All questions concerning MobileMe (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

Am I correct in assuming that MobileMe is not a software download?

All one needs to do is go to www.me.com?

I tried that on my laptop as I have a .mac account. I was able
to log in and there were all my contacts.

I am guessing that my desktop and iPhone will do the same, though
I have to find out how to activate it on the iPhone.

Am I heading in the right direction here?

 

[ErichH]

From what I see this morning, it's hit and miss everywhere.
Give it some time. Apple's servers are slammed.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I can see that. I can't even log in.

Just want to know if I am on the right track of how this works.

No software download. Right?

Another question....

On the desktop and laptop are changes reflected in iCal and Mail
software or do I have to log onto the website to make any changes,
or it doesn't matter?

 

[ErichH]

Sorry - yes there is a software update for mobile me, but I (or most everyone) can't see it yet.

Your .mac account is supposed to auto update at some point. As to how much set up is required ?

This might be the new setup for most people

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

 

[ErichH]

Check out the feedback. Looks like a train wreck.

Apple and AT&T Stores Having Difficulty Activating iPhones (UPDATE: It's the iPocalypse)

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I was fortunate to be one of the first ones to get my iPhone
activated before 8:20am EST this morning.

There was a bit of a computer hangup while I was in the store.

Looks like all hell broke loose since then.

 

[ErichH]

No kidding - After trolling local news, I discovered there were lines at AT&T stores in my area over 100 each and most reporting running out at 40-50 units. Some stores let the people in line know - some did not. Pissed people to say least. Add the server bomb to that.

I don't wanna know about the Lenox Apple store (I'm very close) bet it's a mess.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I'd be interested to hear what our resident AT&T employee
has to say about today. Feel bad for what he must be going
through now.

 

[ErichH]

J, since we know you, here's an apology for all the frowns coming at you today. It's not your fault.

It would be fun to hear an account of how many F & S words flew across the store

 

[Sam Posten]

I hear some people have been able to wrangle $5 iTunes vouchers for their troubles activating...

 

[Andrew Pratt]

I have managed to get into MobileMe this afternoon with reasonable speed (it was crawling this morning) and have now got it synced to Outlook on my IBM laptop at work. To get that working you need to install iTunes 7.7 (new download) and once that's done there's a new MobileMe icon in Control Panel to configure the syncing on the PC side.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

On the Mac side I still see nothing as far as software update
is concerned.

 

[Darren Lewis]

There's a new update for iTunes (7.7) but nothing else on software update at the moment.

Do people think the new MobileMe is worth the cost? In the UK it's going to be £59 + Tax per year (about $138). IMAP email is nothing new (Gmail offers it for free and if you've got your own website you'll probably have IMAP support). The calendar and contacts sync is the one thing I'd probably use though, and my current email service doesn't have that. I don't have an iPhone (yet).

I was going to signup for the free trial but they want my credit card details to start the service after the trial period! I can cancel during the trial, but Apple are relying on me not doing so.

 

[Jonathan_]

Today actually wasn't that bad. There was 9 of us running a register and outside of the iTunes fiasco it moved fairly quickly. When had over 100 people in line with the first person lining up at 9:30 Thursday night. :O

We only let 9 people in first and sent each of them to a register. When a customer left we let another one in. We had runners who got the phones and accessories for us. My job was simple. Ring everything out and setup the phone. First couple of customers were cake then iTunes decided to go crazy. Sat around for 20 minutes until we got permission from corporate to let customers leave and unbrick their phones at home.

Besides ticking off a couple of people that couldn't get the the subsidized pricing it went by pretty fast. We let everyone outside know when we were out of 16gig whites and blacks. We sold completely out around 11:30.

At that point we ordered phones for customers that wanted to guarantee a unit.

Around 1pm we got 10 more 8gig's in stock and sold them all in less than 5 minutes. All and all not too bad and a lot better than what happen a other stores.

 

[Darren Lewis]

Ok, I signed up for a free trial for MobileMe. The pricing is £48.76 plus tax per year after the 60 days trial, so it's a little bit cheaper than I first thought.

It does allow you to pull mail from another POP account, but it looks as though it can only do this for one single POP account.

Aliases (different from email address when you send an email) are supported - you can create up to five aliases for the from address (it's not clear whether these have to be @me.com addresses or can be any address - aliases are not available in the trial).

I couldn't see anywhere to host your own domain, but that may be disabled in the trial version. The "Personal Domain" option is only for webspace (you have to manage your own DNS and update the CNAME for www to point it to mobileme). Basically I'd have to host my domain elsewhere and forward mail into mobileme from there.

So far, I'm disappointed in the email features for the price, and I don't think I'll be continuing after the trial. The email facilities are mediocre for a premium service. Gmail has similar, if not more facilities for free. FastMail completely nukes the mobileme email facilities.

The only facility that attracts me at the moment is the calendar and contacts sync. Having briefly used both google calendar and the mobileme calendar, the google calendar seems to be faster (certainly in FireFox). Both can sync with iCal and Outlook (Google via third party commercial plugins though).


I guess it boils down to - is MobileMe worth the price when compared to Google Apps?