iCloud is an utter disaster and I'm sure DropBox is anxious fill the void.
Ha! I love these statements... iCloud is an utter disaster for people that Apple isn't targeting maybe. Then again if they aren't targeting you in the first place, is that really a disaster?
iCloud will be the driver of iOS expansion, and will foster a real shift for people who today feel that they can either buy a general purpose computer that is more complicated and expensive than what they want, or buy nothing at all. The iPad and other future iOS devices - combined with iCloud - are filling a HUGE gap in "appliance computing" or "computing for the rest of us" or whatever you want to call it.
iCloud is NOT targeted at the majority of us in forums like this - at least from the standpoint as trying to meet all our needs.
For years people loved to criticize iDisk - often rightly so - but now when Apple is pragmatically bowing out and letting third parties such as DropBox or SugarSync step in and fill the void it's the end of the world?
Please!
I guarantee you iDisk won't slow down Apple's plan ONE BIT. Indeed, it will be the catalyst that causes iOS adoption to skyrocket.
Quote:
I use iDisk but I can easily switch over to DropBox where I already have an account.
So you just admitted it's a non-issue. Whew! It's not the end of the world as we know it after all!
Quote:
I also use Back to my Mac a lot but it is not too difficult to just vnc:// to get to the other machines as long as they are on a known IP.
I think the key that is missing is, with your data in iCloud and readily available, getting "back to your Mac" is less important. And for those that have specific reasons where having ready access to your data isn't sufficient, working around back to my Mac missing is probably not as big a deal.
Round pegs, square holes and all that. Lion and iCloud are hardly the disaster many hyperventilating hand-waivers are making it out to be. The changes introduced affect a very small (if not vocal) minority - the vast majority of customers won't even notice and will probably welcome the reduction in stuff to be confused from.
It would be a nice differentiator for web hosts like SquarSpace to provide plug-ins for iPhoto and Aperture to ease in web uploading. Several gallery products for web sites have such plug-ins available. While not as convenient as activating Mobile.Me for $99 and having it built in, seamless management of galleries from within iPhoto and Aperture is still possible with a little digging.
Agile can use the plug-in SDK for 1Password but they have decided to move to an Extensions-based system. I'm not liking it as much as the plug-in but it has gotten substantially better so there is potential for it to be great.
On Mac OS X perhaps, but unless I really missed something there is nothing like that for iOS which is really annoying...
iCloud will be the driver of iOS expansion, and will foster a real shift for people who today feel that they can either buy a general purpose computer that is more complicated and expensive than what they want, or buy nothing at all. The iPad and other future iOS devices - combined with iCloud - are filling a HUGE gap in "appliance computing" or "computing for the rest of us" or whatever you want to call it.
Along with their new contracts to allow resilient purchases of iTunes Store music, TV shows (US-only at this point), and most likely movies in the future ? just like you have with App Store apps and iBookstore books ? they have not only made the "cloud" better but now offer peace-of-mind at every level of the service. Of course, that won't stop people from complaining about it.
On Mac OS X perhaps, but unless I really missed something there is nothing like that for iOS which is really annoying...
Yeah, iOS is a completely separate. I didn't think of that SDK because I don't see Apple making any fast moves to 3rd-party allow apps to integrate with the system and other 4rd-party apps. Opens too many holes they can't monitor for an always connected device.
Then again they do offer OTA delta updates of iOS which I had hoped for but didn't think were this close to be secure enough for Apple to implement. So maybe next year, but I'm more inclined to think Apple will release their own system-wide version of 1Password before they let 1Password et al. run free on iOS.
Along with their new contracts to allow resilient purchases of iTunes Store music, TV shows (US-only at this point), and most likely movies in the future ? just like you have with App Store apps and iBookstore books ? they have not only made the "cloud" better but now offer peace-of-mind at every level of the service. Of course, that won't stop people from complaining about it.
But I take this to mean no server side Mail rules. That is we won't be able to sort mail before it gets to the device! If that is true it does suck. In fact it is a major failure on Apples part, especially if you have more than one device.
Hopefully a developer out there can tell us it isn't true.
in the near term it looks like we are loosing more than we are gaining.
But I take this to mean no server side Mail rules. That is we won't be able to sort mail before it gets to the device! If that is true it does suck. In fact it is a major failure on Apples part, especially if you have more than one device.
Hopefully a developer out there can tell us it isn't true.
in the near term it looks like we are loosing more than we are gaining.
There are some server-side Mail rules but I think it's the same paltry offering that's in MobileMe.
Since Mail Rules have been removed as a syncing feature, and since "the truth is in the cloud" is the motto of iCloud, why isn't anyone covering what features iCloud mail has that allow you to filter your email so that all devices are getting mail in the right places? Do we have to keep our Mac powered on at home to filter our email and sync it back up to the cloud so that we aren't getting hundreds of insignificant mail messages pushed to our phone? That is hardly "demoting" the Mac.
Although I find myself wishing they'd kept mail syncing - I haven't used that extensively (I have a few email accounts I sync between computers but mostly I've made slight differences in each device). That said, I wonder what Apple is planning with mail.
To approach this from a different angle entirely - lets assume Apple wants you to have identical mail experience on iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Web. To do that instead of my Apple Mail app connecting to my other mail sources, my Apple Webmail would need to connect to them all.
... so I'm wondering if that's the plan. Put one AppleID email address into your phone/iPad/Mac, and then configure your Apple Mail with your different email accounts if you have them. You then don't need to sync accounts because it's already in Apple Mail
Of course... suddenly 5GB of storage doesn't look like it's enough.
I didn't think of that SDK because I don't see Apple making any fast moves to 3rd-party allow apps to integrate with the system and other 4rd-party apps. Opens too many holes they can't monitor for an always connected device.
I dunno - just like they "thought different" on multi-tasking, I think they will eventually come up with a way to allow others to integrate without having to pass out the "keys to the kingdom".
It's just taking longer than I personally like
Quote:
I'm more inclined to think Apple will release their own system-wide version of 1Password before they let 1Password et al. run free on iOS.
I hope not, because as I pointed out earlier, 1Password is a heck of a lot more than just password syncing - although if they let me do that it would be better than nothing Then I would just have to remember one really long and ugly password for my iPhone - but I could get the passwords for all my various web sites OTA from my computers automatically. Less than ideal, but far more feasible for the short term.
But I take this to mean no server side Mail rules.
? Mobile.Me has them now and none of the reviews I read (the latest being on MacWorld) said anything about them dropping rules from iCloud mail. Revamping the skiing of it and speeding it up (yea!) - but nothing about major functionality like rules dropping.
Now they are pretty primitive in Mobile.Me - but they are there!
Of all of these, keychain is the one I wanted the most. If I'm really going to have a random login for different sites, I need to be able to share it easily and keep it in sync. Otherwise when a password expires (etc) there's no way for me to remember what the new random one is when I move to my other machines.
Mean? Give me a break. Discontinuing a product is not mean. Perhaps you've never made a product to sell, but I can guarantee you that you don't discontinue a product to be mean - you do it because it no longer makes business sense.
Besides, there's Sandvox and RapidWeaver. Honestly, what is the problem here?
Mean as in "small" not as in "cruel." True, I have never made a product to sell. But unless you (and Charlie below) sat at the table with Apple execs when this decision was made, you are speculating too. They may "have data showing it wasn't really that used." But they probably also have data showing that Automator isn't that used either. I don't use it, and no one I personally know does either. If we made a list of every feature in the MacOS and charted what percentage of users use it, we could remove lots of stuff. Each thing we removed only effects x people. The cumulative effect of such actions will be a lot of needless inconvenience to a lot of people in total.
I am not arguing for bloatware OSes here. Apple is right to move forward and not drag the past with them like Windows. But a simple web authoring tool for everyday people, like a simple word processor is fundamental. When AppleWorks went away they replaced it with Pages. They didn't say: "too bad about your hundreds of pages of text, try Word. Sorry about data loss." All I am asking for is an Apple-branded follow-on solution.
The problem here is that I tried RapidWeaver a couple of years ago and found it wanting vis-Ã*-vis iWeb. iWeb has direct integration into all things Apple. That's what makes most all Apple products superior to competitors. Even the hosting was integrated. That kind of ease and usability cannot be duplicated by third party products.
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlituna
As someone else pointed out, this is a business decision to remove something they have data showing wasn't really that used. Also iWeb actually sucks. The code is disgustingly clunky and not very well done. It was actually better to kill it and either give up that world to other spots like wordpress etc or perhaps in the future buy out a better program like rapid weaver or macflux
The fact that I don't know whether the code is clunky or not speaks to the fact that this product was evidently made for me more than you. I don't want to worry about code. I just want it to work, and it does. I have bumped up against its limits once and a while, but on balance it worked for me better than, say, Dreamweaver did. Because I used maybe 10% of what Dreamweaver was capable of because I just couldn't figure it out. I'm not a web development expert, just an average Mac user. It doesn't suck for me. What sucks is being left with a lot of orphaned sites. Yes, I can salvage them one way or another, but I don't know if it's worth the effort. I may end up just abandoning them. It would have been a "small" thing to sell us a little space on iCloud to host them. And it was mean spirited (small minded) of them not to. Is the web so last century that Apple doesn't have to support a basic tool to allow regular folks to use it within the Apple ecosystem?
Ha! I love these statements... iCloud is an utter disaster for people that Apple isn't targeting maybe. Then again if they aren't targeting you in the first place, is that really a disaster?
Well to be fair it is a disaster to people who currently use MobileMe which apparently isn't who Apple is targeting. And this is exactly my point. Apple is moving farther and farther away from what I have depended on them for and what I originally admired about the company and OS X in general.
It is not like you when drop subtle hints that you liked it better when your wife wore her hair long straight and a natural color, yet she decides to cut it short, dye with fake highlights and style it in a fancy perm.
The same with computer operating systems, it is not like I would be happy married to Windows instead, but doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy a little linux on the side. Apple and I had a good run but we have grown apart. I may learn to live with her but my heart is not in it anymore.
? Mobile.Me has them now and none of the reviews I read (the latest being on MacWorld) said anything about them dropping rules from iCloud mail. Revamping the skiing of it and speeding it up (yea!) - but nothing about major functionality like rules dropping.
Now they are pretty primitive in Mobile.Me - but they are there!
They are woefully inadequate on Mobile Me, they haven't changed since dotMac but it didn't really matter though because back in those days when it was just .Mac and we weren't using iOS devices, we could use Mail Rule syncing to keep things neat and tidy between multiple macs.
Now since we have iDevices (and Apple doesn't allow 3rd party email apps on iOS so there is no competition and they took 4 years to add email flagging!) things get messy.
I don't need some ultra complicated mail rules, we just need basic two part rules. For example, move all messages from Facebook to this folder then Mark as read.
If Apple seriously wants to "demote" the Mac, they need to add something more than the three ultra basic single part rules that already exist on Mobile Me.
Mean as in "small" not as in "cruel." True, I have never made a product to sell. But unless you (and Charlie below) sat at the table with Apple execs when this decision was made, you are speculating too. They may "have data showing it wasn't really that used." But they probably also have data showing that Automator isn't that used either. I don't use it, and no one I personally know does either. If we made a list of every feature in the MacOS and charted what percentage of users use it, we could remove lots of stuff. Each thing we removed only effects x people. The cumulative effect of such actions will be a lot of needless inconvenience to a lot of people in total.
It's not just about the usage rate. You also have to consider the cost for R&D and support. I don't see how iWeb for a modern HTML5, CSS3 and JS and bells and whistles for modern internet usage would be as inexpensive to implement than Automator being carried over Lion with a few tweaks.
I personally use Automator. I can make some complex actions in a short period of time than i can with raw scripting. I'm sure if I did more raw scripting I'd be faster and better the way Terminal can b much faster than using Finder, but I don't make enough scripts to make that worthwhile. For this reason Automator is pretty damn nice.
Even if I'm unique and Apple first created it for their employees and then decided to button it up for their customer and make it a part of Mac OS it's clear their employees aren't using iWeb so their need to button it up for Mac OS is unlikely.
I do wonder if they have some other internal tools for this that could make their way to Mac App Store in the future as oft is the cycle with Apple apps, but I don't think it's "small" of Apple not put a heavy weight behind iWeb.
PS: I'm hearing the transfer from MobileMe to iCloud states it will take up to 5 minutes. This sounds like a hefty server-side conversion.
I don't need some ultra complicated mail rules, we just need basic two part rules. For example, move all messages from Facebook to this folder then Mark as read.
If you are using iCloud it's not an issue. The only thing you can't do is have the system mark it as read. This is server side and a much better way than the client-side rules you seem to want.
What we need are more server-side rules integrated with the service. As iCloud grows and becomes a major player for email since it'll be tied to your Mac and iDevice syncing and backups I think it's likely Apple will add more features to iCloud due to the number of users that will be requesting features. I'd expect robust Rules to be in high demand.
It was really nice being able to buy a new computer or replace a failed HD and have all of these setting automatically appear.
I liked being able to setup a new machine, enter my mobileMe details and get some things synced across. But it was only a partial thing and was never an answer for restoring a system.
I was really hoping we'd now be able to put an AppleID into a new system and have it automatically setup everything. Email, contacts, calendar, desktop setup, my most recent documents, my basic photo setup (with recent & published photos), music setup (with just the purchased music/tv and podcast setup), my app-store apps, iPhone sync information. Then when I plug in my iOS device it can sync back whatever music/photos/movies etc are there. And of course if it can connect to an old backup - get more photos/documents (and 'upgrade' the resolution of photos restored via the low-res iPhone versions).
That would be a great setup. Of course something like that could also act as a full syncing system between 2 macs in different locations.
But the old system was never that either. So it's not a loss... just an unfulfilled wish.
I was really hoping we'd now be able to put an AppleID into a new system and have it automatically setup everything. Email, contacts, calendar, desktop setup, my most recent documents, my basic photo setup (with recent & published photos), music setup (with just the purchased music/tv and podcast setup), my app-store apps, iPhone sync information. Then when I plug in my iOS device it can sync back whatever music/photos/movies etc are there. That would be a great setup.
The settings it backed up are pretty simple and self contained. It's pretty much grabbing files and folders from a couple /Library folders. There is no reason why a Mac App Store app can't do this. They can even use the iCloud APIs (and/or Dropox and/or SugarSync) to store the data as it changes or for a periodic backup. It can even be much more versatile than what .Mac or MobileMe ever offered. One thing that always got me about the settings was that my desktop background always had to be done manually whenever I used those sync services.
Comments
iCloud is an utter disaster and I'm sure DropBox is anxious fill the void.
Ha! I love these statements... iCloud is an utter disaster for people that Apple isn't targeting maybe. Then again if they aren't targeting you in the first place, is that really a disaster?
iCloud will be the driver of iOS expansion, and will foster a real shift for people who today feel that they can either buy a general purpose computer that is more complicated and expensive than what they want, or buy nothing at all. The iPad and other future iOS devices - combined with iCloud - are filling a HUGE gap in "appliance computing" or "computing for the rest of us" or whatever you want to call it.
iCloud is NOT targeted at the majority of us in forums like this - at least from the standpoint as trying to meet all our needs.
For years people loved to criticize iDisk - often rightly so - but now when Apple is pragmatically bowing out and letting third parties such as DropBox or SugarSync step in and fill the void it's the end of the world?
Please!
I guarantee you iDisk won't slow down Apple's plan ONE BIT. Indeed, it will be the catalyst that causes iOS adoption to skyrocket.
I use iDisk but I can easily switch over to DropBox where I already have an account.
So you just admitted it's a non-issue. Whew! It's not the end of the world as we know it after all!
I also use Back to my Mac a lot but it is not too difficult to just vnc:// to get to the other machines as long as they are on a known IP.
I think the key that is missing is, with your data in iCloud and readily available, getting "back to your Mac" is less important. And for those that have specific reasons where having ready access to your data isn't sufficient, working around back to my Mac missing is probably not as big a deal.
Round pegs, square holes and all that. Lion and iCloud are hardly the disaster many hyperventilating hand-waivers are making it out to be. The changes introduced affect a very small (if not vocal) minority - the vast majority of customers won't even notice and will probably welcome the reduction in stuff to be confused from.
It would be a nice differentiator for web hosts like SquarSpace to provide plug-ins for iPhoto and Aperture to ease in web uploading. Several gallery products for web sites have such plug-ins available. While not as convenient as activating Mobile.Me for $99 and having it built in, seamless management of galleries from within iPhoto and Aperture is still possible with a little digging.
Agile can use the plug-in SDK for 1Password but they have decided to move to an Extensions-based system. I'm not liking it as much as the plug-in but it has gotten substantially better so there is potential for it to be great.
On Mac OS X perhaps, but unless I really missed something there is nothing like that for iOS which is really annoying...
iCloud will be the driver of iOS expansion, and will foster a real shift for people who today feel that they can either buy a general purpose computer that is more complicated and expensive than what they want, or buy nothing at all. The iPad and other future iOS devices - combined with iCloud - are filling a HUGE gap in "appliance computing" or "computing for the rest of us" or whatever you want to call it.
Along with their new contracts to allow resilient purchases of iTunes Store music, TV shows (US-only at this point), and most likely movies in the future ? just like you have with App Store apps and iBookstore books ? they have not only made the "cloud" better but now offer peace-of-mind at every level of the service. Of course, that won't stop people from complaining about it.
On Mac OS X perhaps, but unless I really missed something there is nothing like that for iOS which is really annoying...
Yeah, iOS is a completely separate. I didn't think of that SDK because I don't see Apple making any fast moves to 3rd-party allow apps to integrate with the system and other 4rd-party apps. Opens too many holes they can't monitor for an always connected device.
Then again they do offer OTA delta updates of iOS which I had hoped for but didn't think were this close to be secure enough for Apple to implement. So maybe next year, but I'm more inclined to think Apple will release their own system-wide version of 1Password before they let 1Password et al. run free on iOS.
Along with their new contracts to allow resilient purchases of iTunes Store music, TV shows (US-only at this point), and most likely movies in the future ? just like you have with App Store apps and iBookstore books ? they have not only made the "cloud" better but now offer peace-of-mind at every level of the service. Of course, that won't stop people from complaining about it.
very good points.
Hopefully a developer out there can tell us it isn't true.
in the near term it looks like we are loosing more than we are gaining.
But I take this to mean no server side Mail rules. That is we won't be able to sort mail before it gets to the device! If that is true it does suck. In fact it is a major failure on Apples part, especially if you have more than one device.
Hopefully a developer out there can tell us it isn't true.
in the near term it looks like we are loosing more than we are gaining.
There are some server-side Mail rules but I think it's the same paltry offering that's in MobileMe.
Since Mail Rules have been removed as a syncing feature, and since "the truth is in the cloud" is the motto of iCloud, why isn't anyone covering what features iCloud mail has that allow you to filter your email so that all devices are getting mail in the right places? Do we have to keep our Mac powered on at home to filter our email and sync it back up to the cloud so that we aren't getting hundreds of insignificant mail messages pushed to our phone? That is hardly "demoting" the Mac.
Although I find myself wishing they'd kept mail syncing - I haven't used that extensively (I have a few email accounts I sync between computers but mostly I've made slight differences in each device). That said, I wonder what Apple is planning with mail.
To approach this from a different angle entirely - lets assume Apple wants you to have identical mail experience on iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Web. To do that instead of my Apple Mail app connecting to my other mail sources, my Apple Webmail would need to connect to them all.
... so I'm wondering if that's the plan. Put one AppleID email address into your phone/iPad/Mac, and then configure your Apple Mail with your different email accounts if you have them. You then don't need to sync accounts because it's already in Apple Mail
Of course... suddenly 5GB of storage doesn't look like it's enough.
I didn't think of that SDK because I don't see Apple making any fast moves to 3rd-party allow apps to integrate with the system and other 4rd-party apps. Opens too many holes they can't monitor for an always connected device.
I dunno - just like they "thought different" on multi-tasking, I think they will eventually come up with a way to allow others to integrate without having to pass out the "keys to the kingdom".
It's just taking longer than I personally like
I'm more inclined to think Apple will release their own system-wide version of 1Password before they let 1Password et al. run free on iOS.
I hope not, because as I pointed out earlier, 1Password is a heck of a lot more than just password syncing - although if they let me do that it would be better than nothing
But I take this to mean no server side Mail rules.
? Mobile.Me has them now and none of the reviews I read (the latest being on MacWorld) said anything about them dropping rules from iCloud mail. Revamping the skiing of it and speeding it up (yea!) - but nothing about major functionality like rules dropping.
Now they are pretty primitive in Mobile.Me - but they are there!
Suggestions?
Mean? Give me a break. Discontinuing a product is not mean. Perhaps you've never made a product to sell, but I can guarantee you that you don't discontinue a product to be mean - you do it because it no longer makes business sense.
Besides, there's Sandvox and RapidWeaver. Honestly, what is the problem here?
Mean as in "small" not as in "cruel." True, I have never made a product to sell. But unless you (and Charlie below) sat at the table with Apple execs when this decision was made, you are speculating too. They may "have data showing it wasn't really that used." But they probably also have data showing that Automator isn't that used either. I don't use it, and no one I personally know does either. If we made a list of every feature in the MacOS and charted what percentage of users use it, we could remove lots of stuff. Each thing we removed only effects x people. The cumulative effect of such actions will be a lot of needless inconvenience to a lot of people in total.
I am not arguing for bloatware OSes here. Apple is right to move forward and not drag the past with them like Windows. But a simple web authoring tool for everyday people, like a simple word processor is fundamental. When AppleWorks went away they replaced it with Pages. They didn't say: "too bad about your hundreds of pages of text, try Word. Sorry about data loss." All I am asking for is an Apple-branded follow-on solution.
The problem here is that I tried RapidWeaver a couple of years ago and found it wanting vis-Ã*-vis iWeb. iWeb has direct integration into all things Apple. That's what makes most all Apple products superior to competitors. Even the hosting was integrated. That kind of ease and usability cannot be duplicated by third party products.
As someone else pointed out, this is a business decision to remove something they have data showing wasn't really that used. Also iWeb actually sucks. The code is disgustingly clunky and not very well done. It was actually better to kill it and either give up that world to other spots like wordpress etc or perhaps in the future buy out a better program like rapid weaver or macflux
The fact that I don't know whether the code is clunky or not speaks to the fact that this product was evidently made for me more than you. I don't want to worry about code. I just want it to work, and it does. I have bumped up against its limits once and a while, but on balance it worked for me better than, say, Dreamweaver did. Because I used maybe 10% of what Dreamweaver was capable of because I just couldn't figure it out. I'm not a web development expert, just an average Mac user. It doesn't suck for me. What sucks is being left with a lot of orphaned sites. Yes, I can salvage them one way or another, but I don't know if it's worth the effort. I may end up just abandoning them. It would have been a "small" thing to sell us a little space on iCloud to host them. And it was mean spirited (small minded) of them not to. Is the web so last century that Apple doesn't have to support a basic tool to allow regular folks to use it within the Apple ecosystem?
Ha! I love these statements... iCloud is an utter disaster for people that Apple isn't targeting maybe. Then again if they aren't targeting you in the first place, is that really a disaster?
Well to be fair it is a disaster to people who currently use MobileMe which apparently isn't who Apple is targeting. And this is exactly my point. Apple is moving farther and farther away from what I have depended on them for and what I originally admired about the company and OS X in general.
It is not like you when drop subtle hints that you liked it better when your wife wore her hair long straight and a natural color, yet she decides to cut it short, dye with fake highlights and style it in a fancy perm.
The same with computer operating systems, it is not like I would be happy married to Windows instead, but doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy a little linux on the side. Apple and I had a good run but we have grown apart. I may learn to live with her but my heart is not in it anymore.
? Mobile.Me has them now and none of the reviews I read (the latest being on MacWorld) said anything about them dropping rules from iCloud mail. Revamping the skiing of it and speeding it up (yea!) - but nothing about major functionality like rules dropping.
Now they are pretty primitive in Mobile.Me - but they are there!
They are woefully inadequate on Mobile Me, they haven't changed since dotMac but it didn't really matter though because back in those days when it was just .Mac and we weren't using iOS devices, we could use Mail Rule syncing to keep things neat and tidy between multiple macs.
Now since we have iDevices (and Apple doesn't allow 3rd party email apps on iOS so there is no competition and they took 4 years to add email flagging!) things get messy.
I don't need some ultra complicated mail rules, we just need basic two part rules. For example, move all messages from Facebook to this folder then Mark as read.
If Apple seriously wants to "demote" the Mac, they need to add something more than the three ultra basic single part rules that already exist on Mobile Me.
Mean as in "small" not as in "cruel." True, I have never made a product to sell. But unless you (and Charlie below) sat at the table with Apple execs when this decision was made, you are speculating too. They may "have data showing it wasn't really that used." But they probably also have data showing that Automator isn't that used either. I don't use it, and no one I personally know does either. If we made a list of every feature in the MacOS and charted what percentage of users use it, we could remove lots of stuff. Each thing we removed only effects x people. The cumulative effect of such actions will be a lot of needless inconvenience to a lot of people in total.
It's not just about the usage rate. You also have to consider the cost for R&D and support. I don't see how iWeb for a modern HTML5, CSS3 and JS and bells and whistles for modern internet usage would be as inexpensive to implement than Automator being carried over Lion with a few tweaks.
I personally use Automator. I can make some complex actions in a short period of time than i can with raw scripting. I'm sure if I did more raw scripting I'd be faster and better the way Terminal can b much faster than using Finder, but I don't make enough scripts to make that worthwhile. For this reason Automator is pretty damn nice.
Even if I'm unique and Apple first created it for their employees and then decided to button it up for their customer and make it a part of Mac OS it's clear their employees aren't using iWeb so their need to button it up for Mac OS is unlikely.
I do wonder if they have some other internal tools for this that could make their way to Mac App Store in the future as oft is the cycle with Apple apps, but I don't think it's "small" of Apple not put a heavy weight behind iWeb.
PS: I'm hearing the transfer from MobileMe to iCloud states it will take up to 5 minutes. This sounds like a hefty server-side conversion.
I don't need some ultra complicated mail rules, we just need basic two part rules. For example, move all messages from Facebook to this folder then Mark as read.
If you are using iCloud it's not an issue. The only thing you can't do is have the system mark it as read. This is server side and a much better way than the client-side rules you seem to want. What we need are more server-side rules integrated with the service. As iCloud grows and becomes a major player for email since it'll be tied to your Mac and iDevice syncing and backups I think it's likely Apple will add more features to iCloud due to the number of users that will be requesting features. I'd expect robust Rules to be in high demand.
It was really nice being able to buy a new computer or replace a failed HD and have all of these setting automatically appear.
It was really nice being able to buy a new computer or replace a failed HD and have all of these setting automatically appear.
I liked being able to setup a new machine, enter my mobileMe details and get some things synced across. But it was only a partial thing and was never an answer for restoring a system.
I was really hoping we'd now be able to put an AppleID into a new system and have it automatically setup everything. Email, contacts, calendar, desktop setup, my most recent documents, my basic photo setup (with recent & published photos), music setup (with just the purchased music/tv and podcast setup), my app-store apps, iPhone sync information. Then when I plug in my iOS device it can sync back whatever music/photos/movies etc are there. And of course if it can connect to an old backup - get more photos/documents (and 'upgrade' the resolution of photos restored via the low-res iPhone versions).
That would be a great setup. Of course something like that could also act as a full syncing system between 2 macs in different locations.
But the old system was never that either. So it's not a loss... just an unfulfilled wish.
I was really hoping we'd now be able to put an AppleID into a new system and have it automatically setup everything. Email, contacts, calendar, desktop setup, my most recent documents, my basic photo setup (with recent & published photos), music setup (with just the purchased music/tv and podcast setup), my app-store apps, iPhone sync information. Then when I plug in my iOS device it can sync back whatever music/photos/movies etc are there. That would be a great setup.
The settings it backed up are pretty simple and self contained. It's pretty much grabbing files and folders from a couple /Library folders. There is no reason why a Mac App Store app can't do this. They can even use the iCloud APIs (and/or Dropox and/or SugarSync) to store the data as it changes or for a periodic backup. It can even be much more versatile than what .Mac or MobileMe ever offered. One thing that always got me about the settings was that my desktop background always had to be done manually whenever I used those sync services.