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.

[joetesta70]

It's something when Apple's biggest shill even panns the product. MobileMe is stupid name too.

[wratbatblue]

Somebody tell Mossberg to take up the cause of the 3G reception problems, too. That's something else affecting lots and lots of people, and something else that seems to be a direct Apple problem, as well.

[Macanada]

Yeah, a rocky start, but for me.. even with a few bumps in the road, MobileMe is still a better product than .Mac - what I've been paying for for the last 3 years. I for one welcome the changes and so far I find everything working well for me.

[anilsudh]

Apple should have kept this product in Beta and allowed users to play with it for a couple of months before announcing the cut over.

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.

[nouser]

As much as I'd like to rip the service, it has worked well for me. I must be the lucky 1%. My calendar and contact sync just fine. My email has always worked. I've never lost an email and it seems quite speedy.

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.

[AppleSuxLeo]

If more than one person was dumb enough to use it...it would have been named MobileUs.

[jimoase]

Unfortunately Apple rolled out their Me Generation product line at the same time they rolled out a single non-functional email server. This one non-functional server services 1% of Apple's Me Generation email. We can assume the Me Generation email product as rolled out was functioning because, according to Apple, 99% of their customer have had full service for the last 6 days.

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.

[artistjoh]

Dot Mac was always expensive for what it was but at least it had cool features like iCards which was the main reason I subscribed. Now without warning features like iCards and HomePage were discontinued in the transition to MobileME. To add insult to injury Apple promoted MobileME as being "everything we loved about dot Mac plus more." You cannot remove large chunks of services and then claim the new service is "Everything" we loved. It is plain dishonest.

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.

[edgedesign]

AppleSuxLeo rarely has anything intelligent to say... just do a search.

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.

[usna84_dotmac]

As a dotMac user, the 1% seems to be hitting me more than it should. I would really hate to have to redirect my email to gmail or yahoo (or god forbid my ISP account) because Apple was a little too quick on their release.

[Thomas, David]

As much as I love Apple, and that's quite a bit, they need to be blasted over this. Not with irrational comments, but serious, focused questions. You can't measure the disappointment I, and others, have experienced after relying on a reliable product for so many years.

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.

[galleyhannon]

I read Mossberg's piece on MobileMe and thought is was really dumb. I never liked his technology reviews. It sounded to me like he was trying to do something strange with Apple Mail and syncing didn't like it. Oh, and Microsoft products weren't working too well with it. That's a shame, but BFD.

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.

[sroussey]

Oh my God, I read this, and then went to check my email, and half my email is GONE!!!

[jedijeff1962]

the mobileME name is way over the top and embarrassing to use for a professional. to loose iCards is significant and a major loss. very poorly thought out i wonder if apple can try to make this thing right again?

[iPhotographer]

What is the point of MobileMe? $100 a year for 40GB of storage (I could get an external driver for far less), email and a photo gallery, the latter two you can get for free with gMail and Photobucket.
If you need ActiveSync like functions, you would have Microsoft Exchange. Otherwise, who is buying this?

[FS1982!]

I'm doing the free trial on MobileMe. I haven't had very many issues. I have noticed the website does run slow especially on Windows computers (which MobileMe does advise you at startup). With the 15 minute refresh I have not experience that. Right when I put an event into my calendar on Mobile me my phone refreshes. Honestly I don't know what everyone is complaining about. Even with the 2.0 download I got it mid-day the first day it came out with no problems. I think the most applicable quote in the Mac situation "You either die or live long enough to see yourself become the villian."

[jcasteli]

I have been a loyal Apple customer for 5 years and couldn't me more disappointed than I am today with MobileMe. This application has crippled the Apple user community and is far less useful than expected. It is not fully integrated and not a replacement for any Blackberry. Calendars are not integrated with email, and you cannot send invites out via the Calendar application. It's just terrible. And two weeks into the launch and our email is still not consistently available. 1% may not be able to access email, but how many experienced smaller bugs, slow speeds, sync failure, emails missing, calendars disappearing and contacts unavailable through email for two weeks?

[troyallen]

I have no issues with mobileme. sluggish, but Everything works as advertised. I only dislike the interface. Looks ugly

[texasags]

I haven't had any trouble with MobileMe and neither have three other people I have talked to. I know many have had trouble, but that doesn't mean it's everyone.

[AppleSuxLeo]

MobileMe should have been released on April Fools Day. When Walt Goatbeard pans it...you KNOW it really is a failure.