MobileMe continues to Disappoint Me.


Yesterday afternoon my mail just stopped working. MobileMe went down, and there was no way – not through iPhone, Desktop, or Webmail to access my email. Since I depend on my email heavily for work, to say that it was a bit upsetting would be an understatement.

To make matters worse, Gmail went down at the exact same time – making my alternate email unavailable as well. Had that not happened, there would probably be an article today about how I was dropping my MobileMe account, and it was time to move back to Gmail.

Unfortunately, now I’m sitting here not sure what to do. The MobileMe situation is getting past the point of acceptable. I mean this is a paid service that can’t even keep my email available on a consistent basis. My subscription expires in a month or so – and I see no reason to renew it. Not one…except that I don’t want to lose email from people that might be sending something to my @mac account.

The Gmail situation is a one time thing (for me anyway) in the last several years – so I don’t think that you can say that gmail is as unreliable as MobileMe has become – but all of my email address are set up with one of these two services – and have been for years.

As a result, I don’t really want to look at Yahoo! or (God forbid) Hotmail. So it seems, for the time being, I’m just stuck with Apple’s crappy MobileMe service.

I would warn others, though, that MobileMe is not something that is currently good enough to pay for. In fact – I almost feel like Apple should be paying ME something for putting up with this crap.


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

8 Comments

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  1. Yes, I agree with Rick. Seeing how I’m signed up for another year, I’ve stuck with MobileMe this last month, only to see it get better. This has been a horrible launch, perhaps the worse in software history, but it does offer great potential.

    As someone who has an iPhone, a MacBook Pro, and an office desktop, MobileMe really has worked well at integrating all 3 hardware. Honestly, considering the past and present of these types of services from just about everyone else, I’d say the screaming at this point is just piling on…it’s time to settle in with MobileMe like we have with every other piece of software, from Vista to Office to Google…it’s great when it works, a pain in the ass when it doesn’t, but I’ll live.

    /

  2. Everything said above is sadly true! To add insult to injury, Apple did not keep there commitment to provide updates every other day. I have had .mac for 3 years. This will likely be my last. I keep back-up accounts, but it will be painful to contact everyone as well as fix the contact information on various sites. Plus, I will no longer have the iPhone push ability.

    Funny thing is that I had moved to .mac from mail.com because it was more reliable (key word – ‘was’).

    The shine is off the Apple on this one!

  3. It’s been an extremely disappointing service for me as well, ever since the “re-launch”. However I think the overall concept is still a good one, if they can get it working right.
    I’ll be renewing mine next month in hopes that apple will stand by their product and make it what it should be. We’ll see…

  4. I was very much looking forward to using this service. However, 2 days ago I canceled my subscription. Although the trial period was nor over yet, I think I will not deal with this kind of service.

    With the new Gmail API I can now sync my calendars, and I will have access to email/calendar at anytime and everywhere with the purchase of iPhone. There is really no need for MobileMe.

    Another major issue for me is Gmail. Since I use it for everything, as well as having my own domain with their mail server, there is no going back. A MAJOR plus is the nice integration of Gmail with iPhone.

  5. I agree with many of the comments. I’m not an iphone user, and am just interested in getting back the functionality that has been removed by the so-called upgrade. I would like to be able to access the service from OS 9 machines, I would like the interface back.

    I feel, as a consumer working to influence other users to use Apple products, that this whole MobileMe things sets my projects back years if it doesn’t doom them.

    How can we get Apple to restore .mac and leave MobileMe to those who have a use for it ?

  6. I have never had an email account at any service (Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, etc., etc.) that did not drop out for various reasons and for various lengths of time. My Cableco ISP account drops out frequently – recently I lost their email for 12 hours while they did “routine maintenance” on their servers. Even the company I work for loses our email service for extended periods of time – do I ever get an explanation for it – NEVER.

    Has email been laggy at times with MobileMe – sure. That is my only complaint wit the service. The Calendar and Contacts syncing has worked wonderfully for me. And the ability to snap photos with my iPhone and send them to my MobileMe gallery instantly for viewing by friends and family is a service I cannot receive from any other service.

    MobileMe has met all of my expectations (maybe my expectations are either low or realistic), and I’m looking forward to them bringing the service up to Steve Jobs’ expectations – which will mean it will far exceed my expectations.

  7. I agree with Scott.

    I have been with .Mac since it was iTools and free. Besides some disruption that first day, I have had little in the way of problems, and my mail, contacts, and calendar has synced and pushed fine. Heck, my iPhone sometimes gets email before my Mac does!

    As Scott says, some of the other services are also attractive, and I do NOT regret paying for this service at all.

    Steve said it, yes, they bit off more than they could chew, but that is no reason to go ballistic. I think they will solve their problems, and it will be as solid as it has ever been.

    In the meantime, that extra month was a nice touch.