although I would like to see improvements, I can live with the up-to-15 minute delay in syncing items from a computer to MobileMe.

More troubling to me is that To-Do items created on a Mac (either in iCal or Mail) are not syncing to MobileMe. To-Do items created on MobileMe do sync to my Macs. Maybe they are still sorting things out but I hope this is addressed soon.

I also hope they implement shared calendars (as in Google Calendars). I want to be able to let multiple parties edit a calendar so that we can all see the others' schedule. Google Calendars has this - so should MobileMe.

+1(million)

[ectomort]

In order to receive "push" on your Macintosh, you need to enable receiving .Mac Notifications on the machine.

Open System Preferences>MobileMe
Click the "Sync" tab
Check "Automatically" from the "Synchronize with MobileMe" popup

This will allow the computer to receive notifications from MobileMe's Sync servers when changes are made by other computers (Mac or Windows) syncing with MobileMe, iPhone & iPod Touch with push enabled, or Mobile web applications.

Note, .Mac notifications on Tiger and Leopard don't function on all network topologies (double NATs) or if your computer is behind a router which doesn't support NAT-PMP.

[digitalclips]

Originally Posted by ectomort

In order to receive "push" on your Macintosh, you need to enable receiving .Mac Notifications on the machine.

Open System Preferences>MobileMe
Click the "Sync" tab
Check "Automatically" from the "Synchronize with MobileMe" popup

This will allow the computer to receive notifications from MobileMe's Sync servers when changes are made by other computers (Mac or Windows) syncing with MobileMe, iPhone & iPod Touch with push enabled, or Mobile web applications.

Note, .Mac notifications on Tiger and Leopard don't function on all network topologies (double NATs) or if your computer is behind a router which doesn't support NAT-PMP.

This works for me. The 15 minute interval mentioned earlier in the thread is only when iPhone is not on wi-fi and the 15 minutes push interval is just a default. You can, if you like higher phone bills, make this more frequent when on the road. I love the PC and Mac linking via this. It was amazing to see all the Outlook contacts come pouring into the Mac and iPhone ... Fabulous technology. That clang was my palm pilot hitting the trash can side on the way in.

[Eideard]

Working fine for me - between my desktop and laptop. In fact, I've added syncing for Mail - which I wasn't doing previously.

Of course, I had to click on a few buttons and read stuff to get it sorted. Golly gosh.