MobieMe's best features are the syncing and saving settings from one mac to the next and the iPhone of course. It's worth the price for this feature alone.
The Settings backup and syncing was a godsend before Time Machine, but now when I get a new Mac I just use that to recreate my system.
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I do supplement it with DropBox, though.
I use Dropbox quite a bit. I hope Apple steps up the game in that regard because iDisk is just archaic in comparison, though it was never a fast or great way to transfer files. 10.6.5 does add SSL to iDisk, which is a needed addition but I really want to know what took so dang long.
People who don't understand MobileMe or consider that a paying for a subscription is unjustifiable probably have never experienced MS Exchange services at the enterprise level. MobileMe is the next best thing (especially with this long overdue update) to MS Exchange and Activesync for people who want to use it at the home business or personal level, without having to pay for expensive licenses.
If you've never used Exchange, you probably won't need mobileme since you don't know what you're missing and google services will be just as good for you.
I could never understand mobileme until I tried the free subscription. Now I'm hooked, and glad to pay the amazon discounted price for a family plan. I've been on calendar beta for a while. It is not eye-candy. Shared calendars alone was worth the invite. And one thing about apple as compared to google. Apple knows that beta is not meant to be a permanent state of software.
I am very disappointed that the web interface does not allow an alert or reminder to be set. I can set the alert from my iPhone or from iCal, but not from the web app. This makes no sense whatsoever.
There's a lot more to MobileMe than just a calendar and not everyone uses Gmail. In fact I don't know any serious tech person who would use Gmail as their main email address, most just use it for throwaway stuff.
That's funny.
I don't know any tech person who DOESN'T use Gmail as their main email address.
I like the look of mobile me but the barrier for me is the business model that emphasises recurring costs. I wouldn't mind a high one-off cost like I did for Snow Leopard or iWork. But I don't even have a phone contract. Call it subscriptionitis.
From a consumer standpoint I think the kindle has the most fantastic business model. Free, ongoing, international 3G access for the cost of the device - If only it had the usability of an iPad.
Did it ever occur to you that all those people that gave you their gMail address consider emails they get from you as spam??... The truth hurts, man.
... just yankin' your chain.
Ouch. ha ha.
In my experience, which is probably very little, most people have a genuine gmail address for regular communication and an alternate for signing in to things that require an email address "for verification purposes" but you don't really want the inconvenience of being bombarded with their "newsletters".
I have 5 accounts tied to a MobileMe Family Plan that I pay about $80/year to maintain.
Similar situation. Two accounts, nine devices tied in, five of them transportable and set up for Find My Phone. Huge peace of mind having that feature alone. Cal and Contacts have worked flawlessly for two years. What matters is having a system for the family that works reliably and doesn't screw up. MobileMe does that.
That's funny. I don't know any tech person who DOESN'T use Gmail as their main email address....
If by "tech person" you mean "guy who fixes computers at Best Buy," then I agree with you. If on the other hand you mean guy who writes software, has a business, knows anyone in the industry, is a serious blogger, is over the age of 18, or anyone who owns their own website then you're full of it.
Um, have you ever actually tried to get Apple support for a MobileMe issue? You can't get support via phone; they force you to use online chat, which often takes literally HOURS for a resolution (and occasionally ends without any resolution at all).
Dn't get me wrong, I've been using MobileMe since before it was a paid service, and I do think it's worth it (though I was pretty pissed when they started charging for a service that they originally touted as free). However, Apple should be ashamed of the fact that they don't offer proper support for this (relatively) expensive subscription service. In this particular case, Apple has found a way to be anything BUT accountable.
Just curious ... what have you had go wrong with MobileMe that took hours to resolve?
I am very disappointed that the web interface does not allow an alert or reminder to be set. I can set the alert from my iPhone or from iCal, but not from the web app. This makes no sense whatsoever.
Similar situation. Two accounts, nine devices tied in, five of them transportable and set up for Find My Phone. Huge peace of mind having that feature alone. Cal and Contacts have worked flawlessly for two years. What matters is having a system for the family that works reliably and doesn't screw up. MobileMe does that.
My only issue ? outside of the aforementioned iDisk being slow and not have encryption ? is Notes syncing has a bug. For reasons unknown to me a Note will disappear from any one device or all devices. You don?t have to have edited it, meaning you can read it and then go back to read it again and it will not be there.
My workaround is to copy Notes to Drafts in Mail on Mac OS X every so often. I?ve submitted it to Apple and there are many others with this issue on their forums. The unusual thing about this is that Notes is really basically Draft message anyway and looks to use IMAP to keep everything in sync so I can?t understand why this would be happening at all.
It?s amazing that whenever a story about a change to MobileMe pops up there are people that focus on that one aspect of the service and deem it unworthy of being a paid app.
I have 5 accounts tied to a MobileMe Family Plan that I pay about $80/year to maintain. Besides the many Macs and Windows PCs tied to the service there are 12 iDevice that I am aware of that are tied to FindMy[iDevice] service. On top of that I use Back to My Mac for routine maintenance and updates using a special admin account for some of the Macs within my family. I also forward all my Gmail to my MM account so it will be pushed to my iDevices instantly. This also works with syncing Notes between these devices. Nothing else on the market even comes close to doing all that, not to mention the ease of use and low price for the service.
very well said... i'm using mobileme from last 2 yrs and no regrets at all (idisk syncing sucks sometimes when you are syncing it with multiple macs)
i love the simplicity of calendars, contacts, bookmarks all pushed to mobile from mac or vice versa... photo albums uploading from iphoto is way much better and easy to use... i'm sharing most of the pictures in this way only and i'm loving it (much better than facebook even though i can't use facebook as it is blocked in china)
Would love to have heard the discussion at Apple on why we need the torn off pad paper remnants in the corners or the calendar. Totally cheesy gimmick clip art.
I noticed the torn paper as well with the upper left corner being the most obvious. I'm surprised a decision was made to provide a sense of realism in this app considering the direction taken with the iTunes icon no longer including a CD.
Steve said during the keynote, "the CD era is about to be eclipsed by everything digital..." Have computer calendars eclipsed paper calendars?
If by "tech person" you mean "guy who fixes computers at Best Buy," then I agree with you. If on the other hand you mean guy who writes software, has a business, knows anyone in the industry, is a serious blogger, is over the age of 18, or anyone who owns their own website then you're full of it.
I'm sorry to disappoint you but Best Buy doesn't exist where I'm from. I shall have to assume you're far more informed of what's happening on that side of the globe.
Perhaps it's best chalk it up to one of those international peculiarities like vegemite or handguns.
So I have my calendars on iCal, they're all published to mobileme, with changes etc. set to update automatically to mobileme. Why can't I see those calendars at me.com automatically? Seems a little odd to me.
EDIT (Google and apple support site visited)
OK - that is crazy. So instead of doing the obvious and having mobileme sync with my published calendars, I have to duplicate my calendars and use the mobileme ones that appear as duplicates under the main calendar list. That is crazy. Completely counterintuitive. Why can't Apple get this right?
You'd think publishing a calendar to mobile me would do this - but no. That's ridiculous and an appalling user experience.
I now have duplicate calendars, which when all turned on duplicate all my events - nonsense.
Comments
MobieMe's best features are the syncing and saving settings from one mac to the next and the iPhone of course. It's worth the price for this feature alone.
The Settings backup and syncing was a godsend before Time Machine, but now when I get a new Mac I just use that to recreate my system.
I do supplement it with DropBox, though.
I use Dropbox quite a bit. I hope Apple steps up the game in that regard because iDisk is just archaic in comparison, though it was never a fast or great way to transfer files. 10.6.5 does add SSL to iDisk, which is a needed addition but I really want to know what took so dang long.
Maybe the new Verizon iPad/MiFi deal will convince me to upgrade...
If you've never used Exchange, you probably won't need mobileme since you don't know what you're missing and google services will be just as good for you.
There's a lot more to MobileMe than just a calendar and not everyone uses Gmail. In fact I don't know any serious tech person who would use Gmail as their main email address, most just use it for throwaway stuff.
That's funny.
I don't know any tech person who DOESN'T use Gmail as their main email address.
I like the look of mobile me but the barrier for me is the business model that emphasises recurring costs. I wouldn't mind a high one-off cost like I did for Snow Leopard or iWork. But I don't even have a phone contract. Call it subscriptionitis.
From a consumer standpoint I think the kindle has the most fantastic business model. Free, ongoing, international 3G access for the cost of the device - If only it had the usability of an iPad.
That's funny.
I don't know any tech person who DOESN'T use Gmail as their main email address.
meet me.... i'm one
wouldnt touch gmail or facebook. and i could introduce you to loads of my tech friends who wouldnt touch gmail either.
maybe your tech friends are just pretending to be.....
seriously though, anyone who says it overpriced... come on!! just give up cigs or beer for one week. or maybe aim higher in life.lol
That's funny.
I don't know any tech person who DOESN'T use Gmail as their main email address.
Bummer for you, dude!
Did it ever occur to you that all those people that gave you their gMail address consider emails they get from you as spam??... The truth hurts, man.
Bummer for you, dude!
Did it ever occur to you that all those people that gave you their gMail address consider emails they get from you as spam??... The truth hurts, man.
Ouch. ha ha.
In my experience, which is probably very little, most people have a genuine gmail address for regular communication and an alternate for signing in to things that require an email address "for verification purposes" but you don't really want the inconvenience of being bombarded with their "newsletters".
I have 5 accounts tied to a MobileMe Family Plan that I pay about $80/year to maintain.
Similar situation. Two accounts, nine devices tied in, five of them transportable and set up for Find My Phone. Huge peace of mind having that feature alone. Cal and Contacts have worked flawlessly for two years. What matters is having a system for the family that works reliably and doesn't screw up. MobileMe does that.
That's funny. I don't know any tech person who DOESN'T use Gmail as their main email address....
If by "tech person" you mean "guy who fixes computers at Best Buy," then I agree with you. If on the other hand you mean guy who writes software, has a business, knows anyone in the industry, is a serious blogger, is over the age of 18, or anyone who owns their own website then you're full of it.
Um, have you ever actually tried to get Apple support for a MobileMe issue? You can't get support via phone; they force you to use online chat, which often takes literally HOURS for a resolution (and occasionally ends without any resolution at all).
Dn't get me wrong, I've been using MobileMe since before it was a paid service, and I do think it's worth it (though I was pretty pissed when they started charging for a service that they originally touted as free). However, Apple should be ashamed of the fact that they don't offer proper support for this (relatively) expensive subscription service. In this particular case, Apple has found a way to be anything BUT accountable.
Just curious ... what have you had go wrong with MobileMe that took hours to resolve?
I am very disappointed that the web interface does not allow an alert or reminder to be set. I can set the alert from my iPhone or from iCal, but not from the web app. This makes no sense whatsoever.
That is strange to be sure.
Similar situation. Two accounts, nine devices tied in, five of them transportable and set up for Find My Phone. Huge peace of mind having that feature alone. Cal and Contacts have worked flawlessly for two years. What matters is having a system for the family that works reliably and doesn't screw up. MobileMe does that.
My only issue ? outside of the aforementioned iDisk being slow and not have encryption ? is Notes syncing has a bug. For reasons unknown to me a Note will disappear from any one device or all devices. You don?t have to have edited it, meaning you can read it and then go back to read it again and it will not be there.
My workaround is to copy Notes to Drafts in Mail on Mac OS X every so often. I?ve submitted it to Apple and there are many others with this issue on their forums. The unusual thing about this is that Notes is really basically Draft message anyway and looks to use IMAP to keep everything in sync so I can?t understand why this would be happening at all.
It?s amazing that whenever a story about a change to MobileMe pops up there are people that focus on that one aspect of the service and deem it unworthy of being a paid app.
I have 5 accounts tied to a MobileMe Family Plan that I pay about $80/year to maintain. Besides the many Macs and Windows PCs tied to the service there are 12 iDevice that I am aware of that are tied to FindMy[iDevice] service. On top of that I use Back to My Mac for routine maintenance and updates using a special admin account for some of the Macs within my family. I also forward all my Gmail to my MM account so it will be pushed to my iDevices instantly. This also works with syncing Notes between these devices. Nothing else on the market even comes close to doing all that, not to mention the ease of use and low price for the service.
very well said... i'm using mobileme from last 2 yrs and no regrets at all (idisk syncing sucks sometimes when you are syncing it with multiple macs)
i love the simplicity of calendars, contacts, bookmarks all pushed to mobile from mac or vice versa... photo albums uploading from iphoto is way much better and easy to use... i'm sharing most of the pictures in this way only and i'm loving it (much better than facebook even though i can't use facebook as it is blocked in china)
Would love to have heard the discussion at Apple on why we need the torn off pad paper remnants in the corners or the calendar. Totally cheesy gimmick clip art.
I noticed the torn paper as well with the upper left corner being the most obvious. I'm surprised a decision was made to provide a sense of realism in this app considering the direction taken with the iTunes icon no longer including a CD.
Steve said during the keynote, "the CD era is about to be eclipsed by everything digital..." Have computer calendars eclipsed paper calendars?
If by "tech person" you mean "guy who fixes computers at Best Buy," then I agree with you. If on the other hand you mean guy who writes software, has a business, knows anyone in the industry, is a serious blogger, is over the age of 18, or anyone who owns their own website then you're full of it.
I'm sorry to disappoint you but Best Buy doesn't exist where I'm from. I shall have to assume you're far more informed of what's happening on that side of the globe.
Perhaps it's best chalk it up to one of those international peculiarities like vegemite or handguns.
So I have my calendars on iCal, they're all published to mobileme, with changes etc. set to update automatically to mobileme. Why can't I see those calendars at me.com automatically? Seems a little odd to me.
EDIT (Google and apple support site visited)
OK - that is crazy. So instead of doing the obvious and having mobileme sync with my published calendars, I have to duplicate my calendars and use the mobileme ones that appear as duplicates under the main calendar list. That is crazy. Completely counterintuitive. Why can't Apple get this right?
You'd think publishing a calendar to mobile me would do this - but no. That's ridiculous and an appalling user experience.
I now have duplicate calendars, which when all turned on duplicate all my events - nonsense.