iPhone owners (who also use MobileMe) were excited to hear that the two products could combine to help you find, recover, or remotely erase your iPhone if it was lost or stolen. Now there’s one man’s story of actually using it to recover his precious iPhone.

While attending a Lego convention, Kevin Miller left his iPhone on the table of the bar where he had dinner. This blatant act of abandonment, however, turned into a day of adventure when he used his MobileMe account to track down the man who stole his iPhone:

We parked along Medill and hopped out. It was a Puerto Rican neighborhood. On the south side of the street, an outdoor birthday fiesta was convening, and some of the participants eyed us three honkeys questioningly. Now at this point I had no fricking clue how we would find the phone; did I think I’d find it under a bush? I certainly didn’t plan to go door-to-door, nor did I expect the cops to regard a blue circle around the entire block as sufficient cause for a search warrant. I sent a third message to the phone that I’d been formulating in my head: “We have tracked the phone to Medill St. and are locating it. Please call 512-796-xxxx to help us and claim a reward.” Short version: WE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.

Now granted, travelling to a neighborhood you don’t know in a town you’re not from to try and track down your stolen phone may not be the brightest idea (right up there with leaving your iPhone on a table), but it does make for a rather interesting guide on how the iPhone finder works, and how you can use it recover your device.

Read more at Happy Waffe.

Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Apple revealed several new features of iPhone OS 3.0 at WWDC today. One of these features is “Find My iPhone,” and it is only available to Mobile Me subscribers. However, the Mobile Me page includes a few other “Coming Soon” features that didn’t make it into the Keynote.

Along with “Find My iPhone,” they will also be including:

• Viewing iDisk files on your iPhone
• Sharing large files from your iPhone
• Accessing other iDisk users’ public folders
• Being able to search all of your server side Mobile Me e-mail messages

The first three items in the list will actually be features of a yet-to-be-released iDisk app. There are a few third party iDisk apps currently available in the Apple store that vary in their iDisk abilities, but this official app will make it even easier to use some handy iDisk features and increase the value of a Mobile Me subscription. Being able to access your iDisk content from your iPhone has been a much requested feature of Mobile Me users in the past.

The e-mail search feature appears to be built in to OS 3.0. According to the Mobile Me new features page:

iPhone OS 3.0 brings search capability to Mail on your iPhone. Now you don’t have to flick through your inbox, tapping messages to find the e-mail you’re looking for. You can search messages by sender, recipient, subject, or all headers. And if the message isn’t on your iPhone, Mail searches for it in the MobileMe cloud. When the message is located, you can display it on your iPhone with no problem.

And in case you missed the big announcement of this group, Mobile Me will also give you the ability to locate where your iPhone is using an interactive web page that includes a map showing its location. It will also allow you to override the silence switch and have it play a sound to make it even easier to locate the device. It will also allow you to have a a custom message on it to ask someone to call you if they find the phone and, finally, to be able to remotely wipe out all of its data so no one can have access to your data if you can not recover it personally.

The “Find My iPhone” feature is expected to be available on June 17 when the new OS is released, and I suspect the mail search feature will be available at that time as well. The iDisk app is currently listed as coming soon, so hopefully it will see the light of day sometime this summer. I imagine it will be able to sail through the app store approval process.

Product [Mobile Me]

Full Story » | Written by Ed McKell for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Apple has sent out an e-mail to .Mac (MobileMe) subscribers announcing that as of July 7th, 2009, the .Mac HomePage application will be removed from the service. Upon hearing this news, my first questions was, “What’s HomePage?” My second questions was, “What’re they going to kill next? Pippin? CyberDoc?”

I actually used the HomePage app at one point to try to lay out my .Mac site back in the day, but found it almost as unpleasant as working in Microsoft FrontPage. Although not perfect, iWeb is just a much better app that offers more power while retaining the ease of use required for simply, quickly generated websites. HomePage will not be missed, and I’m actually surprised to find out it’s still around. I mean, seriously…look at that brushed aluminum interface! It may as well be System 6.0!

From the e-mail:

On July 7, 2009, the .Mac HomePage web application will be discontinued. As of this date, you will no longer be able to create new pages or edit existing pages using HomePage. Any pages you’ve already published will remain live at their current web address for as long as you like. If you need to make changes to your existing pages, please do so before July 7.

Instead of HomePage, we recommend the other sharing features of your MobileMe membership. With MobileMe Gallery, you can share photos online directly from iPhoto or the web application at www.me.com. And using iWeb on your Mac, you can create custom websites and blogs and publish them to MobileMe.

If you’ve been putting off learning iWeb or competing applications such as RapidWeaver, here’s your incentive. Although working directly online with HomePage had its perks (it was actually pretty good for organizing your online files, even if the design templates were pretty bad), the capabilities of iWeb and its corresponding tools outweigh the convenience of HomePage. Take a look now, and I’ll be surprised if you’re not done with HomePage within a week.

Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Hidden within the options menu for MobileMe in the iPhone’s settings, there’s a new option that’s appeared in the 3.0 beta. Named “Find My iPhone,” I’m sure you can guess it’s primary use.

It would appear that Apple will offer a service to MobileMe customers allowing them, if this setting is activated, to request the location of their iPhone—whether because they’ve lost it, or it’s been stolen. Sounds like a very useful feature to me, but what about security? The access to the iPhone’s location is only given through MobileMe. The security therefore, is the same as Back to My Mac. No one else will have access to this information, so there’s no worry of being spied on. Well, no more than usual. Let’s just hope the thief forgets to turn this setting off, too. Or possibly you would have to provide your MobileMe password to turn the feature on and off.

There’s nothing about this service on the MobileMe website yet. I expect an update will appear around the same time as iPhone 3.0 ships.

Via [AppleInsider]

Full Story » | Written by Ed Parry for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Just a few days ago, my MobileMe trial ran out and I was forced to hand over my card details once again to Apple. I haven’t thought about the service much throughout the time I’ve been using it, it’s just been part of my computing needs. But now with competitors such as Google offering a very similar service for free, you have to ask yourself whether MobileMe is worth it.

I’ll tell you straight off that I personally think MobileMe is worth buying, but maybe not at the price of $99. For e-mail, online storage and push syncing, that’s a high price in anyone’s books. There’s no reason why the e-mail couldn’t be free, and push transfer will probably become standard within the next few years. 20GB of online storage is great to have, but there are still many free alternatives.

I originally decided to buy MobileMe for two main reasons. The first being to host my blog, using iWeb for the design. After a few months however, I became unsatisfied with the lack of freedom for creation within iWeb and have since moved to WordPress. The other reason for buying MobileMe is one that I’d rather not confess to. For $99 a year, I love having @me.com. I know, it’s sad—practically a waste of money when, for free, I can have @gmail.com or @live.com.

So the price is a little high for the service, I’ve now established that. But something that you would expect from Apple, as a paying customer, is for them to deliver what you’ve bought into. I mean, specifically, push e-mail. Quite often I find that e-mails have not been pushed to Mail on my Mac or iPhone. While this isn’t such a problem, once you’ve become used to it, you really notice it when it’s missing. It also doesn’t take a lot for the iDisk to become quite slow when moving a lot of files around. This obviously depends on your broadband connection, but I feel there can be some improvement made to the iDisk’s connectivity, whether though me.com/idisk or via Finder directly.

On the plus side however, synchronization between devices is brilliant. I always know that if I update a contact or calendar entry on my Mac, within minutes it’s sitting on my iPhone. Always being up to date wherever I am is a nice feeling. There’s no worry if there’s something happening that you should be attending, or someone you meant to call but their number is only on your Mac. If it’s on one device, it’s also on the other. Everything is also synchronized with The Cloud, so all this information is accessible online from anywhere in the world.

There’s no denying that MobileMe still has issues. It’s original launch was very confusing, with problems with the servers and customers on the previous .mac service. But beyond the hiccups, there’s a solid base set for an excellent service, and it’s a great addition for any Mac user. If Apple can concentrate on ironing out any issues customers find, and if they can lower the price to around the $50 mark, then I think more and more people will begin to see MobileMe as a justifiable option, and not something they want but can’t explain to themselves why it would be worth $99. Apple has a good service available to those who want it. With some refining, it could easily be a great service.

Product [MobileMe]

Full Story » | Written by Ed Parry for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Yesterday, Apple introduced a new feature to MobileMe: sharing large files with others through an iDisk. The service works like any regular file sharing website such as RapidShare, but instead of uploading a file, you simply use a file that’s already in your iDisk. MobileMe assigns a URL to the file in your iDisk and you can send the link in an e-mail through MobileMe. There are some useful options in this new feature, such as adding a password to secure the file, and adding an expiration date.

This sharing functionality is not yet available through the Finder, so you’ll have to use the iDisk web application. Similar functionality has been available for some time, however, from other apps such as DropBox and FileChute. You can view a tutorial on sharing files with iDisk on Apple’s website.

Read [Apple.com] Via [TUAW]

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According to ComputerWorld’s sources, Apple is ready to update iMovie and move it to the cloud. Here’s what Seth Weintraub had to say:

I’ve heard from reliable sources that Apple will offer a significant update to iMovie at next week’s Macworld. It will largely focus on Internet video in the Cloud for the YouTube generation.

This juicy little rumor is just in time for Macworld Expo. This feature could be helpful for some movies, especially for those whose end destination is YouTube. Plus, you have the added benefit of not having to store those movie files on your computer. Files uploaded to Apple’s service would be viewable on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Weintraub also believes that iWork is moving to the cloud to join others like Google Docs.

This is a fun rumor, but I’m not sure how useful it is. God knows I’ll be thankful if people use this before they dump their garbage on YouTube and expect me to watch it. But other than short online videos, I don’t see this being better than a desktop application. I’m always afraid of what happens when I’m not hooked to the internet. Then what? And that’s why I like my desktop applications.

Read [ComputerWorld] Via [9to5Mac]

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Although there are already platforms like Dropbox and MobileMe for the Mac when it comes to syncing your data with the cloud, these solutions may not be right for some users. Those people will be happy to know that Microsoft’s Live Mesh platform has now made its way to your Mac OS X machine. All that’s required is a small application and a Windows Live ID, and you’ll be on your way to adding Mac computers to your Live Mesh account and staying in sync with the cloud.

Like MobileMe and me.com, Live Mesh has a website (mesh.com) that allows its users to get and download their content and files from any computer. In the storage area, MobileMe quadruples the storage of Live Mesh, with a nice sized 20GB compared to Mesh’s 5GB. However, when it comes to price, Live Mesh can’t be beat. MobileMe will run you $99 a year whereas Live Mesh is 100% free. The choice is yours now between these options, I leave it up to you to make the right one.

Via [The Unofficial Apple Weblog]

Full Story » | Written by Josh Holat for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Despite some recent MobileMe updates that Apple quietly rolled out in an effort to improve the stability and functionality of their “cloud”-based web service, the service still isn’t performing up to the usual Apple standards. Perhaps this is why the updates haven’t been announced as of late—Apple doesn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up that the service will actually work, finally, as originally advertised.

Last week, I experienced all kinds of funkiness with e-mail: messages wouldn’t send, my in box wouldn’t load up, I couldn’t delete messages, etc. It was annoying, but par for the course since the switch. This morning, however, I couldn’t log in at all. Visiting www.me.com, I was greeted with the following message:

(The message was still up at press time.)

On a whim, I thought I’d try going directly to www.mac.com. After a few slow redirects, sure enough, I got into my MobileMe account was able to access all my information and use the services provided.

So, next time someone screws up the definition of irony, you can point that person to MobileMe for a true example; Apple switched from .Mac to MobileMe in order to improve use and increase functionality of their server-side data management service, but, in order to even access it, you have to use .Mac.

Update: 8:00 a.m.

Reports of similar problems are starting to surface in user forums around the web:

• MacRumors
• MacTalk
• Apple.com

The topic in the Apple forums was created on November 1st, so it seems some people have been having the problem since at least Saturday. Further into that thread is an expanded suggestion of my workaround above, along with an explanation of what’s going on:

It looks like someone messed up the me domain and http://www.me.com/ doesn’t resolve properly to the auth server giving the ‘Not Found: Resource does not exist’ error.

Until Apple fix the problem try using one of the following as a workaround:
http://www.me.com/index.html
https://auth.apple.com/authenticate
https://auth.apple.com/authenticate?service=DockStatus
These should get you where you need to be

Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

A recent Apple support article details many of the MobileMe improvements made in the late September 2008 update. With a total of 27 improvements, some of them seem pretty important. What’s interesting about this update, however, is that Apple never notified their users, or anyone, about these updates when they were made back in September. Their reason for this is as follows:

Apple is always working to improve MobileMe. Since MobileMe is primarily a server-side, or “cloud”-based, service, the MobileMe team can make improvements and push updates to MobileMe without any action being required of MobileMe customers. Since server-side updates are a bit more innocuous than a standard software update to Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows, it’s easy not to notice that updates are occurring. Usually the only hint of these updates is that things just “work better”.

I find it sort of interesting that Apple would wait almost a month to inform their users about these updates, but I don’t think it really matters as long as the updates improve the service and don’t deal with users’ privacy or personal information. Apple does have a point in that it isn’t really necessary to tell users of updates right away because all of the updating is on their side of the client-server relationship, the users just experience the changes. It all depends on your viewpoint, though. What do you think? Would it have been nice to know about these changes when they actually occurred?

Via AppleInsider

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If the two criteria for Mac-ness are “it just works” and being “insanely great,” then Skitch has to be the most Mac-like program I’ve seen in quite some time.

Skitch is a screenshot program, and while there’s nothing wrong with the screenshot capabilities built into OS X (other than it’s deliberately disabled when DVD Player is running), Skitch does everything Grab does, does it better, then adds labeling features you’ll wonder how you ever lived without, along with built-in sharing features that “just work” to allow you pass your pictures on via e-mail, web, and chat.

Currently a free beta from the mad geniuses at Plasq (best known to Mac users as the creators of Comic Life, a program I admire but haven’t found much practical use for), Skitch is a small program that waits in the background until you need to take a screenshot and/or do simple editing to a photo.

To take a screenshot, just click on a button in the Skitch floating panel, or use the shortcut. You can also use Skitch to take a webcam photo (much like Photo Booth). Once you’ve got your pic, you can add text, lines, arrows, boxes, or whatever you like. Now, the neat thing is that Skitch keeps these marks in layers, allowing you manipulate (or remove) them at any point. Skitch also allows you to crop and edit the photos using a simple process; if you pull the outside of the Skitch window, you can resize the photo; dragging the inside part of the window (the edges of the picture) crops the photo.

From there, you can save the photo (as a Skitch file), export it as a JPG, PNG, PDF, SVG, or TIF to your desktop, or upload it using the built-in Webpost feature to your (currently free) webspace on Skitch.com or .Mac (or MobileMe or whatever the hell they’re calling it this week). From the Skitch page, you get a series of links for a variety or purposes: embedding in a web page, sharing via e-mail or chat, or directing people to your Skitch page. You can also set the privacy options for the photo.

For simple screenshots and photo editing, Skitch might be the most intuitive program around. You can register and download the free beta, and watch a video that further explains how the program works.

Product [Skitch]

Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Happy October, everyone! Wait, why aren’t you smiling? Lack of push notifications got you down? Me too.

When Scott Forstall first announced these push notifications in June, I was all giddy inside. It was an inventive way to allow applications to continue their purpose while not running, without consuming those ever important system resources. To be able to quit my AIM application and yet still see when I have a new IM would be more than fantastic. The feature was slated for September, and yet, despite pushing iPhone 2.1 out the door, it is now October, and the push notifications aren’t anywhere I can see.

In a way, this isn’t a bad thing, because it shows Apple has learned from its mistakes with the MobileMe / iPhone 3G launch of July. iPhone 2.1 was the best release for iPhone yet, significantly speeding things up without causing any major new bugs. Had the push notifications remained in the 2.1 release, as they were in initial betas, the software might not have been the success that it was.

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

It appears some MobileMe users are finding themselves the target of another phishing attempt.

Here’s a heads up on the e-mail.

Dear Apple Online Member,

Thank you for choosing Mobileme. Unfortunately there has been a problem processing your billing information for the month of Sept, 2008.

Please review our billing requirements at KW: Billing.

To ensure that your service is not interrupted, please visit our secure server web form by clicking the hyperlink below.

[Link Redacted]

We appreciate your business and hope to keep you as a customer for life.

Click Here For Web Form Mobile Me is so easy, no wonder it’s number 1 !

Sincerely,
The Apple Billing Services Team

When dealing with these types of e-mails, real or not, you should always practice safe handling. Real e-mails about any of your accounts should never ask for sensitive information like passwords or Social Security numbers. You should also be very careful when clicking links in e-mails. It’s safest to manually visit the website from the apparent sender. For instance, if your bank sends you an e-mail, don’t click an inline link, go to your bank’s website, and log in there. That way, you never have to worry about being on a phishing website.

Keep safe.

Via [MacRumors]

Full Story » | Written by Jake Gaecke for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

With the given that there will be a September Apple event, we can now turn to what that event might bring. Of course, everyone’s gone over the new stuff: new iPods, MacBook updates, and all that good stuff. However, we also should turn an eye to fixing what’s already out there. A whole lot is broken.

• Apple’s MobileMe / iPhone 3G / iPhone Software 2.0 / iTunes 7.7 release was the cause of huge issues in almost every area. Hopefully, the September event, and software updates and releases subsequent to the event, will fix these problems.
• Bring my iPod syncing time back down to a few seconds, not a few minutes. If backing up takes so long, don’t do it every single time I plug the thing in.
• Get iPhone application updates under control. I still can’t update from my computer without getting a whole new clean app, missing all of my data. All you have to do is let the app replace, and not rename itself. Come on.
• Make the App Store less of a bloated, buggy, crashy app. Don’t take me back to the home screen with every app update or download. When an app updates, put it back where I have it placed. I organize my apps for a reason. Don’t undo it. When an app is installing, don’t freeze the entire App Store. I still want to browse.
• iPhone Software 2.1. Swear to God, if you cost money for iPod users…

On a separate note to GMail, introduce push to the iPhone. Don’t you feel pathetic knowing that Yahoo! has it but you don’t?

What are some of your hopes for the new releases? Sound off in the comments below.

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Just when you thought nothing else could possibly go wrong with MobileMess, it seems that Apple has created a spammer’s paradise!

From The Register:

The email harvesting issue arises because every MobileMe user gets a public idisk file-sharing site. These sites have an address tied into a user’s email username. A user can’t hide or delete his/her public folder and there’s no way to choose what the name will be.

As a result spammers only need to map the iDisk domain using web crawler tools to extract the entire MobileMe user name list. Taking this username list and simply adding either @me.com or @mac.com will give an email list, Techcrunch reports.

This news comes at the same incredibly inconvenient time that MobileMe users are being bombarded with elaborate and convincing emails from a Romanian phishing scam. Wow. Just when Apple thought that the horrendous launch issues were behind them.

Read [Techcrunch] Via [The Register]

Full Story » | Written by Michael Goonan for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

A lot of people are looking at Apple’s new MobileMe service and seeing push delays, e-mail server outages and other oddities that have led to the service being dubbed “Apple’s MobileMess” by New York Times columnist David Pogue. Me? I’m looking at it and seeing, as of this morning, a total of 90 days of free service.

In their ongoing effort to smooth things over with angry customers, Apple has announced that those with active MobileMe accounts as of August 19, 2008 will receive a free 60 day extension to their subscription. This is in addition to the free 30 day MobileMe extension offered a little over a month ago.

From the release:

Why is Apple granting a 60-day subscription extension?
The transition from .Mac to MobileMe was rockier than we had hoped. While we are making a lot of improvements, the MobileMe service is still not up to our standards. We are extending subscriptions 60-days free of charge to express appreciation for our members’ patience as we continue to improve the service.

Am I eligible for the 60-day extension?
You are eligible if you are a MobileMe member whose account was active as of August 19, 2008 at 0:00 Pacific Daylight Time.

Now, this pleases me. Who doesn’t like to get some free stuff every now and again? But I’m also wondering why Apple is pampering us so much all of a sudden. The current condition of MobileMe is certainly not the biggest blunder in Apple’s history, so why all the love over such a seemingly insignificant element of the company’s bottom line? I’m guessing it’s because it’s not as insignificant as it would seem. MobileMe is apparently a major part of Apple’s business strategy, or they wouldn’t be working so hard to keep customers. I’m encouraged by this, as MobileMe could be something truly great once Apple works out the kinks.

Or, maybe it’s just that a disproportionate number of subscribers will be up for renewal in the next 60 days, and Apple wanted to be sure to keep them around. Regardless, I don’t think any of us have lost 90 days worth of work because of the MobileMe problems, so these extensions from Apple have been more than fair. I’ll certainly take them over the mysterious David G.‘s MobileMe Status blog, which saw four posts in a month before being shut down in favor of something, you know, useful.

Get back to your real job, now, David. I take my coffee dark.

Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

In a sensible ruling from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Dell has been denied the trademark of “cloud computing,” based on the grounds that it is a general use term. The ruling is “not final” and Dell has six months to appeal before the application expires.

“Cloud computing” refers to any service delivered over the web from remote servers. Examples include Google Docs, Amazon’s S3, and Apple’s own MobileMe.

Why Dell wasted time on this one, I’m not sure. Pretty much every company involved with cloud computing has been using the term since… ever. I’m sure this was an ill-thought-out way for Dell to raise its value by forcing every company to pay royalties or find a new catchphrase for cloud computing. In reality, all this is going to do is hurt its brand perception.

Via [Macworld]

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An e-mail has been making the rounds recently, aimed specifically at MobileMe users. Disguised as a billing e-mail, it asks users to enter billing information by clicking a link to a website that is clearly not Apple-related.

“We were unable to process your most recent payment. Did you recently change your bank, phone number or credit card?” the e-mail asks. It then has a link to a page to enter said information. Users may be fooled because of the authenticity of the e-mail and the fact that all other links on the page point to official apple.com pages.

The link information was checked and traced to an e-mail account in Bacau, Romania. Whether the scam perpetrator possesses the e-mail or if it is just an innocent bystander’s e-mail is unknown.

Phishers use authentic e-mails requesting personal info to gain sensitive information and often take money or steal identities. Never enter any information related to credit cards, social security or any other sensitive information on a page linked by e-mail. If you are unsure, always go to the website in question by typing it into your address bar (ie. type “paypal.com” rather than click a link in a supposed PayPal e-mail.)

Via [Macworld]

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

It’s been a bad day for mail servers all around. GMail went down for a few minutes earlier today, and just as Apple thought it was out of the ditch with MobileMe, their mail servers seem to have other opinions.

From 1:00-3:30 PM PDT, according to Apple’s website, MobileMe mail was down for the count. Why this continues to happen is anybody’s guess at this point, as servers should not be getting hammered as they were on launch day.

Meanwhile, David G., the Apple employee assigned to post about MobileMe’s status “every other day or so,” has been MIA for weeks now, even though his last post ended with a promise of a post “later in the week.”

Basically, the only thing out of Cupertino recently regarding MobileMe is the switch-up of who is in control of MobileMe. Perhaps Eddie Chu can turn it around, but step one would be to go get David off his lunch-break.

Check [MobileMe Status History]

Full Story » | Written by Adam Fisher-Cox for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

According to Ars Technica, Steve Jobs sent an e-mail to Apple employees last night admitting that MobileMe was launched too early.

“It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store,” said Jobs.

The article says that Jobs thought MobileMe could have been launched more slowly, piece by piece. They could have started with contact and calendar syncing to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Later, they could have added more features like each online service individually.

In an effort to get things back in shape, all members of the MobileMe team will report to Eddy Cue. Actually, Cue is in charge of all internet related programs, including iTunes, the App Store and MobileMe. Cue is the only step between MobileMe and Steve Jobs, so you can bet that Jobs will be watching.

It’s rare to see Apple admit defeat, but with all the MobileMe problems, it’s nice to see Apple take at least some measure of responsibility. First, they started a MobileMe blog to update the service’s status, and now they are actually admitting they were wrong.

“The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services,” Jobs says. “And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year.”

Via [Ars Technica] Product [MobileMe]

Update:  Here’s the full text from Steve’s email.

Team,

The launch of MobileMe was not our finest hour. There are several things we could have done better:

– MobileMe was simply not up to Apple’s standards – it clearly needed more time and testing.

– Rather than launch MobileMe as a monolithic service, we could have launched over-the-air syncing with iPhone to begin with, followed by the web applications one by one – Mail first, followed 30 days later (if things went well with Mail) by Calendar, then 30 days later by Contacts.

– It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store. We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.

We are taking many steps to learn from this experience so that we can grow MobileMe into a service that our customers will love. One step that I can share with you today is that the MobileMe team will now report to Eddy Cue, who will lead all of our internet services – iTunes, the App Store and, starting today, MobileMe. Eddy’s new title will be Vice President, Internet Services and he will now report directly to me.

The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services. And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year.

Steve

Full Story » | Written by Jake Gaecke for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

It seems Apple has finally fixed MobileMe’s Mail. David G. is back to give us the news via Apple’s MobileMe Status Page update #3.

We have completed restoring Mail service, including historical messages, to all of the 1% of affected members. Thank you all for your extreme patience during this trying time.

Apple also resolved other MobileMe issues. There was a bug with syncing of contacts and calendars over the air to the iPhone and iPod Touch that was addressed.

Apple will be working on other issues as soon as possible and plans another update to the MobileMe Status page later this week.

Via [Apple]

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If you’d like to know the current health of Steve Jobs, you might be out of luck. But, if you want to know the health of MobileMe, then you might want to check out the new page called Status in the MobileMe section of Apple’s site. I think the blogger who is responsible for the updates describes it quite well:

Steve Jobs has asked me to write a posting every other day or so to let everyone know what’s happening with MobileMe, and I’m working directly with the MobileMe group to ensure that we keep you really up to date.

So far there are only two posts, and they are both positive, as is be expected. The page does admit to MobileMe’s launch being a “rocky road,” but they are working to get all services up and functioning. E-mail access to the 1% that were blocked is first on their list, and they are making progress. Though it’s sad to hear that any e-mail for those affected between July 18 and 22 may be lost forever.

Via [MobileMe Status]

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David Pogue of The New York Times calls it “Apple’s MobileMess”. Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal says it is “far too flawed to be reliable.” When Apple is hearing these sorts of things about MobileMe from a usually unmistakable Apple fanboy (Pogue) and a man who has called the iMac “the best desktop PC on the market at many price” (Mossberg), in addition to thousands of unsatisfied customers, former .Mac members and new members of the bandwagon alike, I think it’s pretty clear that they have not “finally got it right” as far as their online services are concerned, as Steve Jobs said at WWDC.

MobileMe’s launch was, as the former .Mac members among us are well aware, a complete disaster that took days to finally get somewhat right. In fact, not all of the launch issues have been worked out even now, two weeks after MobileMe’s initial release.

To add to the chaos associated with its launch, there have long been gripes about MobileMe’s horrendous branding and the abandonment of the mac.com domain name for Apple’s online offerings. Many have said that the whole “me.com” branding reminds them of another disastrous tech product: Microsoft’s Windows ME.

While I could understand Apple’s need to move away from the Mac centric branding because MobileMe is not a Mac centric service, I have to say I am seriously disappointed with their branding on this one. Apple’s marketing and branding are usually superb, and I expect much better from them. I, for one, am not thrilled about the idea of paying $99 per year for “push” e-mail anyway, and I wouldn’t use a “@me.com” e-mail address even if I could get it for free. Don’t we have enough narcissism in our society today? Do we really need our e-mail to reflect that?

I think it’s pretty clear that Apple’s MobileMe is even more of a flop than .Mac was. While .Mac wasn’t perfect and wasn’t a great value, at least it was farily reliable and offered a professional sounding e-mail address. All that MobileMe offers is extremely buggy service and a juvenile sounding e-mail address. I expect much better from Apple. I think we all do.

Via [The New York Times] and [The Wall Street Journal]

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MobileMe, Apple’s upgrade to their previous .Mac web service, has been available pretty much since the iPhone 3G launch. We’ve seen MobileMe 30 day extensions and MobileMe reviews since then, so why are some Apple users just now seeing the official release announcement? Perhaps Apple was waiting until the kinks were worked out before beginning the big promotional blitz, as their e-mail campaign seems geared towards attracting new users:

The simple way to keep everything in sync. Stay up to date with email, contacts, and calendars that sync across your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. Access it all using the feature-rich web applications at me.com. You’ll also get an email address at me.com, easy online photo sharing, 20GB of online storage, and more.

Obviously, the rest of us already knew about this and have been taking advantage of these features for a couple weeks now. Those new to the service, however, can sign up for a free, 60-day trial. I recommend Mac users take advantage of the trial; the apps really are pretty sweet.

Product [MobileMe]

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Apple has updated its iLife ‘08 applications and accompanying software. The updates are available for download from Apple’s Web site, and can also be downloaded through the Mac Software Update tool.

The new versions are as follows:

• iWeb 2.0.4
• iLife Support 8.3
• iMovie 7.1.4
• iPhoto 7.1.4

The updates mostly “... address general compatibility issues, improve overall stability and address a number of other minor issues,” according to Apple. iPhoto 7.1.4 is the only exception, which contains new holiday greeting card and postcard themes for use with Apple print products.

There is also one cosmetic change to the updates: .Mac’s apps’ menu commands have been replaced with references to Apple’s newly launched MobileMe Service, which is pretty much an upgrade from .Mac, a move that Apple executives characterized as a “branding” update. Earlier this month, Apple released an update, the Mac OS X Update for Mobile Me 1.1, which included general system fixes that enhanced MobileMe’s compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5.4.

iLife Support includes system software components that are shared by all iLife ’08 applications.

Via [Gear Live]

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David Pogue, a popular Apple product reviewer for the NY Times, has officially released his review of Apple’s new MobileMe. Compared to .Mac, Pogue comes right out and states that MobileMe “...has a much clearer mission that solves a much clearer problem.” Although Pogue agrees that the initial launch of this product was a disaster, he says, “Once everything’s ready, the magic is impressive.” He goes on to detail just how MobileMe works, what it does for users, and how it has found “...a silver lining in the cloud.”

Pogue, being on top of the latest technology, is aware that products similar to MobileMe are available.  However, he states that “...none have the integration, polish and automation of Apple’s offering.” Despite his glowing review, he does point out some hitches. He is mostly disappointed by the time it takes for changes to appear on your computer—15 minutes. Apple is aware of this, though, and is not pushing their “push” campaign as much until this problem is fixed. They’ve also offered a free 30 day MobileMe extension to existing MobileMe and .Mac subscribers.

Head over to the NY Times to read the full review.

Via [NY Times]

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Apple’s successor to .Mac, MobileMe, announced during WWDC and touting a release date of one week ago, has faced some difficulties with stability. Thus, Apple is offering a 30-day service extension to eligible users, gratis. An e-mail was sent out to all MobileMe/.Mac users, apologizing and informing them of the 30 day increase in their subscriptions. If you were a .Mac member whose account was active as of July 9, 2008, or a new MobileMe user who created your account on or before July 15, 2008 at 7:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time, the 30-day extension will be added to all qualifying accounts (surprisingly, including free trial accounts) in a matter of weeks. In the same e-mail, Apple has also apologized to the time lag of the “push” features of MobileMe, citing that they will not use the term until it is completely true.

Can you name another company besides Apple that would go to such lengths?

The full e-mail follows:

We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.

Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.

Another snag we have run into is our use of the word “push” in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe “cloud,” changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word “push” until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.

We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.

We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.

Thank you,
The MobileMe Team

Via [Apple]

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For those of you who are patiently awaiting your .Mac address to officially become a MobileMe address with all the nice, new features, the wait is almost over.  On July 9th at 6 p.m. PT you will officially be able to sync all of your information to the cloud, using that wonderfully designed interface that was shown off and WWDC ‘08.  This means you will get that new @me.com e-mail address you have been waiting for, as well as double the amount of storage (10GB to 20GB for individuals). Are you excited?

One of the best parts about this upgrade is that Apple is making it super easy for the end users. Not only is this upgrade completely free, .Mac users will still have a fully functional @mac.com e-mail address they can continue to use. Apple will be sending an official e-mail to all of their subscribers to alert them of the change. Best of all, it works on every browser except Firefox 3, making it extremely accessible to both Macs and PCs.

Via [Apple Support Page]

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Amazon.com is now offering MobileMe for pre-order on their website at $89.99—about 9% off Apple’s price. This comes after Amazon has apparently sold out of .Mac retail boxes which they were selling for $69.99, but raised to $77.99 after MobileMe was announced at WWDC.

This has to be welcome news for Apple, as their web services have never really taken off in the past. MobileMe is still a little pricey for me, and I’m sure for many others as well, but Apple certainly has added a lot more value into their services with MobileMe. That Amazon feels it can get away with upping the price by $20 over the past month or so shows that demand for MobileMe is certainly there.

While Amazon’s price is still a discount over Apple’s, it’s still probably worth shopping around for one of the remaining .Mac retail boxes while you still can, as they are generally less expensive.

Product [MobileMe]

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As you can tell from the picture above, Apple’s MobileMe has been accidentally shipped to a lucky customer. MobileMe announced at WWDC and (truly) available worldwide on July 11, is the successor to Apple’s .Mac service. The customer in question, who reaped the benefits of a trigger happy Apple shipping worker, had his joy taken back. When he called Apple Support (why?), he was told a courier would be at his doorstep the next day to pick up the advance copy of the service. While I, personally, would not have told Apple, the service probably would not have worked 100% this early.

Read [Meckimac]

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With the impending release of MobileMe, Apple has sent out a notice to all .Mac subscribers that they should sync their bookmarks to all of their machines by Sunday, when access to bookmarks will be discontinued.

The decision to discontinue web access to bookmarks (as well as iCards and .Mac slides) has been met with some criticism even by the Apple faithful. While MobileMe does have a very nice bookmark synching feature, it will only work on computers that a member owns. So, let’s say a .Mac member only owns a desktop iMac at home, and is on the road using a PC in a hotel’s business center or internet cafe. Right now, he would be able to log into .Mac to access his bookmarks. But, once MobileMe is released, that will not be possible. He would have to buy a laptop to bring with him and sync his bookmarks to it.

MobileMe has a lot of nice new features, and I would say that overall it is an improvement, but I don’t realy understand the logic behind Apple’s decision to disable web access to bookmarks. If any current .Mac subscribers would like to have web access to their bookmarks after the MobileMe transition, I would recommend Google bookmarks or del.icio.us. Still, this means that they will have to keep their bookmarks up to date on another website rather than having synching and web access all in one.

Via [The New York Times]

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If you are thinking about signing up for .Mac in anticipation of the release of MobileMe, don’t be too trigger happy and shell out your $99 to Apple just yet. Instead, check out some of these third party vendors for much better deals on Apple’s revamped online application suite. Amazon is probably the best deal because they offer free shipping, saving you up to $22 on the package.
These .Mac retail boxes will still work to activate MobileMe accounts even after .Mac has been discontinued, but if you hurry, you’ll be able to get your coveted @mac.com e-mail address while you still can.

UPDATE: Macworld seems to have removed Amazon’s listing from its site. To see Amazon’s listing for .Mac as well as customer reviews, click here.

Regardless, it seems as though you can get a slightly better deal from CompuDirect.

Via [Macworld]

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The first stage of the .Mac revamp is underway as some users are noticing that their .Mac addresses are now also working with MobileMe.  To get your MobileMe e-mail address, simply take your existing e-mail address with @mac.com and change it to @me.com.  For example, “myemail@mac.com” would now be “myemail@me.com.” However, your .Mac address will still work for a while to make sure you don’t miss any e-mails.

Apple announced MobileMe at this year’s WWDC as an updated .Mac service. It’s beautiful online interface is what you would expect from a desktop application, but it is accessible from any computer, anywhere. Dubbed “exchange for the rest of us,” it will keep all of your calendars, contacts, e-mails, and other personal information up to date in the cloud. It’s going to be great.

Via [Macrumors]

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Marketcircle, a popular purveyor of Mac organization tools, has officially announced it is bringing the Daylite Productivity Suite to the iPhone. The application has been named Daylite Touch, and can be expected by year’s end.

Daylite is an application currently in use on many business Macs, and provide the users with a group calendar, address book, and many other organizational and productivity tools. Along with the server version of the program, companies will be able to add more devices and really help business. 

In the announcement, Marketcircle CEO Alykhan Jetha pointed out that there are many different tools available to iPhone and iPod Touch users that are not available on a desktop. Thus, it will be even better for most companies. Even when away from the computer, Daylite users will still be able to stay productive.

This product could really become popular in a business setting, as it is pretty much a simplified version of MobileMe for businesses. It will be interesting to see the impact that products like this have on the iPhone in relation to the business environment.

Via [iPhone Central] Product [Daylite Productivity Suite]

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It seems Apple has decided to restrict access to its online storage component, iDisk, from certain browsers. iDisk, once supported by any browser, is now blocking access to the site unless the browser used to visit it is officially supported.

Supported browsers include:

• Safari 1.3 or Firefox 1.0.4 (And later versions of these browsers)
• Camino (Which uses Firefox’s Gecko technology)
• Opera 9.5

PC users can access their iDisk using:

• Firefox 1.0.4 (Or later)
• Internet Explorer 6 (Or Later)

Browsers which are now officially unsupported (and consequently blocked) include OmniWeb and Firefox 3 release candidates, although the upcoming Firefox 3 will most likely be supported soon. If your browser is not supported, a warning message appears (see picture).

Browser restrictions are limited to iDisk pages, as all other .Mac services are still available for use with any browser. Is Apple ramping up security, or does this have something to do with Apple’s upcoming service, MobileMe which will replace .Mac and include the iDisk feature. Restrictions shouldn’t affect most people, though the move is interesting since Apple touts the new MobileMe service as being accessible by virtually any computer in the world.

Via [MacNN]

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MobileMe, Apple’s replacement for .mac which was announced on Monday at WWDC, is now available for preorder through Apple’s online store. Launching in July, the subscription based Internet service will cost $99 for a single user license, with a family plan that runs $149 a year. There’s also a $30 discount with the purchase of any new Macintosh.

From the Apple Store:

MobileMe stores your email, calendar, and contacts on a secure online server, or “cloud.” The cloud pushes the most current data to your iPhone, iPod touch, and computer so you’re always up to date. And your email, calendar, contacts, photos, and documents are accessible over the Internet through a set of easy-to-use web applications.

You also get easy photo sharing, 20GB of online storage, and more. For details, visit Apple’s website.

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Today, Apple seeded the newest version of Mac OS X v10.5.4 to developers. The new version is build 9e12. Currently, the biggest additions are support for MobileMe, Apple’s new replacement for .Mac. MobileMe will enable users to sync contacts, e-mail, and iCal events between many different devices seamlessly. 

Given that MobileMe is slated for release in July, and that it requires Mac OS 10.5.4 along with iTunes 7.7, it is safe to say those updates will be released around the same time, probably a few days before. Although Mac OS 10.4.11 is compatible with MobileMe, the MobileMe transition FAQ states that certain features and functionalities require 10.5.4 along with iLife ‘08.

Via [MacRumors] 

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Originally, I absolutely hated the name MobileMe as a replacement for .Mac. It just seemed so un-Apple. But, ever since the keynote, the name has been growing on me. I think that it was partially due to the great logo Apple made for it. It just seems to work. But in a recent post by none other then Fake Steve Jobs, he points out certain similarities between the logos for MobileMe and WindowsMe, focusing on the similarities between the “Me” sections. No word on whether Microsoft will take any legal action, let alone whether they care or have the legal grounds to do anything about it if they do.

Via [The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs]

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Amidst all the Mac OS X 10.6 Hype, Apple has officially seeded Safari 4 to developers. This new version focuses on performance and stability. Using the Squirrelfish program with WebKit, Apple says Safari 4 will be “the fastest implementation of JavaScript ever, increasing performance by 53 percent, making Web 2.0 applications feel more responsive.”  Since speed, quality, and stability are the main focus of 10.6, it seems Apple is getting a jump on those upgrades. Another example of lightning quick web applications is the newly announced MobileMe, the replacement for .Mac. 

With upcoming system upgrades and subsequent release of 10.6, Apple is really focusing now on speed and stability, especially in web apps.

Via [MacRumors

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Phil Schiller came onstage today to tell us about Mobile Me. Exchange for the rest of us. We can all now get push email, calendars, and contacts. On a Mac, a PC, or an iPhone or iPod Touch. And it is called Mobile Me.

Mobile Me will work for Mobile Me. It works with Outlook and other native applications. But best of all, it is best used in a Web 2.0 application suite at me.com. According to Phil, it “feels like a desktop application.” it even includes drag and drop, live search (just like Spotlight,) iDisk functionality, and a basic photo editor integrated with web galleries. There will be direct access to Mail, and all other features currently in .Mac.

While the name and logo is horrendous, the service is amazing. But one question. How much does it cost? And when will it be available? It costs $99/year, just like .Mac. A free trial, just like .Mac. It completely replaces .Mac. And it looks really great.

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