Apple offers 30 days free to MobileMe customers

Amid the shaky launch of the iPhone 3G, Apple's new MobileMe service--a juiced-up revamp of its .Mac offering--also took a blow. Apple has consequently opted to entitle eligible members to 30 days free as a we're-sorry gift.

.Mac accounts had been scheduled to "migrate" to MobileMe last Wednesday evening, but instead produced an outage in which neither service was available. New subscribers, meanwhile, had experienced issues signing up.

"The transition from .Mac to MobileMe was a lot rockier than we had hoped," a details page from Apple explained. The offer isn't for everyone: only .Mac members whose accounts were active on July 9, and MobileMe members who registered before 7:00 p.m. PDT on Tuesday (i.e., amid the activation chaos) are given the 30 free days.

It's automatically added to eligible accounts, Apple's site explained.

[rcrusoe]

I liked John Paczkowski of allthingsd.com, take on MobileMe's problems.<br /><br />"5 days of technical problems? MobileMe really is "Exchange for the rest of us"" :)

[AppleSuxLeo]

HAHAHAH...Leo Laporte even said MM was a POS.

[irondog1970]

I've been a .Mac subscriber for many years. While I do not expect perfection, I do expect some sort of compensation when things do go awry.<br /><br />Apple admitted the situation &#38; made a fair trade for the frustration. I also like the fact that the extension is automatic.

[Kev Orng]

I get thirty free days over an outage that barely affected me? Sweet.

[itsaspork]

I wonder if Apple outsourced MobileMe, and it wasn't managed directly. Example: the Engrishy account verification login message: "Please re-enter the password for to access your account information". Not like them to miss the details like this.

[Ember999]

Yes they did outsource. It is entirely run by and built by a company separate to Apple - I live in Scotland, UK and I have had to as a last resort phone the Apple European Headquarters in Cork, Ireland to try to get them to sort my problem. A Customer Relations guy told me quite a lot - not least that I will (and others will) probably get cut off if the problems with renewing our accounts are not resolved by MobileMe before our account expiry date! It's disgusting! I have wrote in my blog how they are refusing to acknowledge Dumfriesshire, Scotland with a 148,000 head population. I live there and I cannot renew as whoever programmed the billing page forgot to actually look at a map to see what counties the various countries that make up the United Kingdom have in it!<br /><br />So, it's outsourced and it's a disaster...in the USA and over the pond here for us Brits!

[itsaspork]

I wonder if Apple outsourced MobileMe, and it wasn't managed directly. Example: the Engrishy account verification login message: "Please re-enter the password for to access your account information". Not like them to miss the details like this.

[myles taylor]

I signed up at 8:00 PM, PST. Guess I don't make the cut. Oh well. :)

[troyallen]

MobileMe works for me now. A little slow, but works

[AppleSuxLeo]

mm=pos

[vballas]

Have been a memnber for 5 months and the free 30 days are not there yet ...

[jscott418]

This new service was more about serving the iPhone community then anything else. I have been a .Mac user for a few years and would have rather had a mail only account then have to shell out $99 a year for things I will never use. If I am going to pay (their are plenty of free options out there) I would hope the service would be better then so far it has shown. Only time will tell if Me works out the bugs or if it becomes plagued with problems.