Apple's MobileMe service set to debut

(Credit: Apple)

Update at 10:08 a.m. PDT, with clarification on how users' e-mail will be handled.

Apple's MobileMe service is primed to be relaunched this week, ahead of the Friday launch of the iPhone 3G. That means subscribers to .Mac will find the service taken offline for a six-hour stretch as Apple makes the transition, according to a post in MacRumors.com.

The www.mac.com site will go down on Wednesday from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. PDT, leaving .Mac subscribers unable to access the site or use .Mac services, except for .MacMail via their desktop applications, iPhone or iPod Touch. In fact, existing .Mac users may have already noticed the ability to receive and send e-mail at an @me.com address if they so request. Other mac.com subscribers will be grandfathered in, allowing them to continue receiving e-mail at their mac.com address, while also receiving a new me.com address.

When the site relaunches as MobileMe, users will find a few changes, according to MacRumors.com:

The revamped .Mac service will offer Web-based e-mail, calendar, address book, photo gallery, and storage capabilities as well as "Push" sync services.

A one-year subscription to MobileMe will cost $99, which is similar to the .Mac price, but purchasers of an iPhone 3G will be able to score a subscription for $69 on Friday, the report notes.

[jscott418]

From what I understand my email address @mac.com does not have to change to @mobileMe
unless you opt too. So I am not sure if this story is correct? I do know the Web Mail address will change to MobileMe.com

[scottls2]

As stated above, you will be able to keep your @mac.com address but will ALSO be able to use your user name with @me.com as well. Plus the web mail address is me.com, not MobileMe.com, though I'm sure you'll be redirected if you goto the latter.

[MaLvaDo39]

You're right jscott, you will keep your .mac address and will instantly have the .me address with your original prefix.

This story's wording is odd and makes it sound like you lose the .mac email address.

[bonesbautista]

Apple's going to allow .mac email addresses to remain as a passthrough. The new email tag is not @.mobileme.com - it's @.me.com and the new email tags are already working for me and several others.

[4wight]

It is amazing that after months of being on Apple's web site, plus on numerous forum discussions that mac.com email address will NOT change, but get an additional me.com email address a so-called technology journalist still manages to get it WRONG! If something so obviously checkable and factually verifiable causes such a journalist problems it makes you wonder about the reliability of anything you read, online or off. Perhaps Dawn Kawamoto will care to check her facts and amend her story before blabbing inaccuracies across the internet.

[iPhonica]

Hey there, 4wight,
iPhonica here. I'm actually attempting to respond to the reply you left in my comment on the article entitled: "iPhone 3G: From Must Have to Maybe Later" (or something like that). Wasn't aware I couldn't reply to a reply, and I had no other way to get this 2 ya. Of course, you may very likelynever see it anyway!!

Thanks very much for your reply, and I stand corrected. I do realize the sales reps have little to no foreknowledge of what's coming in next at Apple. (The one individual salesperson who did irk me a bit was the know-it-all who rather proudly spewed forth a protracted dissertation on why the iPhone 3G could most certainly not be coming out in only a few months due to the network issues. But hey, nobody's perfect lol )
My "THEY ALL LIED" statement was actually meant to infer the company's seemingly devious way of getting the sales folk to gleefully extol why I should purchase an iPhone NOW, rumors of a 3G be damned, not the actual individuals themselves. You seriously wouldn't believe my timing with every Apple purchase I've made in the last 2 years! So that was the icing....
I know they were just doing their jobs, and frankly, with all the trubs and craziness, I couldn't be happier with my first gen for now. Hopefully next year a more thoroughly upgraded phone will be offered, and I'm happy to wait for it.

[ciopodcast]

I think the point the author was trying to make relates to the fact that your email is now active for both me.com and mac.com domains. So @mac.com and @me.com both will accept email.

[4wight]

No, the author clearly states (wrongly) that mac.com addresses have 'morphed' (ie changed) into .me.com adresses. Unless you use a different definition of the word morphed than everyone else, then the author is wrong. And the 'point' of a journalist is to make things clear to their readers, not for their readers to explain and make excuses for their inaccuracies.

[tripmode]

Let's all hope this is better than Windows Me

[Seaspray0]

So what will be gained by changing the name from .mac to mobileme? It's basically the same services... services which you can get for free elsewhere on the internet (Tom Kratz did a story about this months ago). $99/yr versus free for the same thing. Which one are you going to choose?

[4wight]

So don't buy it - if you know so much about it and you don't want it, don;t buy it. However, you are wrong - (a) it is not the same sevices, it is substantially upgraded (push email, 20gig space etc) (b) you cannot get all the services it offers free elsewhere. For some people, it makes sense to have a .mac or now mobileme service, for lots of different reasons - if you are not one of them fine, but there are plenty of people who are. I would guess that the change was essentially because more and more people using Apple's services don't actually have a Mac, so the name was slightly misleading. Now if you have a several PCs and an iPhone, you can use mobileme to link everything together, you don't need something called dotMAC.

[xbrando7]

Mobile Me definitely seems like a great solution for people in enterprise or small businesses, but i think it is inconvenient to use mobile me as a replacement feature for .Mac. It leaves people interested in the .Mac branch confused, and when you want it now want mobile me, which probably isnt what most people were looking for.

[spamho]

From the article:
"but purchasers of an iPhone 3G will be able to score a subscription for $69 "

Wow! Could we not use hacker/internet/masculinist slang such as "will be able to score". You can write it in standard English in the following manner: "but purchasers of an iPhone 3G will be able to subscribe for $69". It's shorter, simpler, and clearer.

Notice how many masculinist and hacker slang is about domination and over-powering, such as "owned", "pwned", "scored" etc. Let's cut out that kind of language in professional articles!

[BALTHOR1]

Streaming digital in your computer should be just as good as the analog to digital TV box,and the box gets digital from the Government Torrent.The box just might be confused because of the different file formats.

[BALTHOR1]

Streaming digital in your computer should be just as good as the analog to digital TV box,and the box gets digital from the Government Torrent.The box just might be confused because of the different file formats.

[BALTHOR1]

Streaming digital in your computer should be just as good as the analog to digital TV box,and the box gets digital from the Government Torrent.The box just might be confused because of the different file formats.

[bdubs1975]

@spamho
give it a rest. most useless comment ever.

[montecristo1]

I second that bdubs1975! Besides, I took the comment "score" in the article as being condescending...the author mentioned how at one time Apple gave its software for free. I also agree with other comments about why pay for a service than can get be free elsewhere. Why shouldn't Apple just provide it for free? Apple just likes to penny-pinch its loyal customers (not one). I was shock they didn't charge for the iphone sdk...

[WGibson648]

One of the facts not cited is that the new Me.com process messes up your .Sync actions.

Using Entourage, I have more than 6,000 calendar entries, all coded by project and category. In the old environment these synched (somewaht) seamlessly between Entourage, iCal, .Mac, and my second machine. Over the weekend, however, all of the items were stored on the .Me server, and erased from Entourage. When the .Sync mechanism stated that I have (more than) 6,000 conflicts, I instructed the process to reconcile the conflicts using Entourage (because the choice was iCal or Entourage).

The process is now in its 3rd hour of reinstalling all of the data on the Entourage database, less ALL categorizations and project affiliations.

Steve Jobs, you forgot the first lessons of the Boy Scouts ... leave the environment in a better condition than you found it!! I will now have to take the time to re-input all of those tagging data. Thanks.

[prozhan]

A little to know about mobileme; i think i found far too many bugs in the first few hours of owning this software; considering it's my first time using apple apps. my question is if i was able to find these so quickly, why weren't they dealt with by the programmers before the release?
The main reason i got this software was to use the web based application only to find out it's totally useless.

Here's what's really funny, I went to the 'Genius Bar' at the apple store in soho and these 'genius(es)' most of them had never used the software let alone knew how help me with my problems. all they did was check it on a mac, were suprised that the same problems showed up and assured me that apple was working to solve these issues.

1. adding events to the web based calendar does not work on macs or pc's.
2. the multi file upload of photos feature does not work. you're supposed to be able to upload a zip file and unzip it on the server; no such luck.
3. can't add to the to do list either.

i won't mention the numerous dropped or should i say 'failed calls' that i've experienced since having the new at&t plan. the upside to that is when someone i don't want to speak to can't take a hint, i can hang up and they automatically attribute it to 'my service provider'. are silver linings great?

[prozhan]

A little to know about mobileme; i think i found far too many bugs in the first few hours of owning this software; considering it's my first time using apple apps. my question is if i was able to find these so quickly, why weren't they dealt with by the programmers before the release?
The main reason i got this software was to use the web based application only to find out it's totally useless.

Here's what's really funny, I went to the 'Genius Bar' at the apple store in soho and these 'genius(es)' most of them had never used the software let alone knew how help me with my problems. all they did was check it on a mac, were suprised that the same problems showed up and assured me that apple was working to solve these issues.

1. adding events to the web based calendar does not work on macs or pc's.
2. the multi file upload of photos feature does not work. you're supposed to be able to upload a zip file and unzip it on the server; no such luck.
3. can't add to the to do list either.

i won't mention the numerous dropped or should i say 'failed calls' that i've experienced since having the new at&t plan. the upside to that is when someone i don't want to speak to can't take a hint, i can hang up and they automatically attribute it to 'my service provider'. aren't silver linings great?

[joeshays]

Here's a lament I invented for Mobileme users who've been left in the dark...
http://joesummerhays.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/my-ode-to-apples-mobileme-failure/

[jesuswilliams022]

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[e-mail]

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447011139058,

While MobileMe had some birth pains, it seems to be working well now. See my experiences, especially around email and "push", here:
http://www.techdc.com/?p=277