Apple apologizes for its MobileMe "push" service (Update)

Apple is the master of hype. Normally, it lives up to that hype. But in its 3G iPhone launch and now with its MobileMe synchronization service, Apple has fallen down. Flat.

Billed as an upgrade to Apple's .Mac service (to which I have subscribed for years), MobileMe is anything but. In fact, as The Register reports, it's not even the push email service that it purports to be. It's IMAP, just as .Mac was.

Email is managed through IMAP, and strictly speaking is pulled by polling the IMAP servers every minute, though that gives a reasonable impression of being pushed....

[C]hanges made using the desktop application are not instantly or automatically reflected on the iPhone or within The Cloud. Such changes need to wait for a synchronisation process, a lag of up to 15 minutes, before they are propagated between the platforms. Not only that but anyone trying to use some of the more advanced IMAP capabilities, such as the APPEND command, will find the MobileMe service unaware that any changes have been made to their e-mail account, at least until a good-old SMTP delivery triggers notification.

Is it really that big of a deal? Perhaps not. But it's also false advertising on Apple's part, and an unworthy "upgrade" on a service that for years has only had one major benefit: The name ".mac." I don't want a lame ".me" email address, and I'm finding that I don't really benefit from the changes to the .Mac service.

Are you getting more mileage from MobileMe?

UPDATE: I just received this from Apple:

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.

Wow. Apple...apologizing. That's newsworthy!

[cfj2222]

I noticed this when I recieved email notifications consistently faster on my iPhone than on my desktop computer. Seems the iPhone's email is "pushed" and the desktop's email is "pulled". How lame is that? "Yah, Apple. I want you to discontinue a bunch of features on .mac, change it's interface SLIGHTLY, and give me half a**ed Exchange support. Whoohoo."

[eschase]

I've been a .Mac subscriber now for about a couple of years. I have generally liked the service but I do think that it is over priced. Having multiple Macs and being away for days at a time the sync services have been invaluable to me. I am not in a business that has MS Exchange services so when myself or my wife changes something in the Address Book or Calendar all changes show up on my various Mac. Now that we also have multiple iPhones we would have to wait to physically sync them before any changes showed up. Now that .Mac is MobileMe, we don't have to wait for physically sync the iPhones for the changes. Changes from the iPhone to and from the Desktop may not be instantaneous but it is good enough for us. However, from iPhone to iPhone changes occur very fast. Fore instance, we recently bought my teenage son a cellphone, I put the number in my iPhone and within seconds it was in my wife's iPhone. Bottom line the service does work as advertised. The real problem is Exchange junkies that are constantly looking at their Blackberries every time they get notified of a change and expect MobileMe to do the same. Apple never said it would be exactly like Exchange. Additionally, tech journalist need to get off their high horses and realize that normal tech users don't use their devises as they do.

[exxtraz]

Well, at least Apple apologized to its loyal customers.

I never got an email from Micro$oft apologizing for Vista, XP, Viruses, Crushes, Freezes and monthly restores which I had to make.

Apple will fix it very soon..

[kmelkins59]

I have been in the computer industry for 30 yrs. I started in Unix, VAX, CP/M days and I have seen every type of worm, intermittent, and virusyou can imagine. I am amazed how Apple people have the worst security, poorest knowledge, and complete and utter rampant stupidity in the entire industry. I have seen the tobacco lobby virus rewrite the ce cylinders on brand new drives 28 MAC 9600, I have seen Mac users in a design studio use the cd trays as donut holders and then complain when I have to replace them because they can no longer read their cds. We use to call the anything from mac OS7.5 to OS9 (most applications crash, if not the operating system hangs) OS10 was a tremendous leap, but the patchwork that they did stitching Darwin(freebsd) onto their crappy interface has left many vulnerabilities or haven't you noticed the large number of updates.

[jrepenning]

I see an apology, but I don't see any recognition of the difference between "push" and "poll."

Considering the extortionate digital roaming charges that I believe still apply, this is a huge distinction!

[eduardgrebe]

I, and a large number of other users of MobileMe, find it rather disturbing that Apple says that they have sorted out all the problems, when many of us still cannot access Webmail. See this thread for a taste of the dissatisfaction: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1602550&tstart=0
Actually, to be fair, Apple seems to have finally acknowledged the problem and now say that 1% of MobileMe users cannot access mail: http://www.apple.com/support/mobileme/

[jerrymacGP]

Kudos to Apple. The transition from dotMac to Mobile Me was indeed bumpy, but it was only on the fritz for less than a week; yet they're extending all our subscriptions by 30 days. A bit late? Maybe? but I think this is still far superior customer service than anything I would expect from Micro$oft.