Apple: MobileMe actually works on Windows now. No, really

>>it was painfully clear that the Walt Mossberg/David Pogues of the world had never even tested these products together, not even once.<< Pogue said this: "Last Thursday, in my weekly e-column, I blasted Apple for the way it’s been handling the disastrous opening of its MobileMe service. Two weeks after launch, at least 20,000 customers still had no way to send or receive e-mail. The worst part, though, was Apple’s smug silence on the issue." Paul, please stop inventing straw men to fight. And do some research before saying foolish, untrue things. http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/what-are-the-iphone-apps-2/

Pogue today: "Who was it who wrote, in March 2008, just after Apple announced its intention to create an online app store for the iPhone, "You're witnessing the birth of a third major computer platform: Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone"? Oh, right--that was me." Was he right?

Apple Sucks!!!!!!!

Tayme: And yet Pogues review mentions Outlook. Ditto Mossberg, who says (criticizing Apple): "My MobileMe calendar, which originated on a Mac, didn’t flow into the main Outlook calendar, but appeared as a separate calendar in Outlook, which was visible only by changing settings. My address-book groups on the Mac, which are simply distribution lists, didn’t show up as distribution lists in Outlook, but as separate address books, and they also weren’t immediately visible. Apple blames Outlook quirks for these issues, but in my view, it should have overcome them." Paul was just flat out wrong on this one.

"And yet Pogues review mentions Outlook. Ditto Mossberg, who says (criticizing Apple):" Wow! They mention Apple, so they must have tested this totally different issue that was fixed today. When did "Mac fanatic" become synonymous with "dimwit"?

Nothing like competition :) Apple realized the big bad MS was about to launch something that would work.

it's a good thing I take the exact opposite direction from any advice Paul gives, on pretty much anything. I think he gets more deranged by the day. The best latest case is this op-ed he does about google and activesync. Basically he goes on lamenting how this hurts Microsoft instead of how it benefits EVERY PERSON USING A SMARTPHONE. Way to look out for users, Paul. Instead he does what he always does, shills for Microsoft. And of course he finished that piece with a shiv to Apple, saying it's time for Microsoft to pull out of any business with them altogether. I mean, how does that benefit users?? And what was the use of mentioning apple at all in an article about Google? I mean really, what a jerk.

"If it didn't "jive" it was wrong, or did not fit in." In earlier times, it meant the opposite of what it does now. It is was a "jazz" lingo term, at least in the original usage. Now it is just a general "musical" term meaning "in sync with", exactly as gorath depicts. The term stems from jazz music having rhythmic origins. "Jibe" on the other hand, is a sailing term, so how the other meaning comes out of that just doesn't make any sense. It's like how you can be "up on current events", but be "down with OPP". In common language the terms "up" and "down" mean the same, even though a dictionary would claim otherwise. In any case, it's slang. "Jive" was never a "real" word, so to say that a specific dictionary definition is accurate is a poor man's argument that you just can't win. It's just another case where printed definitions haven't been updated with modern usage. I could pull a number of other dated terms out of the dictionary too.

MobileMe was never intended to be used on Windows as the main way to access it. Windows access was meant for Mac users when they had to use a PC/Windows. MobileMe is just .Mac renamed. Yes it suffered badly during the 3G iPhone launch. Apple blew it with the roll out. They introduced the 3G iphone, update for the older iPhone, and iTouch and moved .Mac from their Data Center to a third party hosting company all at one time. Bad move. MobileMe for a Mac user is a great product, even more so if you have an iPhone. Its imap email, calender, contacts, cloud based disk space, web hosting, and online photo shareing all accessed from your Mac, iTouch, iPhone and a web browser on a PC. All of the iLife applications hook into it. There is nothing on the consumer side for PC's that cant match it. Sure you can put a bunch of free stuff together to get close, with different logins and full of adds.

Here's another way to look at it: I found another tidbit online which describes the modern usage of "jive" to have come not necessarily from jazz music. The usage of the former jazz music-age lingo term was brought into the realm of more modern rhythmic jazz ballet, meaning "in step with". Word origins are fun. Next, let's look up the word "testimony".... ;)

"That begs the question, what exactly is wrong with it?" Funny, It's just a pet peeve of mine, but then I'm a known curmudgeon. Interestingly, our friend Mr. Thurrott uses that phrase incorrectly all the time.

"Funny, It's just a pet peeve of mine, but then I'm a known curmudgeon. Interestingly, our friend Mr. Thurrott uses that phrase incorrectly all the time." I don't claim to be an expert on grammar. I was just curious to know what was wrong with it. :-) I did find a link, though: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/begs-the-question.aspx

"There are a lot of us that read this site that are frankly getting tired of these kids." Take your own advice then and ask yourself "Self: " why are you so deranged that you are...commenting on it if you dont like it?"

"MS was about to launch something that would work" That would be a first !!

>>It was all about how one group at MS was hurting the other.<< He didn't say that. And I guarantee you that MS didn't make this decision without the senior company officers input. "I'm not sure what Microsoft is receiving for the ActiveSync license that enables this functionality. But I doubt it's better than the lost revenues that come over the next few years as Exchange and Windows Mobile users dwindle."

>Is Microsoft evil? I don't know, but there are definitely no saints there. http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Comes-3096.pdf After reading this you can see where Mike G was coming from and it will make you wonder what are the motives of some others. Yawn!

I found this on Macworld.com. Should be a good read for Mobile Me Customers. http://www.macworld.com/article/134941/2008/08/mobileme_phishing.html Apparently, not fixed enough yet.

@Yawn. While I do find the linked PDF a bit creepy, and can't exactly commend such actions, I also realise that they are not the only company using such tactics. Every organisation want to run as long as possible, and be as succesful as possible. The wording used in that document may be strong, and a bit demented, but the intended end result appears no different to that of any other large scale company.

I don't understand why Mobileme is overpriced. You can buy a one-year family pack renewal at Amazon for $100. That's about $8 per month. Sure, there are free email services, but many if not most of them have ads. Or Google's doesn't work very well unless you use a web browser (IMAP is dodgy with them). hotmail doesn't support IMAP at all. Plus, you get the great online versions of Address book, mail and ical. It's really a nice system and frankly, there's nothing as nice out there right now. Sure, others are coming up with stuff, but will it be so well integrated with a phone as the iPHone is with mobileme? Maybe but we haven't seen that yet. Most of the MS stuff is beta, or for tech oriented users right now. That will change, but hasn't yet.

"While I do find the linked PDF a bit creepy, and can't exactly commend such actions, I also realise that they are not the only company using such tactics." It is scary. I hate to say this, but it does make them sound like "WinJihadists". I'm sure this goes on at other places too, though. Only an idiot would believe otherwise. That makes me wonder (but doesn't beg the question) whether Apple has an after-school program where they pay kids like robertsjoe to troll sites. I think it's a great idea to get them young. At that age, I think they're easier to brainwash.

I think cesjr is saying that Amazon has MobileMe for $64 which is $5.3 monthly. I'm sure all of you that derisively talking up the $99 figure probably already know this, but it doesn't support your argument that it's overpriced. Same goes for Paul, of course. He would bend over backwards to illustrate favorable pricing to Windows software and hardware platforms... no matter what the far reaches of the net it's to be found. I never hear him knocking the list price for Office. Talk about a Microsoft Tax, most people use Office97 level of features in their suite but we're perpetually upgrading at exorbitant and frankly extortionary rates. Same goes for Windows. Is $300 for Vista a fair price? The answer is yes. If you'd rather exchange your $300 for a copy, then it is worth that much. But you lose credibility if you're lamenting the cost of MobileMe. That said, I love that Google has taken their ActiveSync license to the people. That helps so many people, including Paul himself! He currently uses NuevaSync to perform exactly what Google will now allow him to do natively. And I fondly remember when he was first cursing mobileme on the iphone, he hoped fondly for the day when Google would offer push contacts/calendars to the iphone. And now they have, and guess what? It's a problem for him, and why?? Because it may end up offending his handlers at Microsoft for the deal they've cut. It also hurts Apple, but I think that's great, that'll force them to innovate better features in mobileme. Obviously Paul is thinking less is more. 'Windows not Walls', apparently is not the way forward as far as Paul is concerned.

I would echo the earlier comment that Mobileme doesn't offer much value for the Windows user. There are better and cheaper alternatives if you're just looking to sync your iPhone, especially now that Google offers sync. If you have a Mac, or more particularly, several of them, it's actually a really good service. It lets you sync bookmarks, calendars, contacts, keychains, and mail accounts (including rules and signatures) between as many macs as you want. It gives you web hosting, multiple email addresses, photo and movie galleries and 20G of disk space in the cloud. And it's tightly integrated with the OS and all the iApps so it's dead easy to use all that stuff right out of the box. Plus, you can get it for a lot less than $99/year if you buy the retail package from amazon. So. I don't mean to sound like an ad, and I'm not trying to start something. It's just that I understand why the average reader of this blog would find little use for Mobileme. For the Windows user, the various Live services offer mostly the same stuff, and if all you need is sync there are other ways to do it. But if you have a bunch of Macs, it's not a bad deal. (BTW, I don't have an iPhone, so I can't speak to that side of it at all.)

The documents presented are basic corporate evangelism. MS is in the business to make money, and expanding your business to as many reaches of the world and getting your people on board and others is vital to the success of the company. *ANY* company. And while I didn't read the entire thing, I did find one of the pages where it says very boldly and plainly, DON'T LIE. It also mentions that they are under the microscope and need to be careful.

"@WebGuy - Would I do that??? ;-) " To be honest with you, sorry, but that doesn't gibe/jibe/jive (pick your favorite). That begs the question, why would you do it? I don't think your doing it. I think its you're computer! OK. Any more pet peeves?

"People who use quotation marks for emphasis." When I first came to the US, I had absolutely no idea why some people made those weird hand gestures. "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White is a great resource for international graduate students in the US.