Mossberg pans MobileMe amid service outages
Apple's MobileMe cloud service is off to a rocky start, alienating even Walt Mossberg.
(Credit: Susan Dove/CNET News)As if Apple wasn't having enough problems with its launch of MobileMe, its usually reliable friend Walt Mossberg has recommended that people stay far away from the service.
Mossberg's review on All Things Digital doesn't even take into account the service outages that have many former .Mac users up in arms over their inability to access e-mail. In his view, "it's a great idea, but, as of now, MobileMe has too many flaws to keep its promises."
MobileMe does more than just give you e-mail: it's designed to let you access your contacts, calendars, and bookmarks from any computer connected to the Internet. One flaw that bothered Mossberg was the fact that while changes made to one of those applications on an iPhone sync instantly, changes made on the Dell PCs and Macs he used in his testing synced in 15-minute intervals. Apple has acknowledged that issue and says it's working on a fix.
But the main issue seems to be that MobileMe is sluggish and buggy, according to Mossberg. Web pages load very slowly, synchronization with Microsoft's Outlook e-mail software seems problematic, and manual refreshes were required to make changes appear inside calendar appointment.
The MobileMe mail problems don't seem to have been fixed, although Apple is still claiming that only 1 percent of all MobileMe users are affected. While that's indeed a pressing problem, Mossberg's experience is enough to make you wonder if Apple's a bit over its head trying to run a cloud computing service.
As an aside, an informal poll of the CNET staff could not turn up the last Apple product that Mossberg flat-out panned. The closest we came was the original Motorola Rokr phone, which to be fair, nobody liked.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
B. No Apple fan likes bad Apple products, and are just as vocal as those (such as yourself) who have no reason to be.
The 3G problem is not AT&Ts fault?it is Apple's (this coming from a fanboy). I have an AT&T 3G card for my MacBook pro and THE RECEPTION IS FAST AND FLAWLESS EVERYDAY I'VE USED IT.
There's something wrong with the 3G iPhones! My 1st gen iPhone works perfectly.
Give me .mac back!
I am not a heavy user of MobileMe and other than the occasional issues, it has worked fine for me. Not had any major issues with emails, contacts, calendar and pics. Everything seems to sync up fine.
Not sure what to make of all the complaints. Guess I'm waiting for the brick to fall but so far I'm a happy camper.
Bring in the clowns
Apple certainly had problems the first few days rolling out this new service, but it seems to be working fine for many people since. I functions and synchs fine here.
Considering that 99% of Apple's customer's are using a functioning Me Generation email product then what has been going on for the last 6 days is kind of a surprise for a company which developed the elegant backup scheme Time Capsule. Had Apple had the industry's traditional backup system or a redundant system their customer may have had email for the last 6 days.
Then the service is less reliable than dot Mac. On top of that the name is so narcissistic, and childish. There are loads of unhappy dot Mac users who dislike more than just the email outages.
There were certainly some problems getting this new service up and running, but I have not experienced any problems since. It all works and synchs fine from here.
What happened to the .Mac servers?
Why can't us "1%ers" roll back to those servers?
Why won't you tell us what is really going on?
Why haven't you provided forwarding address, and outgoing email operation services?
What went out of scope on your disaster recovery plan?
Simple silence is doing nothing but a world of hurt to your customers, and yourselves, even if they love you afterwards. A complete disaster is understandable but the problem is you aren't even letting us know that.
If you think by not providing information, and alternatives will keep you from losing mobileMe customers, you've got it wrong, only the opposite reaction will occur. Sure we will still be Apple customers, but something was laid and won't be touched by a yard stick if this isn't handled properly.
I've said my piece.
I have been using .Mac for five years and it has definitely been worth the money. MobileMe hasn't changed anything about that and it actually added several useful features. It also sounds like there are more improvements on the way, so yay for that.
The only thing that can be criticized is the fact that there are MobileMe users that have been without email service for the past week. That's downright inexcusable and something completely unexpected from Apple. Here's hoping there is a happy resolution in the near future, though the situation doesn't sound very good right now.
:(
If you need ActiveSync like functions, you would have Microsoft Exchange. Otherwise, who is buying this?
- by AppleSuxLeo July 27, 2008 2:56 AM PDT
- MobileMe should have been released on April Fools Day. When Walt Goatbeard pans it...you KNOW it really is a failure.
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