More problems reported with Apple's MobileMe Mail

More MobileMe problems were reported over the weekend, this time with e-mail.

(Credit: Apple)

Apple continued to have problems with its new MobileMe service over the weekend and into Monday, with several users unable to access their e-mail.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a summary of complaints from its readers up on its site, and I've been hearing from some CNET readers as well about problems accessing e-mail accounts that were once known as .Mac, and now fall into the MobileMe service. Apple's discussion boards are filled with angry MobileMe customers who haven't been able to access their e-mail all weekend.

Apple's MobileMe status page has a note up at the moment that says "1% of MobileMe members cannot access MobileMe Mail. We apologize for any inconvenience." It's just the latest in a series of problems that has plagued the launch of MobileMe, a $99-a-year service that lets you access contacts, calendars, and other files from one computer on other Macs or PCs, as well as your iPhone.

Apple provided 30 free days of service as a result of the launch issues that also waylaid Apple's iTunes servers and disrupted the iPhone 3G launch. The company reports its third-quarter earnings later Monday, and it will be interesting to see if analysts push Apple on the problems it seems to have having with its Web infrastructure. An Apple representative did not immediately return an e-mail seeking comment on what might be causing the problems.

[discern]

The Mac Bashings shall commence forthwith...

[catch23]

Pointing out that Apple is not perfect is bashing?
Wow, you folks are a touchy crowd.

[danielmaui]

bash bash bash... LOL

[photoinduced]

Nothing like waking up and seeing all of your email GONE! It's slowly coming back on line, but after the bricking of my iphone for hours, and now crippling my email, Apple has some splaining to do. I guess they were ready for a misstep. As a famous advertising agency once said, " How big can we get before we get bad?" Oopps..I guess that is Apples' agency.

[teddiwick]

I was perfectly happy with .mac! Able to get my emails no matter where I was. Now nothing. Guess they don't know "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Now face leaving on a trip and a worthless iPhone email account. Bad enough I've already had to ship back my first iPhone for hardware problems, 2nd one going back for same problem and now software issues. Not what I expect from Apple.

[tekwiz4u]

Apple has kept pretty mum about this whole "fubar" launch of iphone and MobileMe. What is up with them? Why we have not heard ANYTHING from Steve or executives on explanations on what went on? Are they waiting for us to FORGET the whole thing?

If it was my company, I expect "damage control" here and have my public relations department working overtime with press conferences.

[ralfthedog]

It is very hard to guess when a problem like this will be fixed. You can make up a date or time, but that is setting up your customers for disappointment.

It will be fixed when it is fixed. The people working on it will be quite supprised when it is.

[sonnyburnett]

Things break or don't work properly, especially new things, that's life. But the same non-sense posted in minute text buried on at the bottom of a web page "1%... blah blah blah, we apologize" is bird seed. Apple is more concerned with showing the world that the number of people affect is very small, which means NOTHING to the people affected. Give us some real information as to when we can expect a fix and then send an e-mail out to announce once the fix is complete. I know damn well I'll get an e-mail when you have a new product to sell me.

[justanotherday]

July 21, 2008

I have not been able to access my email at mac/me.com since July 18, 2008. No sure why Apple Inc. is not addressing these issues. The message at Apple stating that 1% of the users can not access their email is not true. I am not interested in all the bells and whistles of the new products. I don't own the new products and do not intend to buy them, considering how awful the email situation has gone and been handled. I am a business owner and need 24/7 access to my email. I paid for the service and expect it to work as advertised. Apple needs to really tell us what is really going on with this migration.disaster called me.mail.

[jimoase]

I am one of the casualties of Apples entry into the ME generation of software products. Our service has been out for 4 days. What do you think environment or heredity?

Seems an irony that Apple, usually known for clever names, comes up with ME.com at just this time. Are we looking at what we can expect from the ME generation product line? In the age of images in marketing I think Apple could have done a lot better than ME generation products.

Lets hope their next ME generation product is better prepared for prime time.

Jim

[joetesta70]

APPLE IS THE NEW EVIL EMPIRE. Ever wonder why Steve Job is not on Forbes' list of biggest philanthropists in the US? Greed. He'd only have to give away 1% to make the cut.

Bill Gates makes the list, Michael Dell, Sergei Brin, Larry Ellison and a host of other tech people.

Closed and proprietary system. That's Apple. That's Evil.

[ralfthedog]

I have not checked into Mr. Jobs charitable giving. Many public people prefer to keep their giving private. I would guess that is the case here.

[petersenj612--2008]

Maybe I'm one small voice in the wilderness and, It did take a while to get the iPhone 2.0 update but all of my accounts have been working perfectly since the .mac->mobile me change. No complaints.

[skotmiller]

No problems here other than the two hours it took to get the new 3G on launch day. Oh and MobileMe had my phone updated before I got to my car. Aside from some slight downtime, I think Apple has done a good job. Not too happy about the not so pushy push. But I will live.

[Nodack]

"The message at Apple stating that 1% of the users can not access their email is not true."

And you know that for sure because?......

"Closed and proprietary system. That's Apple. That's Evil."

That's why you should stick with MS. They aren't greedy or Evil. Microsoft loves you and they only want to help you live a better life because they are kind and gentle, unlike those EVIL Apple people that just want to steal your money and make your life a living hell, just because they get enjoyment out of it.

I love whiny people.

[Vegaman_Dan]

But it's true! Microsoft has intentionally made the OS unstable and introduces blue screens to give you some down time away from the computer to spend with your friends and family instead of wasting it away on tech blog sites like these. :)

[Schmatta_Hari]

Love having my Mac tools to-go.
Hate not having email on the laptop or the iPhone due to MobileBuggerMe problems.
Hate AT&T phone coverage. Since November, when I switched, I'm paying $80/mo to have my conversations filled with "You're breaking up!" You're right, we are. I'm shopping at Verizon for a phone that works. The laptop is light enough to carry for my contacts and calendar. See ya, AT&T. AND, after 4 days without email, I'm wiping "iStupid" off my forehead too.

[benjaminplaut]

I have owned [e-mail] since 2005. It has been down since Friday July 18 at 9:37am pacific.
I had an apple computer poster on my wall in 1982. I used windows products in the 90's because of work. Over the last several years, I have had a reliable windows desktop and a mac laptop. I was in the market for a new mac desktop and the iphone.

No more.

Apple has great designers and marketers. They do not pay attention to existing customers, infrastructure or reliability. There is a reason the military and emergency services do not use Apple products.

They are pretty luxuries not meant for serious people.

I want to like Apple. I live in Hollywood, where the company is worshipped. I like my ipod nano.

But I have lost faith in Apple, and I need communication devices that are reliable. The mac.com switch to mobile me, unnecessary and silly, was scheduled for its switchover at the same time as a new gadget release. Who was behind those brilliant decisions?

I appreciate a company that buys the rights to new hip L.A. songs from the first radio play and uses them in ads. I like the fact that editors and creative types find Apple to be somehow more freeing and effective than windows.

But you know what? Microsoft e-mail down four days would lead to Congressional Investigations. Apple implodes its system and gets a free pass.

I am very leery of this company going forward as I watch the inexplicable destruction of a once-great, then dormant, then soaring brand. These guys are artists, they are not engineers or logicians.

Too bad.

[Schmatta_Hari]

Nothing would make me go back to Windows. I need a computer for business and Windows is like trying to saddle a gnat. I will stick with Mac for computer business. It's more than pretty -- it works. But, I'm over the dream of a streamlined phone product that does it all until Apple shakes AT&T off their ankle. As to the current MobileMe and email woes and MS vs Apple: Funny how the addition of Microsoft Exchange coincides with all this problem. Hmmmm.

[Vegaman_Dan]

"Funny how the addition of Microsoft Exchange coincides with all this problem. Hmmmm."

I don't see this related at all. Exchange works fine on the iPhone and Touch right now. I don't believe they are related to MobileMe's issues.

[toosday]

You know, I was giving MobileMe a couple of weeks to get it's act together. No longer! I just signed up with HostMonster minutes ago and can't wait for my MobileMe trial to expire!

MobileMe has good features (when they work), but, as with .Mac, it's not worth the trouble. Apple has had months, if not years if you count .Mac experience,to figure out all of this and they still botch it. I jumped ship mostly because it seems that this is a sign of things to come with MobileMe.... and that's not very impressive.

[eyepoker]

the reason that you haven't heard anything from Apple is that dicussing anything that sheds a bad light on things is not part of their business practices. They're entire marketing thing is based on supporting the perception that things "just work". Many people have known for quite a long time that that is simply not true. From Apple deleting posts in forums that they run to their glib insistance that they're products are bug free. You should not be surprised at all - Apple is simply doing what it always does - ignore anything negative. In the meantime the brainwashed "faithful" continue to buy buy buy... It is interesting to me to point out that if Apple misteps in some way, the faithful explode. Anyway, in the end, there will be no press release or official stement, just a peace offering of some sort and thats it. Apple will not discuss any of this. They are as arrogant as their user-base (well, ok, maybe not all, but damn near 100% of the user-base).

[Vegaman_Dan]

Apple never deletes negative postings or threads in their forums. The forum system sometimes just... ah... 'loses' them. Sorry, it just happens now and then. Nobody knows why it happens on the negative commetns. A complete mystery.

Now kidding aside, it is true that Apple is very quiet about anything negative about the company. If you never acknowledge the problems, you never have to worry about it in the future. All companies would love to do this, but Apple is one of the few to be successful at ignoring their customer's complaints to this level and get away with it.

[ianthomson]

I've been without email since Thursday and was told by an excited
Apple Store 'helper' on Regent Street, Central London this morning
that he hadn't come across a 1%-er before me as though I was some
sort of rare insect he'd found crawling round the Apple toilet bowl.
With that he hurriedly swatted me away when he realised that there
was nothing he could do to lighten my mood about the failure of
MobileMe to provide me with a basic email service. "I have no idea,"
he said looking over my shoulder at a younger and prettier ladybird.
I was hoping that this migration over to MobileMe from .Mac would be
the answer to my prayers as a start-up company that relies on making
sure details changed on the road are there waiting for me when I
return home to base at night.
Temporarily, I've jumped onto an old mail.com email account that of
course works perfectly. It make me wonder why I bothered to get
excited in the first place.
This is not a rare story of course. Having read this article and
numerous postings from the US, it's clear that Apple's PR machinery
has ground to a halt too. By giving us no information in relation to
the status of the problem for 4 days, it reeks of the corporation's
amateurish approach to after-sales support.
"You can only get responses online," mumbled another worker bee on
the shop floor. MobileMe has created another slippery high wall for
customers to clamber up when wishing for a human voice to tell you
that, 'yes, it's not working, but we know why and we're fixing it.'
I avoided rushing to O2 to upgrade to an iPhone last week and
struggled to cover up a ****-eating grin of smugness when I read in
the national papers of all the hiccups for those who queued in the
all night rain and wind to hold aloft the thinner, faster handset
like a Tolkien ring. I guess the Jobs Curse has finally reached me,
poisoning my inbox and leaving me alone and void of hope that my
business can work without the help of Microsoft. Am I wrong Steve?

[Gasaraki]

I love Apple. It's ok. I forgive them even though I don't have my email and my phone is not working yet. This is not a big deal people, deal with it.

[tekwiz4u]

What...are you high? 2 means of communications "out of service" and it's not a big deal?!!!

Go back drinking your latte.

[Vegaman_Dan]

I'm curious, do you have your pants down and bent over when you say this?

I'm sorry for the crude imagery, but it's comments like this that demonstrate exactly the sheep mentality that Apple has been fostering. Apple does advertise and promote people to 'think different'.... but not if it differs from their own position. Companies would love customers who buy the products and then don't complain when they don't work or even expect them to be helped. It's a wonderful situation for them.

[texan1977]

Wow, you are brainwashed.

[lenjay1942]

Hi, long time Apple user here, iMacs, iBooks, iPhone, iPods -- MM is a waste of time & energy.
I will continue to use the products but forget MM. I'm canceling .Mac/letting expire.
$99 to be frustrated!! -- no way Steve" - LJ. CA

[natsuissa]

same for me i have several problems for the sync, hope it will be fixed

nat
http://www.themostpowerfulcompany.com

[everettglen]

I am a long time .mac user, I have had no email since thursday. Apple will not even respond to emails and try to wait long enough for them to talk to you. AND when you talk to a human THEY have no idea why there is a problem. 1% of users please......When my subscription is up ill just cancel it.

What a waste of money.

[PaintingLight4me]

Mobil me my immobile a__!!!! Not only is there no help for a user to set up this "wonderful" new product but it lacks the bells and whistles of any major player like AOL. I switched to Mac.com two years ago and was satisfied somewhat until I realized that I could not flag or stop stalkers or unwanted mail.... They offered a nice little service of iCards and now that is gone... so sending a nice snapshot of current work to clients is out of the loop. You add on the aragance of thinking that users would like to have their computer mail down for three days and you have on angry user... Now to top it off... don't try to get help. That just puts you into the MAC loop of try another download or better still lets send you to another useless page of even more useless data... MAC has become so aragent that they do not even have to service their customers... a bit like AT&T before the breakup when the information operators were so nasty... at least back then you could talk to someone... I have three apple computers... everything has gone from IBM to Apple years ago but now... this smells of windows and Gates..... Inovation is the hallmark of a great company but lets make sure it works first. ... if not lets make sure that there are enough people out there to take the calls needed to keep me from writting my first letter of nasties about my favorite company.... what a shame that ego should go before service... just who is running this show?

[AppleSuxLeo]

Mobile Me...Apple just shot itself in the foot !