Apple introduces MobileMe "push" internet service

2

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 57
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wplate View Post


    It all sounds good but it isn't helpful if I can't use my own domain. Our business doesn't have Exchange, though I'd like Exchange for the Rest of Us so I can have my email pushed to my phone.



    But this is only for me.com email addresses, right?



    I believe you still have the option of using the MobileMe features from your own domain, just like you currently can with the .Mac services. I don't think (?) you'd be able to have part of your domain's web pages outside of MobileMe and part be MobileMe services, but if you own a domain name you can register (via Apple) to have it go to your MobleMe account.



    Here's the old .Mac help page on it: http://www.mac.com/web/en/Tips/185DE...75A1C95CF.html
  • Reply 22 of 57
    jowie74jowie74 Posts: 540member
    Can I please just have the push features for $49?



    They've got it right, except the price. The price is the reason I gave up .Mac about three months ago, and since the price has not changed I will not be going back. Remember of course that in the UK this is £69 - that's about $135.



    I do like the push idea, but I won't be able to make good use of that unless I bought an iPhone. So never say never, but had it been cut slightly in price I would have come back.



    I wonder how many other return customers Apple have lost out to like me.
  • Reply 23 of 57
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    I think they did a tremendous job of integrating iPhoto, iCal and other functionality into a web-based cluster of apps. Pretty amazing.



    It is what .Mac should have looked like years ago. I hope they have increased the speed as .Mac has always been slow, especially iDisk.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wiggin View Post


    Apple needs to keep in mind that when you are accessing your data from other computers (the whole point of the online apps!), you don't always have control over which web browser is available (work, internet cafe's, friend's house, etc).



    Apple probably doesn't care about IE6 users. About 70% of internet browsers will be able to access it. IE7, Safari and FF are gaining more marketshare each month and IE is losing a percentage point of so each month. By the time it's released in September IE6, non-compliant browsers will probably only be 20% of the pie.
    Perhaps you could talk to your IT department? Isn't IE7 more secure than IE6, why are they using it?





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DMarrero View Post


    Mobile me is a lame name. I much prefer .mac. As for the service it provides, it may prove useful for iphone users but others may find more utility in the free gmail accounts. It has potential if apple dropped the price.



    Both were lame sounding at first. Even iPod sounded stupid. I am debating whether I will move to an @mac.com or @me.com address.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by k2director View Post


    It looks like Apple has once again omitted To Do support in the MobileMe calendar, along with neglecting To Dos on the iPhone itself (despite being on the market for a year).



    It is pretty dumb!





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by parky View Post


    We also seem to get Push Bookmarks according to the FAQ's here!



    Nice! I guess we'll now have an agent running 24/7 that monitors changes to iCal, Address Book, Mail, and Safari. I wonder if it will also sync my history? I'd find that very useful. I wonder if it will sucn with other apps liek Entourage and Firefox?





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wplate View Post


    It all sounds good but it isn't helpful if I can't use my own domain. Our business doesn't have Exchange, though I'd like Exchange for the Rest of Us so I can have my email pushed to my phone.



    Since MobileMe can sync with Outlook and Outlook can sync with Exchange, this may be possible, even if it does require a 3rd-party plug in and Outlook to be running at the time.



    But I think there is something else going on here. OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will have full Exchange 2007 support. It looks like Apple is about to take personal computers in the enterprise more seriously. So i wouldn't be surprised if They will have an option to parse your Exchange data to and from your MobileMe data.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    If I were Apple, I'd think real hard about turning MobileMe into a free service. It would be like honey attracting flies to the Apple aesthetic and platform.



    Hell yeah it would. Of course, they would have to hide it into the price of a Mac and iPhone. It won't be noticed but will be a value added service.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MacGregor View Post


    3. If this can be done in MobileMe, why are Mail, iCal, AddressBook still separate apps? Why not run them all from the same window?



    Hear! Hear! Since the data for iCal and Address Book are all intractable by Mail, they should at least have an option to make it integrate with Mail the Way Outlook and Entourage are. That is the Apple way, and yet MS is doing it.
  • Reply 24 of 57
    wijgwijg Posts: 99member
    Quote:

    For use with a Mac, MobileMe requires Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 or the latest version of Mac OS X Leopard.



    What? I can understand browser requirements, but what's with the OS limitation? .Mac is the lame sort of service I'd expect "non-adopters" to be using. Maybe I'm wrong.
  • Reply 25 of 57
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by WIJG View Post


    What? I can understand browser requirements, but what's with the OS limitation? .Mac is the lame sort of service I'd expect "non-adopters" to be using. Maybe I'm wrong.



    I'm sure you can use the web based stuff so long as you have a current browser, but MobileMe has push features which will require software to be run on your Mac continuously. For instance, as soon as you update a bookmark, your Mac's MobileMe service will push it to the remote servers and then push down accordingly. While not a difficult piece of software, Apple probably added the software to 10.4.11 and has no interest in supporting Panther and assumes you have upgraded to the latest version of Tiger.



    What do you mean by "non-adopters"? If they aren't adopting it then why would you expect them to be the one's using it?
  • Reply 26 of 57
    bugsnwbugsnw Posts: 717member
    I hope sharing files via iDisk is encrypted while uploading and downloading. Unless this is spelled out and prominently indicated, businesses are going to be wary of taking advantage of this service.
  • Reply 27 of 57
    I just bloged my thoughts on this:



    I have had .mac account since I got my powerbook 3 years. I have never payed full price thanks to amazon. I used it mainly to sync my macs, idisk, view bookmarks online (this is a great feature at school) and my .mac email for itunes and other apple related stuff. Today apple announced mobile me. I wish I had an iphone but between the cost of the phone and att I can not afford one. So today I loose my .mac and will at some point in July become part of moblie me even though I do not have an iphone.



    From the FAQ it seems like the only feature I use that I am going to loose next month is the view bookmarks online. For now my other features stay …. until apple cuts them off. I just wish Apple could have had parallel products for people how do not have iphones.
  • Reply 28 of 57
    On the basis of their conspicuous omission from all the announcements and online information, it is probably safe to assume that Backup, HomePage (and web hosting), iCards, Groups, Bookmarks are all gone. In short, Apple is making a move in the right direction technologically, but is still charging the same overpriced fee, but for even less service. (Who needs 20 GB of online space if you can't use it for Backup? (Especially when you can get unlimited online disk space from other providers for almost half that price.)) Further, is Apple planning on honoring their commitments for web hosting for the remainder of contracts? (How many developers are currently hosting their sites on dot Mac, quite a few it seems.) Already they have announced that they are not supporting Bookmarks after the end of next month. What else is being shorted Prediction: PR firestorm ensues and .Mac subscriptions plummet unless these issues are addressed openly, honestly, and resolved in a fair manner.



    Another question? Having moved Address Book, iCal, Mail (and perhaps soon others) into the cloud and establishing them as part of the (formerly) dot Mac revenue center, what is Apple's motivation to continue to develop the stand-alone versions of those applications? If they do, aren't they cannibalizing the sales of MobileMe? As Apple's market share increases, is Apple's need to provide loss-leaders such as the "i-Apps" diminishing? It's an interesting question.



    As well, aren't there going to be substantial privacy issues with this iPhone "push" system? How much of your communications do you really want going through both a developer's and Apple's servers, which, on the basis of the system's design, monitors your iPhone 24-hours a day (including your location now that it has GPS)? Perhaps this would be less of an issue if there had been any mention of encryption or security this morning, but there wasn't.



    Oh, and one last thing. Why did Jobs keep leaving the stage during the keynote? Has he ever done that before, ever?
  • Reply 29 of 57
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by technstuff View Post


    From the FAQ it seems like the only feature I use that I am going to loose next month is the view bookmarks online. For now my other features stay ?. until apple cuts them off. I just wish Apple could have had parallel products for people how do not have iphones.



    I can't say that I've ever used my online bookmarks in the 5 years I've had .Mac, but I don't see why this feature has to go. They are PUSH syncing them, so not why not add another icon at the top that allows me to see my bookmarks and opens up another window when I clock on one. It's odd that a simple, and yet potentially useful option would be thrown away. iCards I can understand. Welcome to AI.
  • Reply 30 of 57
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheSnarkmeister View Post


    On the basis of their conspicuous omission from all the announcements and online information, it is probably safe to assume that Backup, HomePage (and web hosting), iCards, Groups, Bookmarks are all gone. In short, Apple is making a move in the right direction technologically, but is still charging the same overpriced fee, but for even less service. (Who needs 20 GB of online space if you can't use it for Backup? (Especially when you can get unlimited online disk space from other providers for almost half that price.)) Further, is Apple planning on honoring their commitments for web hosting for the remainder of contracts? (How many developers are currently hosting their sites on dot Mac, quite a few it seems.) Already they have announced that they are not supporting Bookmarks after the end of next month. What else is being shorted Prediction: PR firestorm ensues and .Mac subscriptions plummet unless these issues are addressed openly, honestly, and resolved in a fair manner.



    Another question? Having moved Address Book, iCal, Mail (and perhaps soon others) into the cloud and establishing them as part of the (formerly) dot Mac revenue center, what is Apple's motivation to continue to develop the stand-alone versions of those applications? If they do, aren't they cannibalizing the sales of MobileMe? As Apple's market share increases, is Apple's need to provide loss-leaders such as the "i-Apps" diminishing? It's an interesting question.



    As well, aren't there going to be substantial privacy issues with this iPhone "push" system? How much of your communications do you really want going through both a developer's and Apple's servers, which, on the basis of the system's design, monitors your iPhone 24-hours a day (including your location now that it has GPS)? Perhaps this would be less of an issue if there had been any mention of encryption or security this morning, but there wasn't.



    Oh, and one last thing. Why did Jobs keep leaving the stage during the keynote? Has he ever done that before, ever?



    I wouldn't assume those features are gone yet. Apple's page lists



    Quote:

    Extras

    Get more storage for file sharing, mail, web publishing, and more.



    So clearly the web publishing is there still. In fact I read somewhere today that iCards is gone and bookmarking syncing is gone in lieu of push bookmarks but most .Mac stuff should still be there even if Apple is only highlighting the juicy stuff today.



    As for privacy ...no I don't have an issue with it. Apple doesn't care about adverstising so your data has no real demographic data that Apple wants to sell. Of course those "other" vendors that you mentiond who offer cheaper services just may want your data for back end deals.
  • Reply 31 of 57
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post




    Perhaps you could talk to your IT department? Isn't IE7 more secure than IE6, why are they using it?








    You're pretty funny! Don't work at a large company, do you! When you have a lot of custom, in-house web apps you don't simply swap out web browsers on a whim. I can't even VPN into the network remotely without using IE 6 (that's right, can't upgrade my Windows browser at home because I need IE 6 for work).



    I'm not saying it makes sense ... welcome to the world of big corporate IT. Let's face it, these are the same guys who dragged us down the Windows path to begin with, not exactly the first place I'd look for the creative application of technology. (No offense to the many, many highly competent IT folks out there...it's a herd mentality thing.)
  • Reply 32 of 57
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wiggin View Post


    You're pretty funny! Don't work at a large company, do you!



    It's been many years and I try not to think about when I did. IE6 wasn't even a glint in Gates eye at that point. I understand the need for using legacy apps, but why can't you have FF as well as IE 6? I know IT rules can be strict, but they can also be waved with a coffee a free lunch and/or a some nice words.
  • Reply 33 of 57
    mydomydo Posts: 1,888member
    I'm in the same boat Wiggin. We're still using Office 2001 where I work with no word of an upgrade. We have thousands of employees. IT sucks.
  • Reply 34 of 57
    mydomydo Posts: 1,888member
    So dose MM work with any IMAP account? It doesn't seem to from the and video demos.
  • Reply 35 of 57
    coolfactorcoolfactor Posts: 2,239member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mydo View Post


    So dose MM work with any IMAP account? It doesn't seem to from the and video demos.



    EXACTLY! MobileMe Mail Online should show all of my IMAP accounts that I have configured on my computer, not just my mac.com account.
  • Reply 36 of 57
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I know IT rules can be strict, but they can also be waved with a coffee a free lunch and/or a some nice words.



    Nah, just getting a new job would be a better solution (and probably easier). It's about time anyway.



    Interviewer: Why did you leave your previous position?

    Me: I couldn't check me email.

    Interviewer: Your email?

    Me: No, me email.

    Interviewer: What?

    Me: You know, mobile me.

    Interviewer: You're mobile? No, there's no travel with this position.

    Me: No, for I phone.

    Interviewer: No need to phone. Thank you for stopping by. We'll call you.



    Hmm, yeah, MobileMe is a really stupid name....
  • Reply 37 of 57
    I think the name is fine.



    I really disliked .MAC. I've been offered free accounts on numerous occasions and I couldn't even be bothered to set one of them up.



    MobileMe... I might actually pay for.
  • Reply 38 of 57
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheSnarkmeister View Post


    On the basis of their conspicuous omission from all the announcements and online information, it is probably safe to assume that Backup, HomePage (and web hosting), iCards, Groups, Bookmarks are all gone. In short, Apple is making a move in the right direction technologically, but is still charging the same overpriced fee, but for even less service. (Who needs 20 GB of online space if you can't use it for Backup? (Especially when you can get unlimited online disk space from other providers for almost half that price.)) Further, is Apple planning on honoring their commitments for web hosting for the remainder of contracts? (How many developers are currently hosting their sites on dot Mac, quite a few it seems.) Already they have announced that they are not supporting Bookmarks after the end of next month. What else is being shorted Prediction: PR firestorm ensues and .Mac subscriptions plummet unless these issues are addressed openly, honestly, and resolved in a fair manner.



    your assumption is wrong in most ways. why don't you go to the apple website and see for yourself that backup and web hosting (even with your own domain) will be transferred seamlessly. icards, seriously, who uses those? the other ones i didn't check because i don't use them but rather than assume that they're screwing their customers out of their extra services, just check on their website. it wasn't hard to find the mobile me faq.
  • Reply 39 of 57
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by admactanium View Post


    your assumption is wrong in most ways. why don't you go to the apple website and see for yourself that backup and web hosting (even with your own domain) will be transferred seamlessly. icards, seriously, who uses those? the other ones i didn't check because i don't use them but rather than assume that they're screwing their customers out of their extra services, just check on their website. it wasn't hard to find the mobile me faq.



    As far as dropping the iCards, I'd assume they want to direct people toward buying iPhoto greeting cards instead.
  • Reply 40 of 57
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by admactanium View Post


    your assumption is wrong in most ways. why don't you go to the apple website and see for yourself that backup and web hosting (even with your own domain) will be transferred seamlessly. icards, seriously, who uses those? the other ones i didn't check because i don't use them but rather than assume that they're screwing their customers out of their extra services, just check on their website. it wasn't hard to find the mobile me faq.



    Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually they weren't. Apple modified the MobileMe web page only slightly later in the day and then even later posted a hard to locate explanatory tech note detailing the fact that many of the omitted features were in fact retained. The misunderstand is purely result of Job's obsession with dog-and-pony shows in which he is the only ringmaster. Had the information been posted earlier and e-mails been sent earlier to existing dot Mac customers explaining what was going on, it wouldn't have been a problem. Clearly what Apple is trying to do is to minimize usage of those features, possibly with the hope of phasing them out over time, otherwise they would promote them as features of MobileMe, which even now they are not.
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