Apology email and 30 day extension for "push" terminology

[jandep]

I received this email a few minutes ago.

We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.
Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.
Another snag we have run into is our use of the word "push" in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe "cloud," changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word "push" until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.
We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.
We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.
Thank you,
The MobileMe Team

[Sky Blue]

yay! 30 days free!

edit: not seeing the change yet.

[edesignuk]

Seems reasonable enough I suppose.

Such a huge transition of systems will never go smoothly, their wording regarding the push features was evidently a grave mistake.

I think an additional month of service for free is adequate.

[jk48]

wow.

you'd think they would have realized this before hand and not called it push to begin with! is apple losing their cool? since the market growth and all are they going to start to decline and lower their standards? is apple to next microsoft?

[vandozza]

yay! 30 days free!

edit: not seeing the change yet.

they did say to expect to see the change reflected in your account "over the next few weeks"

where's my email :confused:

[Sky Blue]

wow.

you'd think they would have realized this before hand and not called it push to begin with! is apple losing their cool? since the market growth and all are they going to start to decline and lower their standards? is apple to next microsoft?

Joke post, right?

[jandep]

So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word "push" until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.


As I read this again, I thought,

"Do you think they would even put a line like that unless they had plans to make it near-instant in the near future?"

I say no, they'd just skip a statement like that if the current implementation was the final state. And if it was going to be a long time before it became near instant, they wouldn't put the implication in there like they appear (at least to me) to have done.

But it could just be some CYA terminology cooked up by lawyers so they can imply that it will be that way in the future, but all they're really doing is recognizing the egg on their face and promising not to call something push if it isn't.

Time will tell.

[creator2456]

Just got mine a couple minutes ago. Apple probably had "Push" working fairly well, but the high demand and unforeseen problems have hampered the feature. As stated above, Apple's wording makes me believe that "Push" should be up and running on all platforms relatively soon.

[iShater]

I guess I am the only one who thought push only applied to the iPhone, ala BlackBerry.

Glad to get the 30 day extension though. :D

[benmrii]

Another snag we have run into is our use of the word "push" in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe "cloud," changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word "push" until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.

I'm going to go back and watch the keynote, but didn't they state otherwise? Changes made on a PC or Mac take 15-20 minutes, no problem. But didn't they demo this happening in seconds?

Also, changes I made three days ago on my Mac still haven't showed up on the web. I think they're time is a little off. :D

30 days is sweet though.

[rdowns]

I hate to be one of those a-holes but I called it, almost. :p

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=5808010&postcount=31

I think this belongs on the front page. Might calm the MM crowd a bit. :D

[Kilamite]

Seems fair. Quite a worthy apology.

I'm sure Apple will update iCal, Mail and Address Book very soon to be able to have Push support.

[edesignuk]

I hate to be one of those a-holes but I called it, almost. :p

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=5808010&postcount=31

I think this belongs on the front page. Might calm the MM crowd a bit. :DSteve?

[tallyho]

Now things are calming down a bit, I'm sure push from ical etc will happen. At the moment, I have some of my calendars set to publish to MobileMe (so other family members can subscribe to them) and changes made result in an instant publish to mobileme - surely that behaviour could be adopted for an instant push to the "cloud" too...
(Now it would be nice if subscribed calendars would also get pushed to my iphone, but maybe that's too much to ask!)

[wildspin]

Good for you .... after numerous emails reporting the mail problems, all I've got was an simple note letting me to read the FAQ on support.apple.com.

Why do we have two junk mail folders?

[Saladinos]

Nice. I hope they also give trial users another 30 days. I was going to buy it at the end of my trial period.

However, I don't think we'll see Push on the Mac until Snow Leopard. SL includes exchange support, so it already has push support built-in. Rather than add this substantial feature to Leopard (may have to pay?), I think they'll just hold off on it until the SL versions of iCal/AddBook are released.

[vandozza]

Why do we have two junk mail folders?

you have two junk folders in your mobile me account?
i dont have that problem.

i did have 2 trash folders (a "deleted messages" and a "trash") i got rid of both (in mail.app), and things seemed to have rebuilt ok.

[Daveoc64]

This is wonderful.

I'm so glad they've done something to help the situation.

The extended subscription and how they said "until" when talking about push really makes me feel that they'll work on this in the future.

[jandep]

Good for you .... after numerous emails reporting the mail problems, all I've got was an simple note letting me to read the FAQ on support.apple.com.

Since I didn't send any emails or contact anyone, I'd assume this is a global emailing though many have not received anything yet. So I'd say, "good for everyone that took the time to express their dissatisfaction." Their efforts made good for the rest of us, too.

edit: TUAW is reporting it now (http://www.tuaw.com/2008/07/16/apple-extends-mobileme-subscriptions-by-30-days/)

[vandozza]

Nice. I hope they also give trial users another 30 days. I was going to buy it at the end of my trial period.

However, I don't think we'll see Push on the Mac until Snow Leopard. SL includes exchange support, so it already has push support built-in. Rather than add this substantial feature to Leopard (may have to pay?), I think they'll just hold off on it until the SL versions of iCal/AddBook are released.

but that's like a year away :(

i want my push-cal's now!

[Hawkeye411]

hmmmmm ... A free month ...

Well it's better than a kick in the head!! ;)

Thanks Apple!!

[brn2ski00]

Works for me. I for one am a huge fan of MobileMe and will definitely not be canceling the service when my trial is up. Its great and has kept me insync and way cooler!

[sananda]

I hate to be one of those a-holes but I called it, almost. :p

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=5808010&postcount=31

I think this belongs on the front page. Might calm the MM crowd a bit. :D

very nearly spot on!

front page would be a good idea.

[wildspin]

you have two junk folders in your mobile me account?
i dont have that problem.

i did have 2 trash folders (a "deleted messages" and a "trash") i got rid of both (in mail.app), and things seemed to have rebuilt ok.

That's right, one is called Junk and the other is called Junk Email, they have different icons.

Also, it won't save any update I've made to the contacts and calendars, uploading pictures for my contacts doesn't work either. Is there anybody having the same problem?

[kdog1176]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5A347 Safari/525.20)

I have not yet received this email. And since last night I (and other macrumor members as well) have not been able to sync anything from my mac to MM. All other push works fine though.

[LockedOut]

I received this email a few minutes ago.

We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately,..
Thank you,
The MobileMe Team

huh?

how did you get a reply? what contact form did you use? I am locked out of ALL my Apple stuff. I am being ignored and I am one angry customer as of today.

Apple has dropped the ball.

[sgtboy]

Can anyone answer me this?

Lets say you get an email on your ipod, you delete it, but does a copy of it still stay in your mobileme.com inbox?

[Wild-Bill]

It's posted on MacWorld and TUAW, so I don't think it will matter if people receive an e-mail or not. It will probably just be applied to everyone's account at some point.

I must say, this "admission" by Apple comes as a surprise. Normally they don't like to admit when things go wrong.

[stomer]

I received the email.

I don't think that MobileMe would have launched on the 9th if it weren't for the iPhone launching the on the 11th. They were probably fully aware that MobileMe wasn't ready to ship, but they had to ship it regardless.

The billing section of MobileMe is barely functioning. There are massive threads on Apple's discussion about users unable to renew because their card details are not being accepted. They cut the 'Sharing' facility from iDisk. Calendar groups don't sync properly. Calendar subscriptions don't sync at all. The public iDisk web interface redirects to the old dotmac iDisk interface. Date formats are not consistent across all apps. That's just the stuff that I myself have noticed.

I can't imagine that any of the MobileMe engineers thought that the product had enough testing and was ready to ship. Too many things went wrong.

[kdog1176]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5A347 Safari/525.20)

Can anyone answer me this?

Lets say you get an email on your ipod, you delete it, but does a copy of it still stay in your mobileme.com inbox?

Yes this happens for me too. Delete email from iPhone, still in MM inbox (but also in MM trash). I just go to mail.app on mac and empty trash and synchronize. MM then gets properly update. This same behavior also happened with .mac.

[sgtboy]

Thank you so much kdog, i was hoping I wasn't the only one having this issue. Unfortunately I don't use Outlook on my PC for email, just MM.com and my ipod, so they will have to work that out.

[Tannerozzy]

I haven't gotten that email yet, but this is very good news.

[Mydel]

Its nice that they send out the letter, but it doesnt still work for me. Billing info is impossible to edit, I cant manage aliases through Mail app. preferences. It sends me to Mobile Me main page. I also cant see aliases in Mail app. Contacts sync erratically and with some strange changes....etc

[thefourthpope]

I think I'm happy about everything in there.

[Eric S.]

wow.

you'd think they would have realized this before hand and not called it push to begin with! is apple losing their cool? since the market growth and all are they going to start to decline and lower their standards? is apple to next microsoft?

Well it is push, in the sense that it's not pull, i.e., the apps themselves are not polling for new data. But Apple didn't explain that "push" was going to rely on OS sync services.

[swingerofbirch]

It's posted on MacWorld and TUAW, so I don't think it will matter if people receive an e-mail or not. It will probably just be applied to everyone's account at some point.

I must say, this "admission" by Apple comes as a surprise. Normally they don't like to admit when things go wrong.

I would have been surprised if they hadn't done something publicly at some point. I was about to call customer relations to ask for an extension on my subscription for the days the service was unusable and for the misleading advertising, so this saves that call. Still haven't gotten my e-mail.

[NAG]

It's posted on MacWorld and TUAW, so I don't think it will matter if people receive an e-mail or not. It will probably just be applied to everyone's account at some point.

I must say, this "admission" by Apple comes as a surprise. Normally they don't like to admit when things go wrong.

Oh, they always admit it, when they admit it is the thing. It usually takes them a week or so to admit they probably messed up and take steps to make people happy again.

Nice they imply that they're going to be updating the Push thing. I'm almost thinking it supposed to be in for launch but they were having performance issues with it (hence why mobileme had a 1.0 and a 1.1 within a couple days).

[aprilfools]

Some .mac (MM) get an email and some don't... This is most likely because when you joined .mac you had an option to turn on or off email alerts from Apple regarding .mac news.

If you are not getting this email than most likely you chose to not receive emails from apple regarding .mac (MM) news. I am not 100% sure but it I believe it is a preference that you can go back and select or deselect the option...

[jackc]

Will I get an extra 30 days on my free trial?

[herocero]

Is that why Mobile Me web calendar refuses to work in Safari or Firefox? I can't tell you how many times I have to click continue or stop when they tell me the javascript is not responding. royal PITA if you ask me, they should give a 60 day extension for this debacle.

[MrSmith]

What can we complain about now?

[SiskoKid]

Even if they're still fibbing a little bit (since obviously it's not up and running for everyone, so that means they're still working through issues), this goes a VERY long way in calming me.

All I wanted was for Apple to acknowledge the issue and treat its customers with some respect. Going almost a week without saying a word is HORRIBLE PR, and it is so condescending to their customers.

Although I'm still mad at them for taking so long, they did extend an olive branch and give us a free month of service which is pretty cool. I suggested in another thread that they should give us as many days free as the service wasn't working. A whole month is much better than my suggestion. Combined with the admittance of problems, I am totally OK with that.

I just hope next time they don't pretend nothing's going on so they can keep pretending they don't make any failures.

[NAG]

Is that why Mobile Me web calendar refuses to work in Safari or Firefox? I can't tell you how many times I have to click continue or stop when they tell me the javascript is not responding. royal PITA if you ask me, they should give a 60 day extension for this debacle.

How about you just wait until the end of your free month before demanding another, okay.

[Lancetx]

This is a nice start, but Apple still has a lot of work to do to get MobileMe up and running 100% for everyone.

For example, push e-mail still doesn't work yet on my iPhone (even though it works great on my wife's with her separate account). It's almost like certain accounts have a different set of problems than others. Push contacts, calendars and bookmarks work fine for me, but not mail. Whereas my wife can't get her contacts to push.

This apology e-mail seems to try to give the impression that the service is now fully functional, but it's still not even close to that yet. As long as they keep working on it and get everything truly working here soon, I'll be satisfied enough with that.

[Matthew Yohe]

Hopefully this will shut most of you up now.

[aprilfools]

I just went to www.me.com and logged in. Go to > Account Preferences and than > Personal Info and select the box that says Please keep me informed with updates from MobileMe and Apple. Most likely you will now receive email notifications.

Some .mac (MM) get an email and some don't... This is most likely because when you joined .mac you had an option to turn on or off email alerts from Apple regarding .mac news.

If you are not getting this email than most likely you chose to not receive emails from apple regarding .mac (MM) news. I am not 100% sure but it I believe it is a preference that you can go back and select or deselect the option...

[Aznsensation45]

nice apple, nice.:)

[retroneo]

yay! 30 days free!

edit: not seeing the change yet.

haha. it's not "push" either...

[zzcoop]

Will I get an extra 30 days on my free trial?

Yes. (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2408)

What if I am in the free trial period?
Your trial period will be extended an additional 30 days. The change will be applied to your account within the next few weeks.

[CaptSaltyJack]

Whatev, whatev... just fix the damned MobileMe Mail so when I start to type a person's name, it autocompletes like it used to. Not to mention when I click the "contacts" button in the mail compose window, it does nothing but dim the window and then prevent me from doing any further editing.
(Firefox 3, btw)

[Eric S.]

I'm going to go back and watch the keynote, but didn't they state otherwise? Changes made on a PC or Mac take 15-20 minutes, no problem. But didn't they demo this happening in seconds?

Quite possibly something cooked up for the demo. They could reduce the interval between syncs. Someone here posted an easy way to cut it to 1 minute, and I'm sure Apple could reduce it even more. But they don't want to do that for everyone all the time because it would clog their servers.

[JonasLondon]

I was not surprised that whilst they had to handle the activation of about a million iPhone 3G and App Store and the AppleTV update and the roll-out of mobile me within a few short days everything would go totally smooth.

Given the circumstances, they still did well and this is a very nice move by Apple in my opinion.

Those who cried "disaster, disaster" first thing are probably those who've never worked in IT. I well remember the days when a particular client sent emails marked "URGENT! URGENT! URGENT!" in the subject line, and the real "issue" was that he didn't get how to copy and paste something not time-critical into his web page... :o

Go :apple:

[Kilamite]

I doubt we'll have to wait till Snow Leopard to get Push support in iCal, Mail and Address Book. It can't be that hard to just update those applications to the same level as the iPhone's can it?

[aLoC]

All that time adding push to iPhone Mail and MobileMe Mail, and no-one thought to ask, "Is anyone doing OS X Mail?"

[JonasLondon]

Quite possibly something cooked up for the demo. They could reduce the interval between syncs. Someone here posted an easy way to cut it to 1 minute, and I'm sure Apple could reduce it even more. But they don't want to do that for everyone all the time because it would clog their servers.

Seriously, whoever thinks they NEED instant Push-Calendar syncing with themselves should take a break. It's not as if your life depends on it. If it does, you would not use a shared iCal calendar to communicate with the person you need to reach. You would probably call them. :rolleyes:

[Niiro13]

Why am I not surprised there are negatives -_-.

Anyway, this is amazing! I'm halfway through my trial. Which pretty much means it reset. Oh snap!

[edenwaith]

since the market growth and all are they going to start to decline and lower their standards? is apple to next microsoft?

Nah, not yet. Apple is displaying a little bit of "accountability". That's a key phrase that Microsoft doesn't seem to understand at all.

I didn't notice any problems with my account, but I use it primarily for e-mail, so an extra 30 days is a nice touch.

[Peace]

I hate to be one of those a-holes but I called it, almost. :p

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=5808010&postcount=31



I think this belongs on the front page. Might calm the MM crowd a bit. :D

Goes to show Apple reads Macrumors.;)

It's posted on MacWorld and TUAW, so I don't think it will matter if people receive an e-mail or not. It will probably just be applied to everyone's account at some point.

I must say, this "admission" by Apple comes as a surprise. Normally they don't like to admit when things go wrong.

Any major mess up like the MM disaster that Steve personally spoke about will eventually show an apology from Apple.
That's Steve's Zen.

[samh004]

Haven't got that email yet, but I am looking forward to the extension. That'll mean I wont have to renew till December now. Awesome!

[FriarTuck]

Hopefully this will shut most of you up now.

That was unnecessary.

Anyway... it's good to see Apple trying to make things right. But they need to keep things running consistently for a good chunk of time before I will feel comfortable counting on .mac/me. They need to go Snow Leopard on .mac/me, forget about adding new features for a while, and just make sure it works well and reliably.

[jk48]

Joke post, right?

maybe, :rolleyes:
lol

or maybe maybe apple is just losing it. i hope not, i've loved apple for years, they make the best products i've ever used. the one thing i've always loved about them though, is that all their products work so flawlessly. mobileme on the other hands was the first apple product i've used with so many bugs. i do understand that it's a new thing and also the transferring from .mac to MM is a big one, but shouldn't Apple have waited until they were absolutely sure it would all go down right?
kind of like how microsoft released the xbox 360 ahead of everyone else, but with a 30% failure rate. i had to send my 360 in twice to be repaired.

personally, i don't believe apple is losing it. not yet anyway. just a thought :)

[sassenach74]

Good for you .... after numerous emails reporting the mail problems, all I've got was an simple note letting me to read the FAQ on support.apple.com.

Why do we have two junk mail folders?

Are you syncing with Windows? If so, that's because it is syncing all folders, one of which is called 'Junk Email' in outlook/express, MM sees it as a custom folder and therefore adds it.

[thecritix]

Very impressive. just in the same way we were given free Starbucks while activating iPhone, apple buy themselves goodwill doing this sort of thing.

I wasn't disrupted by mobileme, everything still worked ok, now its incredible and 30 days free... Bloody excellent!

[JonasLondon]

This is a nice start, but Apple still has a lot of work to do to get MobileMe up and running 100% for everyone.
... It's almost like certain accounts have a different set of problems than others. .... Whereas my wife can't get her contacts to push.


The thought might cross one's head that that they don't host millions of subscribers on ONE box. So they are probably busy making the changes to all the servers involved. Which, won't be happening flash-bang-instantaneous across all as there are only so many server technicians in the Cupertino vaults. If it was as easy as flipping burgers or dringing soda, yes, they could hire temps. But you don't trust the online experience of thousands of users on un-skilled temps. It will all be good. Usually gravitates that way. :rolleyes:

[D4F]

30 days free.
Sounds good :)

[Hopstretch]

Classy move. A little humility goes a long way. My only complaints so far are a mysterious inability to push Safari bookmarks and the already-mentioned problems with editing billing information.

[Shasterball]

Good move. But should it have come to this?

[DaveGee]

Will I get an extra 30 days on my free trial?

I wouldn't bet on it... nor expect it since I think the people most POed are those who have invested HUGE no ENORMOUS amounts of their hard earned cash into the service (roll eyes since I think people screaming their heads off are IMHO blowing things way outta proportion)... but who knows...

I mean give me a break... I'll bet some of these very same complainers have WoW accounts where they are paying $15 a month and have their service turned off once a week, EVERY WEEK, for usually 6 or 8 hours at a pop. For those who don't know.. WoW does 'server maintenance' every Tuesday usually from 5am PST to 11am... Every once in a long while we are 'blessed' with only having to put up with 'rolling server reboots' but full outages are usually the norm.

Dave

[slimpunk]

Homepage is still down, but I suppose the extra 30 days will help soothe my anger ;)

[eluk]

Will I get an extra 30 days on my free trial?

Extremely unlikely I'd say.

[Doctor Q]

we are going to stop using the word "push" until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.
Apple also acknowledged that the use of the word "push" with regard to the desktop portion of their sync services was misleading and has changed their documentation to reflect that. They state that won't use these terms "until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs" suggesting that this could come in the future.
I think Apple's statement is stronger than a suggestion. From the phrasing, I think it might be a promise.

[NAG]

I managed to upgrade my account last night so the billing part seems to be at least partly up now.

Hopefully they'll have this all fixed in a week or so and start working on putting that iDisk sharing feature and push from the mac support.

[stagi]

This service still doesn't work for me, I have never been able to synch my ical with mobile me so now my laptop cal is way outdated. wish i could get .mac back.

[nolatron]

Seems like there would be someplace to change this sync interval time from 15 minutes to whatever you want, like you can with Time Machine.

[zzcoop]

Extremely unlikely I'd say.

Again, YES. (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2408)

[NAG]

Seems like there would be someplace to change this sync interval time from 15 minutes to whatever you want, like you can with Time Machine.

You actually can by editing a plist (I believe). I wouldn't recommend it though.

[Tampa Tom]

Especially since I picked up a .Mac family pack renewal for only $50 the last day that Comp-USA was going out of business. I've never paid full price for .Mac ( now Mini Me.... er... MobileMe). :) You can always find some company selling boxes with activation keys a a steep discount if you look.

[e-coli]

err...ummm...well, that's great, except
IT ISN'T WORKING YET!

:mad:

When composing an e-mail, the To: field does not autofill the way .Mac did, and when I try to click on the address book icon, I get this little gem.

What a disaster. I should have known better than to use a Microsoft service. Oh...wait.

[Dmac77]

OMG, did Apple just admit that they aren't perfect? Hell must have just frozen over!

Don

[zedsdead]

OMG, did Apple just admit that they aren't perfect? Hell must have just frozen over!

Don

It did take almost a week of outrage but they did.

This is all most of us were asking them to do, so I am very happy now. Glad to here real "Push" is coming eventually.

[MojoWill]

are they giving ther extra 30 days to PAYING customers or all the people who signed up over the weekend for free trials that they will never pay for once it is over and they are mainly the reason it kept crashing?>

[The General]

It just ... the more I think about it, the more it bugs me. The iPhone is a LESS advanced development platform with a LESS advanced processor and LESS advanced infrastructure. It has a SLOWER internet connection than most PCs and Macs, yet it can Push to the cloud?

Why?

Why can the iPhone push to cloud but not Macs and PCs? It just boggles my ****ing mind. Instead of posting apology letters, send out a ****ing preference pane with mobilemed daemon, I don't care if it takes up 120mb of RAM, and have it push to the cloud every time a change occurs! I mean come on, you have developers that can code these insane ass web apps, but you can't write a simple background daemon that will push updates to the cloud as they are made?

****ing hell.

[bmk]

Hopefully this will shut most of you up now.

If everyone's MobileMe service was up and running fine, maybe you'd have a point. But the fact is that there are still hundreds, maybe thousands of people whose dotmac accounts are not working - forget the niceties over push and sync - they plain aren't working. I can't sync calendars, can't access my iDisk, keep getting server errors, etc etc. I complained to Apple at least 3 or 4 days go and only got a reply today, and that was a standard 'read-our-FAQs,' no help at all. There are people with legitimate issues of functionality - we're not all engaged in a semantic argument about what exactly 'push' means - though don't get me started...

[dicklacara]

Before the 7/11 iPhone release there were several threads about the logistics of deploying all the components required for a successful launch:

--the new iPhone hardware, activation, and likely firmware upgrade
--iPhone 2.0 firmware for existing iPhones and iPod Touches
--OS X 10.4
--iTunes
--the app store
--hundreds of apps in the app store
--MobileMe
--Changes to OS X Mac apps to support [push] MobileMe (Safari, Mail, iCal, Address Book, etc.)
--Changes to OS X Mac apps to support non-push changes from .Mac to MobileMe (e.g. Publish from iPhoto, iMovie, Aperture, etc).

Obviously (or maybe not) Apple had a lot of software changes to distribute to tens [hundreds] of millions of existing customers... a big challenge!

To many, it didn't make sense to attempt to do this all at the same time... the concurrent hits, alone would would bring Apple's servers to their knees. Not to mention, a problem with any one (or more) components would, likely, ripple through the system and exacerbate the situation.

Rather, if Apple were smart, they would deploy updates leisurely, over several days or weeks... leveling server traffic and giving them the ability to address/support problems out of the "fishbowl" of a major product launch: the iPhone 2G.

We even discussed ways that the updated components could talk to other components to be sure each was at the proper update before activating a feature, such as push, included in the update. For example, iCal would check that all the necessary pieces were in place (MobileMe, Synch, iPhone 2.0) before it would attempt to push.

Apple chose (or backed itself into a corner) and tried to do it all at once... and almost everything went wrong.

They did release the 2.0 firmware for existing iPhones, iTunes and the App store slightly before the 7/11 launch. These were little islands of success in an otherwise bungled launch.

Sure, Apple sold 1 million new iPhones, but it inconvenienced or angered a lot of loyal and new customers.

They could have done better... much better...

"It, just works"... is a high bar to set and it is what we expect in all things Apple.

It ain't workin' yet!

Dick Applebaum

A loyal Apple customer since 1978

[wildspin]

Are you syncing with Windows? If so, that's because it is syncing all folders, one of which is called 'Junk Email' in outlook/express, MM sees it as a custom folder and therefore adds it.

Yes, that's what I am doing ... thanks a lot for pointing this out.

I'm actually now using the Outlook as a hub to pull all my stuff from Exchange, Gmail, MM, Yahoo etc altogether.

So far it works great (except the MM push portion :rolleyes: ), one outstanding issue now is I can't manually update the contacts and calendars through MM's web interface, it doesn't save any change I've made. My temporary workaround is to sync everything from the Exchange. LOL

[eluk]

Again, YES. (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2408)

Saw that later. A pleasant surprise to those which it applies to. :apple:

[carrjar]

I'm going to go back and watch the keynote, but didn't they state otherwise? Changes made on a PC or Mac take 15-20 minutes, no problem. But didn't they demo this happening in seconds?


Phil's demo of MobileMe is only between the Web 2.0 version and the iPhone. He never opens any applications on the his Mac. One would assume (myself included) that changes on the computer would be instant as well. I'm just happy that they addressed this issue and will be working on improving it.

[nick9191]

And you all thought Apple didn't care about their customers. Anyone remember the $100 gift card for early iphone adopters?

[skeep5]

Steve?

Yes?

[wildspin]

I mean come on, you have developers that can code these insane ass web apps, but you can't write a simple background daemon that will push updates to the cloud as they are made?

I think someone could figure out the background process pushing the stuff at 15 min intervals and reschedule it in cron ... how difficult is it?

[iPhelim]

UK subscriber for almost a year and not recieved email yet :mad:

These 30 extra days could not have come at a better time for me!

[Island Dog]

Nice, but what about updates to the PC clients so Outlook will correctly sync with MobileMe.

[iSee]

Nice! I can't believe it: a corporation acknowledging a mistake, apologizing (in a sincere way), and giving us 30 days for our trouble.
Thanks, Steve!


I hate to be one of those a-holes but I called it, almost. :p

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=5808010&postcount=31

I think this belongs on the front page. Might calm the MM crowd a bit. :D


Pathetic! ;) You were off by two days. :mad: Close, but no cigar, buddy--we're not playing horseshoes here!!! (just kidding! nice call :))

[caffeinejoe]

Still having problems attempting to sync my MobileMe contacts with my iMac Address Book. Getting the dreaded "inconsistent data", consistently. Calendar works great.

Joe

[Lancetx]

The thought might cross one's head that that they don't host millions of subscribers on ONE box. So they are probably busy making the changes to all the servers involved. Which, won't be happening flash-bang-instantaneous across all as there are only so many server technicians in the Cupertino vaults. If it was as easy as flipping burgers or dringing soda, yes, they could hire temps. But you don't trust the online experience of thousands of users on un-skilled temps. It will all be good. Usually gravitates that way. :rolleyes:

I think most everyone with a brain realizes that. :rolleyes: My point was that until everyone is up and running 100%, they shouldn't be making any blanket statements that all services are up like they have been, that's all. And just because all services may indeed be currently working for you or any other individual person, doesn't mean that they necessarily are for everyone else.

The 30 day extension is a nice touch as I said, but the main thing I'm concerned with is simply having it running reliably. I'm not running around asking for any free handouts from Apple, I only want the service functioning properly that I'm already paying them for. I'm sure it'll happen sooner hopefully rather than later.

[Sabenth]

pardon me for saying this but there pissing in the wind they couldn't keep up with demand from the so called 1 million new users of the iphone they sure as hell aint gonna be able to keep up with all the users .mac me what ever it is called. I don't even have either. Mates do and all i keep hearing of them is the slow lack of response etc end of the day demand is higher than expected. At least they gave a month away for free.


and how can people be negative about getting something for free i mean really it should all be positive not negative

[levitynyc]

err...ummm...well, that's great, except
IT ISN'T WORKING YET!

:mad:

When composing an e-mail, the To: field does not autofill the way .Mac did, and when I try to click on the address book icon, I get this little gem.

What a disaster. I should have known better than to use a Microsoft service. Oh...wait.

Happens to me too.

[arkitect]

UK subscriber for almost a year and not recieved email yet :mad:

Well, UK subscriber since 2000 and still no email. ;)

This isn't going to be one of those "USA only" specials is it?

[Bickity]

Thanks for the extra 30 days Apple, now get back to work and fix MobileMe. Calendars sync sometimes and not others.

[HLdan]

I'm going to go back and watch the keynote, but didn't they state otherwise? Changes made on a PC or Mac take 15-20 minutes, no problem. But didn't they demo this happening in seconds?

Also, changes I made three days ago on my Mac still haven't showed up on the web. I think they're time is a little off. :D

30 days is sweet though.

No, the keynote demo by Phil Shiller was shown from a Mac using the MM web apps. He did a calendar change and it showed up on his iPhone within seconds. So many people keep mistaking that for iCal, it wasn't iCal.

[sneakyob]

Even if they didn't give us the free 30 days, it was a nice move for Apple to acknowledge the issue and address it. That could have just been a formal email that blew smoke, but instead, they took the time to "fall on the sword" and be humble. :)

[corinhorn]

The Service Formerly Known As .Mac is working for me finally. I had to reset my sync data to get functional syncing. As most people who had used .Mac for years know, sometimes it takes several sync sessions for things to start working properly. That's the nature of the service for whatever reason. For those who are still experiencing sync issues, give it a few days to a week and things should be better. Sync conflicts take a while to resolve.

Kudos to Apple for giving a free month of service.

[andiwm2003]

ok, so apple realized their problems. that is good. they did not show how steve jobs decapitated the managers at fault and eviscerated the ones around them. that is good as well because kids are watching. they compensated my 5 hrs to get my calendar working with 30 extra days.

now if mail would sync/push reliably from cloud to iphone and not have 4 hrs delay for some mails it would be fine. :rolleyes:

and if cloud to ical would be push or sync it would be great. but i have to manually sync twice on average to get it synced at all.:rolleyes:

and if the server wasn't down that often (i get often the message connection lost although websurfing works just fine) it would be all good.

[Virgil-TB2]

you have two junk folders in your mobile me account?
i dont have that problem.

i did have 2 trash folders (a "deleted messages" and a "trash") i got rid of both (in mail.app), and things seemed to have rebuilt ok.I have multiple appearing/dissapearing mail folders in mobileme mail even though I carefully set all my clients *not* to store drafts or junk mail on the server.

Also mail appears/disappears when moving from the mail tab to any other tab in mobile me. when you go to your setting for instance, I will see a badge on the mail saying I got new mail. If you switch to the mail, the badge disappears, then if you switch back, it appears again.

[AdamStudner]

Still haven't been able to get an answer to this. If I look at an email on my iPhone that is a third party email account (my own small-business account set up as a pop) should this be reflected in my inbox on my computer?

[danuff]

Even though I do not get the benefit of the 30 day extension, I am STILL impressed with the way Apple is handling this.

They are doing more than some other companies would, and ADMITTING of there screw ups.

Way to go Apple - You have my respect!

-Dan Uff

[andiwm2003]

Still haven't been able to get an answer to this. If I look at an email on my iPhone that is a third party email account (my own small-business account set up as a pop) should this be reflected in my inbox on my computer?

can't help you there but if i look at a .mac or me.com email on my iphone it still shows as unread in the webapp. if i delete a mail it gets deleted on the cloud half a day later. regardless of third party or not. give it a couple of weeks..........

[Los Royers]

You actually can by editing a plist (I believe). I wouldn't recommend it though.

Why wouldn't you recommend it?

[schubes]

I’m quickly becoming less and less optimistic about a timely (ie pre September, in time for college) laptop refresh.

With all the iphone frenzy and the challenges they’re having with iphone and mobile me software, things don’t look promising for them piling on another hardware release soon…

[137489]

Since I am in my trail period - I probably would not expect a free month. Would be nice though.

I see that Apple is up to their good customer service, admitting there is a problem, and making restitution while fixing the problem.:D

Glad to see this, other companies would only be bumbliing and would not offer a puplic declaration like that. Dell only offers apologies if you yell at them directly and then they make a small pitty restitution that still does not address or fix the original problem.

Life going to be good in Apple Land :cool::apple:

[danuff]

Still haven't been able to get an answer to this. If I look at an email on my iPhone that is a third party email account (my own small-business account set up as a pop) should this be reflected in my inbox on my computer?

Yes and no . . . .

Depending on when you have the e-mail program going out for new e-mail (i.e. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc.) it may not show up right away on your home computer.

...or...

You may have a setting on the email program that says 'leave e-mail on server' on the iPhone disabled or even on the other computer.

Hope this helps,
Dan Uff

[Peace]

Looks like Apple's "push" isn't working on the free 30 days either :
What .Me says and what system preferences say.

[DaBrain]

What can we complain about now?

LOL!!!!---)))))) Now that got a laugh outta me--)))) ;):):D

[Philly]

You know, I really couldn't give a dam about the bloody iPhone. I have been a .mac subscriber for almost 4 years. After seeing a Genius in the Mac store this morning they still couldn't get my Mac to sync and concluded that I should buy Leopard. I agree that we have to keep up with technology but to run people of the road like this is just plain bad practice. No sync, no registration, emails that barely send....

And I don't believe that letter was from Mac anyway....

Come on Apple, remember who you are please...!

[gcmexico]

Just got mine a couple minutes ago. Apple probably had "Push" working fairly well, but the high demand and unforeseen problems have hampered the feature. As stated above, Apple's wording makes me believe that "Push" should be up and running on all platforms relatively soon.
*
I haven't received the email yet:( I want my apology

[franzmueller]

I could live up with 15 min but in my case mobile me doesn't work at all with ical / ipod touch other than plugging my device into my macbook.

Mail works but I haven´t tried the rest .

Saludos

Franz

[queshy]

A good move on Apple's part - at least they are admitting they screwed up and not just ignoring the extremely bumpy start.

Are changes made on me.com --> Mac (push)? Or does anything involving Mac take 15 minutes?

[MM07]

I just got my email a few minutes ago.

[HLdan]

Even if they're still fibbing a little bit (since obviously it's not up and running for everyone, so that means they're still working through issues), this goes a VERY long way in calming me.

All I wanted was for Apple to acknowledge the issue and treat its customers with some respect. Going almost a week without saying a word is HORRIBLE PR, and it is so condescending to their customers.

Although I'm still mad at them for taking so long, they did extend an olive branch and give us a free month of service which is pretty cool. I suggested in another thread that they should give us as many days free as the service wasn't working. A whole month is much better than my suggestion. Combined with the admittance of problems, I am totally OK with that.

I just hope next time they don't pretend nothing's going on so they can keep pretending they don't make any failures.

I was certainly waiting for somebody to complain regardless of the apology letter and the extension. Look, I'm quite annoyed too and your concerns are very much valid as this has happened to all .Mac customers (sorry but the free trial customers don't count) but your post saying that Apple took a long time is a complete exaggeration and totally unreasonable. It hasn't even been a week since this fiasco started. You have to get it out of your mind that Apple is a huge corporation, they do hire "human beings" to perform these creations.

I'm sure you've been put on deadlines on your job and hoped that your superior would be understanding if you didn't get the work completed on time, right?

[PlaceofDis]

i don't fault apple with the 'mess up'. i mean really it was a pretty huge upgrade in their services. (adding push to servers, new interface, probably new back-end, and new addresssing all the while having to preserve data and migrate it over seamlessly)

the problem is that they under-estimated the time it'd take to iron things out. if they had posted a notice of a 24 hour downtime well in advance things would've gone smoother. things also would've gone smoother if they would've completed the transaction on a day/week before the iphone launch. things would've gone smoother if they would've had the 2.0 software released a day before for existing iphone customers.

this was a management problem: things just weren't planned out or thought out clear enough in advance. i mean they knew they were going to be hit hard with traffic, what the forgot to realize is all three = 3x the traffic.

not saying its right; just putting it in perspective.

[SpinThis!]

It's pretty obvious to me most of the people in this thread still complaining have never worked in IT or as programmers. From what I glean from the e-mail, it appears capacity problems were the main problems.

Rollouts are notoriously difficult to deal with, especially when new customers are signing up every hour. If Apple would have rolled this out in stages (for example, let .mac customers have first crack at it), all those with trials would be complaining why it's not up yet or that "Apple missed the ship date again".... it's a slippery slope either way.

It's one thing to do in-house development. It's another thing to provision what you think are enough servers to handle demand. I don't think anyone predicted how popular this service was actually going to be and Apple were fighting tooth-and-nail to get .mac moved over and up to the level of service required by the new service.

If you over-do capacity, you run the risk of never fully using those servers and that costs money, not only in maintenance but in electricity, rack space, etc. It's a lot easier to undershoot and make customer service deal with it the few crazies while things level off. Most customers will be understanding when this sortof things happens. Still pissed? Go rent your own private server for, what, $400/month and you can get all the push-everything you need.

[ucfgrad93]

Seems reasonable enough I suppose.

Such a huge transition of systems will never go smoothly, their wording regarding the push features was evidently a grave mistake.

I think an additional month of service for free is adequate.

Agreed. Its a nice gesture on Apple's part to acknowledge the difficulties of the transition.

[Daveoc64]

I was certainly waiting for somebody to complain regardless of the apology letter and the extension. Look, I'm quite annoyed too and your concerns are very much valid as this has happened to all .Mac customers (sorry but the free trial customers don't count) but your post saying that Apple took a long time is a complete exaggeration and totally unreasonable. It hasn't even been a week since this fiasco started. You have to get it out of your mind that Apple is a huge corporation, they do hire "human beings" to perform these creations.

I'm sure you've been put on deadlines on your job and hoped that your superior would be understanding if you didn't get the work completed on time, right?

Umm, did you even read the post you quoted?

They said:
"A whole month is much better than my suggestion. Combined with the admittance of problems, I am totally OK with that.

I just hope next time they don't pretend nothing's going on so they can keep pretending they don't make any failures."

Basically they said that they wanted an apology and a small amount of compensation, but that they got more compensation than expected.

They also said that they hoped Apple would learn from this.

[dicklacara]

There is at least one other problem brewing that Apple needs to address.

Late Friday, 7/11, (conveniently, after support hours) Apple sent out emails to a lot of people who signed up to become iPhone developers. By following a link the developer was able to purchase a $99 iPhone Developer Program enrollment.

After purchase, an email was to follow, enabling the developer to activate his account.

-- many paid the $99 but received no activation instructions
-- many others received activation instructions that don't work
-- some others were able activate their enrollments
-- many contacted Apple about the activation problem but have heard nothing back

I realize that "many" and "some" are pretty general... but according to the threads I've read, there are a lot of unhappy potential iPhone developers.

Apple, ya' need to coddle your developers... not piss them off and ignore them.

Apple is dipping its toes into the enterprise market place-- especially with the new iPhone.

Doing business with business requires a different approach to marketing and support than with consumers.

A lot of influential people are watching Apple to see if it is willing establish the infrastructure and mindset necessary to support the enterprise... ah, but that's a whole 'nother story!

[babyj]

Apple were real stupid performing all the updates and product releases within a couple of days. Still not sure why they had to do it, holding off on Mobile Me for a week or two and missing the iPhone 3G release wouldn't of been the end of the world.

Hopefully they've learnt their lessons from all the screw ups over the last week and won't make the same mistakes in the future. Whilst its not going to be for a while, it will be interesting to see how they handle the next major update of the iPhone - they could easily have 10 million plus people screaming for it on the day its released.

Still, they stood up and apologised and have compensated everyone so whilst they won't come out of it smelling of roses they won't have done any real damage.

[jholzner]

Well, MobileMe address book in the mail program still does not work for me nor does auto fill of email address. When I click the address book icon in MobileMe mail it says it's down and will be fixed. Been saying that for 4 days now. Kind of annoying to not have access to anyone's email address in a mail program.

[EcToCoOLerRage]

MobileMe web client has been causing me all types of problems. Horrible timing because I have been using it for work to communicate with people overseas (who I don't call because it cost a lot of $). The mail will not open, but the calendar and contacts work. Pretty upset right now

[wlh99]

wow.

you'd think they would have realized this before hand and not called it push to begin with! is apple losing their cool? since the market growth and all are they going to start to decline and lower their standards? is apple to next microsoft?

The mistake I think was that push was a huge feature for the iphone, and MobileMe was lauched to provide it to the iPhone. They were correct in the ads (at least the ones I saw) just not clear on the point that push was an iPhone feature.

That said, 30 days is reasonable *if* MobileMe works. Contrary to the email, when I log in and check the system status, Groups, Homepage, and MobileMe Mail on the Web are all down at the current moment. And the email says that sync worked from the start. Sync was working for me with .mac, and hasn't worked more than 15 minutes for me since the switch. I lost my calendar and contacts during the mess. I don't want 30 more days-I want my money back (prorated to my unused portion).

[DaBrain]

Even though I do not get the benefit of the 30 day extension, I am STILL impressed with the way Apple is handling this.

They are doing more than some other companies would, and ADMITTING of there screw ups.

Way to go Apple - You have my respect!

-Dan Uff

You got that right!

I just got my email from Apple. Their a class act! I look forward to the eventual push from my Mac's to the cloud, the coming email link for others to d/l files from me and any other improvements that will be made to MM!

Thanks Apple! ;):D:):apple::apple::apple:

[kjs862]

Does this mean they have to reshoot the mobile me a guided tour?

[leandroc76]

Wait a minute... where's Microsoft's apology letter for Vista?

[Explorz]

Just after they sent out the letter this is now plauging many users including myself.

On two separate computers I can log into mobileme (although it often will not accept my password for a few tries)

But I can't do anything else. If I click on the sync or idisk tab I get the following message.

"Sync unavailable
Sorry, your MobileMe account is not authorized to synchronize to MobileMe. Syncing to MobileMe lets you keep the information on multiple Macs the same and access critical information like contacts and bookmarks from any computer. Upgrade now to a full MobileMe membership to enable this feature."

Clicking on Upgrade does nothing but take me to the mobileme info page. I also can't unregister or register computers nor can I turn on "Back to my Mac."

It's all totally hosed now. I think Apple sent the letter too soon.

[SpaceMagic]

Thank you Apple. It was rocky, almost a nightmare if you at all relied on .Mac. Anyway, back up and all working (ish :p).

Nice to see they weren't arrogant and ignored it.

[wlh99]

Good for you .... after numerous emails reporting the mail problems, all I've got was an simple note letting me to read the FAQ on support.apple.com.

Why do we have two junk mail folders?


I wound up with two "Home" and two "Work" calendars. None of the 4 sync properly. Once in a while an event will sync to the wrong one, but mostly anything I add just disappears when I sync.

[spcdust]

The web application still seems very slow/sluggish on what ever computer I use.

Also, when composing an e-mail the contacts button doesn't work and the adress field doesn't autofill, making it difficult to retrieve addresses when sending e-mails.

Apart from these issues at least Apple acknowledge there were problems and 30 days extension seem fair.

[FreeState]

Still haven't been able to get an answer to this. If I look at an email on my iPhone that is a third party email account (my own small-business account set up as a pop) should this be reflected in my inbox on my computer?

No, you need an IMAP email account for that - pop does not work that way.

[aethelbert]

Wait a minute... where's Microsoft's apology letter for Vista?
They were working on it, but the computers crashed on them whenever they tried to hit "send."

[Apple Ink]

This is probably the biggest achievement of Apple Inc till date.... HUMILITY
Great going SJ

P.S.:I still haven't got the mail.....

[Agathon]

I got increasingly annoyed at the lack of communication from Apple.

This email would have been enough for me. Nice to get 30 days, but all they really needed to do was let us know what was going on.

[macaco74]

Now things are calming down a bit, I'm sure push from ical etc will happen. At the moment, I have some of my calendars set to publish to MobileMe (so other family members can subscribe to them) and changes made result in an instant publish to mobileme - surely that behaviour could be adopted for an instant push to the "cloud" too...
(Now it would be nice if subscribed calendars would also get pushed to my iphone, but maybe that's too much to ask!)

Can you share how to create a "sahred" family calendar? I have mobile me family pack and am very interested in this feature.

[Bubba Satori]

Wait a minute... where's Microsoft's apology letter for Vista?


Service pack 1. Same one they sent for the initial XP fiasco. Vista is working quite well now.

[geerlingguy]

You got that right!

I just got my email from Apple. Their a class act! I look forward to the eventual push from my Mac's to the cloud, the coming email link for others to d/l files from me and any other improvements that will be made to MM!

Thanks Apple! ;):D:):apple::apple::apple:

Your avatar scared the heck out of me! I thought I had a bug running around on my screen.

[tvh13]

At approx 118min in the WWDC keynote instant push from desktop to iphone of an iCal event is demoed.

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0806wdt546x/event/index.html

My guess is that the free month is to appease users until whatever kinks are worked out.

[Peel]

That's the way you do it Apple. If you screw up, you come clean, appologize, and offer a consolation to those affected.

Bravo. This is why Apple's customer satisfaction is as high as it is.

[Vaphoron]

While I am pleased they are offering a compensation this time around, I had less problems and was less frustrated than when they "upgraded" the service prior to the Leopard release. That really screwed me over and they should have done something for people back then. I guess I'll keep the service now but I was seriously thinking about dropping it.

[Virgil-TB2]

I got increasingly annoyed at the lack of communication from Apple.

This email would have been enough for me. Nice to get 30 days, but all they really needed to do was let us know what was going on.Apple does suck badly at communicating to their users, but I think they have fooled you with this email.

Almost everything about this email is a complete lie, so I don't get how this actually tells us "what's going on." It's similar to the little web update feature on .Mac (now mobileme), in that it's just a blanket statement that everything is working and they are sorry for the delay.

In fact, everything is working only for a small subset of users located within shouting distance of Cupertino. It's *mostly* working for the rest of you USA-ians, and hardly working at all for the rest of us.

For me (in Canada), Contacts sync doesn't work, Calendars don't work, Mail doesn't work, and iDisk barely works but is almost unusable.

Personally, I am strongly *offended* by this email.

30 extra days on a subscription service is literally NOTHING. It has no value, and will likely never be "collected" by any paying user. It's a dodge, and a sop to those who are on the "trial." It has absolutely no affect, and is of no benefit to the actual paying users of the system like myself. That being said, we are still looking at less than five bucks worth of down time, so I don't really care about the "30 day bonus."

What I *do* care about is this constant LYING by Apple.

- No way is MobileMe even close to usable or working even as well as the old .Mac did. (and that's saying a lot because the old .Mac service was notorious both for it's slowness and massive amounts of downtime. It's a lie to imply such, and it OFFENDS ME that they are doing that. :mad: They could at least say "works in the USA" or something to that effect.

- It may have escaped people, but there are NO NEW FEATURES in MobileMe. The "push" is now revealed as the same old sync we always had, which was always problematic, and now hardly works at all. So, reduced functionality, for the same old price, but now it's broken. :(

They are also lying about the details in that it seems clear to me that they are still using parts of the old .Mac sync to patch things together. I have (twice) recently made changes to my contacts on one Mac that have eventually (after a full day), been pushed to my work Mac, but somehow they are not showing up in MobileMe!!! Since the cloud is supposed to be the intermediary, this is technically impossible by Apple's description, yet it happens.

[skiwhitman]

Just got my email at 10:30 PST! Thanks, Apple

[welshy1812]

At approx 118min in the WWDC keynote instant push from desktop to iphone of an iCal event is demoed.

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0806wdt546x/event/index.html

My guess is that the free month is to appease users until whatever kinks are worked out.

It's actually the mobileme calendar that he uses, not the desktop (iCal) version.

[SpinThis!]

In fact, everything is working only for a small subset of users located within shouting distance of Cupertino. It's *mostly* working for the rest of you USA-ians, and hardly working at all for the rest of us.
yeh because Apple has a deny on outside IP USA addresses... right.

MobileMe is MobileMe... they don't care where you're located. Don't make this a USA vs Canada/International issue...

[tvh13]

It's actually the mobileme calendar that he uses, not the desktop (iCal) version.

Point ... you!

In any case. I do wonder if the 30-days is to buy time?

[SpinThis!]

BTW, Apple's e-mail never claimed anything is 100% working either. From Apple's system status:

System Status
* MobileMe members may be unable to access groups.mac.com.

* MobileMe members cannot access the HomePage application.

* MobileMe members are currently unable to use Contacts with MobileMe Mail on the web. Accessing MobileMe Contacts directly, by visiting me.com/contacts, is not affected.

* 1% of MobileMe members cannot access MobileMe Mail.

So anyone claiming MobileMe is 100% working is either clueless, lying, or both.

[scotty96LSC]

Seems reasonable enough I suppose.

Such a huge transition of systems will never go smoothly, their wording regarding the push features was evidently a grave mistake.

I think an additional month of service for free is adequate.
I agree. Fair compensation.
I just find it hard to believe that some of these failure points weren't caught before the release.
We build software here and release it. We know we are not going to find every instance of failure, but we sure sit down in a room and do the "what-if" drill. I would think many of these "what-ifs" would have showed up here as well.

[ngpl]

Can they now get rid of the terrible name -- MobileMe -- and the even more hideous graphic?

[Macsterguy]

I like Apple but... 30 extra days on a subscription = $99 divided by 12 months = $8.25

For some this is great. For some this equals .25 cents an hour based on the time it took to sort mobileme problems out. For others $8.25 = 2 gallons of gas...

This shouldn't hurt Apple to bad given the apps they are now selling on the app store and the million 3g iphones they sold in the first weekend...

I like and support apple products: 8 Mac's in my family, 18 Mac's in my business and a total of 7-2g iPhones...

The letter, or some sort of communication, should have come sooner. This was to big of a roll-out of to many products at one time... Add to that AT&T... New phones being activated, (old phones being re-activated), 2.0 for all phones, MobileMe (local and on-line), iTouch update, the app store...

TO MUCH AT THE SAME TIME... JUST TO SELL IPHONES!

Apple needs to do these things one or two at a time, it seems to be all about the phone... SLOW DOWN APPLE, AND...

DON'T FORGET US MAC USERS STEVE!

p.s. - thanks for the 30-day extension.

[dalvin200]

got my email about half hour ago..

glad on the 30 days extension and also them acknowledging that their "push" wasn't quite as advertised and that they intend to make it that way "soon"..

[snakedoctor]

Lol mail is down, and now even my Mail app on my Mac cant connect. Truly sad.

I can get to my other tabs on me, but not the mail tab, just a blank screen.

[yojitani]

Am I alone in having not yet received this message? I have the family pack - does that mean no extension??

[Bobjob186]

best news ever....not

[Macsterguy]

NEWS FLASH - CURRENT MOBILE STATUS:

MobileMe members may be unable to access groups.mac.com.
MobileMe members cannot access the HomePage application.
MobileMe members are currently unable to use Contacts with MobileMe Mail on the web.

* Accessing MobileMe Contacts directly, by visiting me.com/contacts, is not affected.

1% of MobileMe members cannot access MobileMe Mail.

All other MobileMe services are online and fully operational

FIRST LINE OF LETTER: "MobileMe Services Now Available"

[Macsterguy]

Email aliases' are BROKEN!

[Daveoc64]

They're probably using push e-mail to send them out, so it'll take a long time!

I haven't had my message yet either.

[HLdan]

At approx 118min in the WWDC keynote instant push from desktop to iphone of an iCal event is demoed.

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0806wdt546x/event/index.html

My guess is that the free month is to appease users until whatever kinks are worked out.

"Look" at the keynote closely, it's not iCal, it's the calendar web app.

[*GG*]

They're probably using push e-mail to send them out, so it'll take a long time!

I haven't had my message yet either.

No email here either.

Perhaps they should be using Hotmail or something to send them out, otherwise it could be months before the emails turn up.

[iShater]

No email here either.

Perhaps they should be using Hotmail or something to send them out, otherwise it could be months before the emails turn up.

Good point, cause I haven't seen it either.

[HLdan]

Well the letter is being sent, I just received it 30 minutes ago. I guess they are not sending it to everyone at the same time in order to avoid bogging down the servers.

[BRLawyer]

I received this email a few minutes ago.

We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.
Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.
Another snag we have run into is our use of the word "push" in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe "cloud," changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word "push" until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.
We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.
We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.
Thank you,
The MobileMe Team

Now some of the stupidly stubborn PC-fanboys in this MAC forum can read this...WHICH other IT company in the world provides such a clear acknowledgement of problems and an amazing response to its customers?

Answer: NONE, thank you very much.

Just like the translucent bar and the dock folders, Apple raises the bar once more in terms of customer-driven feedback and offers an extension of the subscription, as well as a clarification of the term "push".

Bravo, Apple! This is why we, as privileged customers, are loyal to you. And also why every customer rating report has put YOU on top of the list for a zillion years in a row.

Beat it, PC-fanboys; Microsoft is DEAD.

[dasikes]

Aw, isn't that just sweet of them.

I've yet to get my email.

[Peace]

Now some of the stupidly stubborn PC-fanboys in this MAC forum can read this...WHICH other IT company in the world provides such a clear acknowledgement of problems and an amazing response to its customers?

Answer: NONE, thank you very much.

Just like the translucent bar and the dock folders, Apple raises the bar once more in terms of customer-driven feedback and offers an extension of the subscription, as well as a clarification of the term "push".

Bravo, Apple! This is why we, as privileged customers, are loyal to you. And also why every customer rating report has put YOU on top of the list for a zillion years in a row.

Beat it, PC-fanboys; Microsoft is DEAD.

Hold your horses there. It could also be because Apple was advertising something it couldn't deliver.
Which can get them into a lot of trouble.

[nvbrit]

For those who haven't gotten the letter yet and those who have been wondering if your free trial account will also get the 30 day extension (the answer being yes!) you can read all the criteria and details here....

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2408

My thought is, if they are giving 30 day extensions, knowing that a lot of people are up for renewal right around now.. I am guessing they are expecting the kinks to be worked out within the next 30 days

[jwsmiths]

Seems reasonable enough I suppose.

Such a huge transition of systems will never go smoothly, their wording regarding the push features was evidently a grave mistake.

I think an additional month of service for free is adequate.

They also hint they're adding true push to the service for the Mac and PC, which is a good thing!

[rdowns]

snip Steve Jobs paid endorsement.

Wow, you go the kool aid running through your veins.

The apology and 30 days were nice.

An announcement acknowledging the problems should have been out Monday, not Wednesday.

Apple certainly played fast and loose with the term "push" here. Seems more like a CYA statement than a clarification to me.

Carry on...

[RiverFox]

I just signed up for the Service. It stated that I won't be charged for *60* days after my completion of the Service Application.

My iPod sync'd okay, when logging on to www.me.com, all I get are the icons on top and grey screens. Clicking on Gallery gets me an "unauthorized" message.

I've got 59 days left, we'll see what happens...

[BevvyB]

Registered with a trial account

Have managed to get iDisk to work in system preferences

However, have not been able to once log in to mobileme web

Not only that, I just changed my password to try and get it to work

and now

My iDisk only works with my old password even though I just changed it, and it got me to type in my 'new' password again, even though only my old one worked :confused:

Screwed up

[Philly]

I think that because Apple is so god-dam good, a mistake like this suddenly seems huge. Granted, I am annoyed at the troubles I'm having, but then on the upside my mac has NEVER crashed.
I haven't had this letter yet and even thought it was a joke at the start of the thread. But if it comes through, heck even if they just get it sorted within the next few days then I will be very, very grateful. I'm on a 3 year old G4 and it's my most treasured object. I cannot wait until I get a mac book pro with Leopard. Those things are unbelievable...!

Hopefully this gets sorted quickly, good luck, and well done!

p.s. Please don't sell out :cool:

[nvbrit]

I just signed up for the Service. It stated that I won't be charged for *60* days after my completion of the Service Application.

My iPod sync'd okay, when logging on to www.me.com, all I get are the icons on top and grey screens. Clicking on Gallery gets me an "unauthorized" message.

I've got 59 days left, we'll see what happens...

If you signed up before 7pm last night, you have 89 days left now!

[nvbrit]

I think that because Apple is so god-dam good, a mistake like this suddenly seems huge. Granted, I am annoyed at the troubles I'm having, but then on the upside my mac has NEVER crashed.
I haven't had this letter yet and even thought it was a joke at the start of the thread. But if it comes through, heck even if they just get it sorted within the next few days then I will be very, very grateful. I'm on a 3 year old G4 and it's my most treasured object. I cannot wait until I get a mac book pro with Leopard. Those things are unbelievable...!

Hopefully this gets sorted quickly, good luck, and well done!

p.s. Please don't sell out :cool:

A lot of people haven't received the email yet, but it is legitimate, here's the official doc on Apple's website http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2408

[swexplorer]

No changes in "days left"... but today had bad day,
first opened Mail and found .mac account disabled, then
sync panel in mobileme does not work properly,
syncing is not active and the option is grey and shows Manual!
Still messing with accounts?
Panic?!

[TopGear]

Most companies in the world wouldn't have offered a 30-day extension. When faced with a situation like this, most companies wouldn't have offered anything at all. (My ISP, for example, is clearly of the "screw the customer" school.)

It might not be perfect, but Apple's attempt to make things up to their users is well above average.

[vansouza]

Thank you... one free month for a few hours of inconvenience ... not bad at all...:rolleyes::apple:

[wolfshades]

Apple did a good thing with providing the extension. I doubt anyone disputes that.

But there's another side to the coin here:

It gives them the breathing room to fix everything that's wrong. Yeah, they said everything's fixed now but don't count on it (and judging by the comments here, it isn't exactly true yet anyway).

Apple might be saying: "You're locked out? Can't use your accounts the way you'd like - just sit still and be quiet for another 20 days or so. 'm kay?"

[Philly]

A lot of people haven't received the email yet, but it is legitimate, here's the official doc on Apple's website http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2408



...Nice! Well done Apple.

[detnyre]

The synch on the mac takes 15 minutes, unless you do a manual synch.

I'm sure some clever programmer will create a Automator script that will press the synch button when updates are made to key applications....

Derek

[Morod]

No email from Apple here yet. Maybe they don't like me....
Morod

[Mindflux]

Nice. I hope they also give trial users another 30 days. I was going to buy it at the end of my trial period.



Looks like we got our wish. Trial got extended 30 days as well according to this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2408

[Mindflux]

The synch on the mac takes 15 minutes, unless you do a manual synch.

I'm sure some clever programmer will create a Automator script that will press the synch button when updates are made to key applications....

Derek

There's already a 'hack' when you change your prefs file. you can set it to 1 minute if you desire. Long talked about on here already.

[ucfgrad93]

No email from Apple here yet. Maybe they don't like me....

They must not like me either as I still haven't received this email from Apple.

[bilbo--baggins]

They must not like me either as I still haven't received this email from Apple.

I've not received the email, and there is no change to my renewal date.

[miniConvert]

I've not received the email, and there is no change to my renewal date.
Be patient, I only just received mine.

[tedhogan]

I'm impressed.

:D

I'm glad they did the right thing. It also hints that perhaps we will have push on the desktop (or close to it anyway). I really hope so.

Regards,
Ted

[galleyhannon]

Wow. A lot of people seemed to be having problems with Mobile Me. I haven't had any problems with my services. All of them have been running fine the entire time. Granted, I haven't been using the web apps since I don't need them, but my usual services haven't been interrupted. My mail has been running without a hitch. My iDisk was only down for a few hours and then came back online with double the storage. My web site hasn't been down as far as I know. Back to my mac was working every time I wanted to use it.

I've just been loving the fact that my email, contacts, and calendars are now pushing for free (and have been since launch day), that my iDisk storage doubled for free (on launch day), and that the ugly iDisk icon is finally gone.

Now I am going to get an extra free month of service for nothing. Life is good.

[Eric S.]

A lot of people haven't received the email yet, but it is legitimate, here's the official doc on Apple's website http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2408

I got mine. It was pushed to my iTouch. :)

[caffeinejoe]

err...ummm...well, that's great, except
IT ISN'T WORKING YET!

:mad:

When composing an e-mail, the To: field does not autofill the way .Mac did, and when I try to click on the address book icon, I get this little gem.

What a disaster. I should have known better than to use a Microsoft service. Oh...wait.


Same thing for me. Apple should rename MobileMe to Woe_Is_Me

[taytho]

yeah, i got my email today..... i felt pretty good about an extra month. good stuff.

does anyone have any idea when things will be up and running well?

[HLdan]

Most companies in the world wouldn't have offered a 30-day extension. When faced with a situation like this, most companies wouldn't have offered anything at all. (My ISP, for example, is clearly of the "screw the customer" school.)

It might not be perfect, but Apple's attempt to make things up to their users is well above average.


Agreed, I remember not too long ago that Microsoft made a public statement that there was nothing they could do to stop the viruses and spyware on Windows XP so instead they just recommended their customers to upgrade to Vista for a more secure system. Very lame, it's up to Microsoft to build a secure system for their customers. Although it is the customer's responsibility to beware on the internet Windows XP shouldn't be so easy to catch everything on the web.
How about all those people that have had their bank account passwords stolen through spyware, Microsoft has not apologized for that and offered anything, they just want you to spend more money on the next version of their OS.

[slapppy]

Apple was premature in sending out that email. MobileMe is still not working properly. Second, email for mac.com/me is not working either. Someone is not doing their job at Apple properly. Not testing thoroughly.

[Eric S.]

yeah, i got my email today..... i felt pretty good about an extra month. good stuff.

does anyone have any idea when things will be up and running well?

In 30 days.
;)

[RNSheets]

my email from mac to mobileme works fine and it's pushed to my iphone and itp (itouchphone)

[taytho]

In 30 days.
;)

i would laugh if i wasnt crying on the inside in fear that that could be the truth.

[HLdan]

i would laugh if i wasnt crying on the inside in fear that that could be the truth.

For such a major upgrade I wouldn't be surprised if didn't take at least 30 days. I want it ALL working perfectly including the iDisk sharing feature. So far the available features all work just fine for me. I am able to push from the web to my Mac in seconds and from my Mac to the web apps. The only thing I don't understand is why iPhoto doesn't have the MM icon?

[sgtboy]

Can somebody try something for me? Email something to your me account from a seperate account. and delete the email on your ipod touch/iphone then login to me.com and see if it is in still in the inbox

[CourtneyA1]

Got the email.

Got my iPhone yesterday. In the store, I got my "push" from an already set up mm account.

Yesterday, I entered a bunch more contacts and appts on my ical, and JUST GOT the data on the iPhone. A full 24 hrs later. I"m just glad it worked! It definitely required some patience.

FYI: setting up Yahoo plus account: "pushed" in a couple of hours, and now fine.

[KiwiLee]

Well its nice to finally hear from Apple for sure, and i cant scoff at the 30days extra, although i still have had no emails about it myself?

But does any of this matter when MobileMe still doesn't work proper ?

[rtdunham]

There's already a 'hack' when you change your prefs file. you can set it to 1 minute if you desire. Long talked about on here already.

but that's not the same, it's not as efficient as syncing/pushing ONLY when a change has been made. you might not make a change for an hour; do you want 60 unnecessary syncs initiated during that time instead?

[autumnsong]

I am impressed that Apple sent us emails (more personal than just posting an apology on their website, for example) and the 30 day extension was a nice touch. Few companies would do this. Well done, Apple. :apple:

[nvbrit]

Apple was premature in sending out that email. MobileMe is still not working properly. Second, email for mac.com/me is not working either. Someone is not doing their job at Apple properly. Not testing thoroughly.

Apple has never said it's working 100% correctly, look at the support page for MobileMe, there you'll find the current status. The email was to acknowledge the problems, talk about 'push' and offer compensation in the form of the 30 days extension.

[bj3949]

The Answer to iCal not Pushing........for now.

You'll thank me for this.

In your home folder, go to Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.DotMacSync--------------

Open this file with Property List Editor:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14363

Once you open this file, change the AutoSyncInterval number from 15 to 1.
Then save the file.

After a little while, iCal will now sync every minute instead of every 15 minutes.

It might take a restart for it to start working, but eventually it will work.

It's pretty awesome.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[wizard]

I’m quickly becoming less and less optimistic about a timely (ie pre September, in time for college) laptop refresh.

err that is hardware. More so a completely different division and should be running free of trouble.


With all the iphone frenzy and the challenges they’re having with iphone and mobile me software, things don’t look promising for them piling on another hardware release soon…

There is little to tie the different areas together. Like always Apple will deliver the upgraded hardware in their own sweet time. I'm still thinking we will be lucky if we see new laptops by September.

Dave

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Did any other faithful .Mac members not receive their apology letters?

I'm a little bummed about it.

[bj3949]

Did any other faithful .Mac members not receive their apology letters?

I'm a little bummed about it.

i didnt receive *****

[BillyBobBongo]

Mine only turned up this morning, I'm sure you'll get yours at some point today.

Great to see Apple apologising and giving some information about what is going on. :D

[marksman]

It just ... the more I think about it, the more it bugs me. The iPhone is a LESS advanced development platform with a LESS advanced processor and LESS advanced infrastructure. It has a SLOWER internet connection than most PCs and Macs, yet it can Push to the cloud?

Why?

Why can the iPhone push to cloud but not Macs and PCs? It just boggles my ****ing mind. Instead of posting apology letters, send out a ****ing preference pane with mobilemed daemon, I don't care if it takes up 120mb of RAM, and have it push to the cloud every time a change occurs! I mean come on, you have developers that can code these insane ass web apps, but you can't write a simple background daemon that will push updates to the cloud as they are made?

****ing hell.

My feelings too, until it was pointed out the problem is not the mac itself it is the applications themselves that need to be updated to make this work.

[marksman]

30 extra days on a subscription service is literally NOTHING. It has no value, and will likely never be "collected" by any paying user. It's a dodge, and a sop to those who are on the "trial." It has absolutely no affect, and is of no benefit to the actual paying users of the system like myself. That being said, we are still looking at less than five bucks worth of down time, so I don't really care about the "30 day bonus."


Now that you have had some time to reflect on this, I hope you realize that you were essentially 100% wrong about this?

If I pay for 12 months of something and it is down for 2 weeks because of issues, and they give me 30 days compensation, then I got what I paid for and then some.

Saying it is meaningless as it relates to a subscription service is pretty ignorant.

If the problems persist past 30 days then there is another issue to address, otherwise it is reasonable and desirable compensation. Claiming it is worthless is just wrong on your part.

[KiwiLee]

Did any other faithful .Mac members not receive their apology letters?

I'm a little bummed about it.

Yup i still havent seen one yet either, so much for being a .mac customer for years........:mad:

[rdowns]

The Answer to iCal not Pushing........for now.

You'll thank me for this.

In your home folder, go to Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.DotMacSync--------------

Open this file with Property List Editor:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14363

Once you open this file, change the AutoSyncInterval number from 15 to 1.
Then save the file.

After a little while, iCal will now sync every minute instead of every 15 minutes.

It might take a restart for it to start working, but eventually it will work.

It's pretty awesome.

Let me know if you have any questions.

THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA

First, if a lot of people do this, there is too much strain put on Apple's already overloaded servers.

Second, your machine could still be doing a sync when a new one is requested in a minute. No telling what may happen there.

I can see syncing more often than 15 minutes but every minute is overkill.

[JP M.]

Did any other faithful .Mac members not receive their apology letters?

I'm a little bummed about it.

I haven't received mine yet. I think they're spreading it out based on timezone.

[vandozza]

also as mentioned previously, it's probable that many users have turned off the "recieve email notifications from apple" checkbox/option.

and might not ever receive the email. we will wait and see! :)

[alFR]

The Answer to iCal not Pushing........for now.
<snip>


As has already been pointed out this is at best not a good idea and at worst is retarded, for the following reasons:

1. Push is not = sync. A sync requires comparison of the contents of the databases on your mac and on the cloud, whereas a push just sends the changed data. Thus a sync is much more server-intensive and everyone setting it to every minute will absolutely hammer the servers.
2. If the server is busy (say, being hammered by thousands of other every-minute syncs) and your TCPIP timeout is more than 60s it could try to sync again before the first one is fully initiated. That doesn't sound good to me.
3. If you have a lot of data to sync, you could also be trying to sync again before the first one is done. Again, not a good idea.

If it's that important to you to get a change up there This Second, initiate a manual sync and don't DOS the Me servers by sending loads of unnecessary sync requests, thereby making the service worse for everyone.

[Daveoc64]

also as mentioned previously, it's probable that many users have turned off the "recieve email notifications from apple" checkbox/option.

and might not ever receive the email. we will wait and see! :)

Surely they can make an exception for this?

It's important service information.

A bit like MacRumors - they can e-mail you if there's something wrong with your account.

[Daveoc64]

As has already been pointed out this is at best not a good idea and at worst is retarded, for the following reasons:

1. Push is not = sync. A sync requires comparison of the contents of the databases on your mac and on the cloud, whereas a push just sends the changed data. Thus a sync is much more server-intensive and everyone setting it to every minute will absolutely hammer the servers.
2. If the server is busy (say, being hammered by thousands of other every-minute syncs) and your TCPIP timeout is more than 60s it could try to sync again before the first one is fully initiated. That doesn't sound good to me.
3. If you have a lot of data to sync, you could also be trying to sync again before the first one is done. Again, not a good idea.

If it's that important to you to get a change up there This Second, initiate a manual sync and don't DOS the Me servers by sending loads of unnecessary sync requests, thereby making the service worse for everyone.

On the flip side, if people are syncing frequently, Apple might get the message that we want "push" to be implemented as it was described on their site before.

I would put the interval at 3 minutes, as far as I can tell there would be no problem with doing multiple syncs - it would just ignore the subsequent ones.

[bogman12]

Why would it take a public outcry for them to realize they shouldn't mislabel things for marketing purposes?

[leandroc76]

Service pack 1. Same one they sent for the initial XP fiasco. Vista is working quite well now.

That doesn't count as an apology, just a cover up. Yes Vista is running well now... for the 9 people using it.

[Mindflux]

That doesn't count as an apology, just a cover up. Yes Vista is running well now... for the 9 people using it.

:rolleyes:

Vista may be 'ok' now, but I'm pretty sure more than 9 folks are running it. In fact I'd wager that there are more people running Vista than all the versions of OS X combined.

[*GG*]

Did any other faithful .Mac members not receive their apology letters?

I'm a little bummed about it.

Nope nothing at all from Apple yet. Nothing. :(

[seedster2]

Why would it take a public outcry for them to realize they shouldn't mislabel things for marketing purposes?

Precisely, I am always weary of their keynotes.

I wait for the faithful to run and buy, accept the new product's final version (which is inevitably different than advertised at keynote), then decide if it's worth the time and effort.

[Virgil-TB2]

Now that you have had some time to reflect on this, I hope you realize that you were essentially 100% wrong about this?

If I pay for 12 months of something and it is down for 2 weeks because of issues, and they give me 30 days compensation, then I got what I paid for and then some.

Saying it is meaningless as it relates to a subscription service is pretty ignorant.

If the problems persist past 30 days then there is another issue to address, otherwise it is reasonable and desirable compensation. Claiming it is worthless is just wrong on your part.I don't know what the heck you are talking about.
I haven't changed my opinion on this and nothing you have said has changed it either.

You are being fooled. Your "free month" is only on paper and constitutes no real value. In fact it's so obvious I don't understand why you are even arguing about it. I'm sure it's irritating to be fooled like this, but once someone points it out to you, the only rational approach is just to admit that you were fooled, not just claim that black is white.

If you are on a free trial (the market the "free month" promotion is aimed at), it's a good value. It give you the time to truly assess the service given that the first week or two were total crap.

If you are a paid member, it does literally nothing at all. There have been no changes made to my account yet, but presumably it will just change the date of my renewal to one month further in the future. The only way this benefits me, is if I *don't* renew my subscription, I get one last month longer than I thought. Even so, if they change the renewal date, the effective change when I stop renewing is actually even less, especially if I have been living with the new renewal date for some time.

If (and this is a big if as it contradicts the emails Apple has been sending out), they actually give me $9.08 Canadian off of my next renewal, then that would be an actual cash saving or "real" benefit. Still it's less than ten bucks. Imagine the outcry if Apple had instead announced that they were giving everyone ten bucks for their trouble. It wouldn't sound as good as this promotion would it? ;)

In any case Apple has indicated in emails that this is not what they are going to do anyway. It's an "extension" of an essentially unlimited time frame. Kind of like saying that new evidence has shown the Universe will last a week longer than thought, :rolleyes: it doesn't really help those of us that probably won't last until then.

This "gift" has no value at all for paid members and is certainly not recompense for the myriad failings of .Mac and now MobileMe.

I'm not one of those complainers that thinks that this stuff should be free and the 100 bucks a year seems more than fair IMO. However, the service has always kind of sucked, and the features and benefits promised over the years have never materialised. Apple has failed time and time again to provide these. Now we have even less features for the same price, but they are all (for me) severely broken.

Great work Apple! ;)

.

[Virgil-TB2]

yeh because Apple has a deny on outside IP USA addresses... right.

MobileMe is MobileMe... they don't care where you're located. Don't make this a USA vs Canada/International issue...Well apologies for bringing the "USA-ian's" into it. :)

I did that because it often seems to us up here that the border is in fact the problem. This is a fairly common thing that Apple announces everything is working and all the USA-ians cheer and the blogs report victory, but people in Europe and Canada and Australia are still having problems.

It may be a mistake, but it's perhaps understandable why these attributions are made. I had no clear evidence of such shenanigans however and should not have included that part.

.

[Daveoc64]

Nope nothing at all from Apple yet. Nothing. :(

I've not got anything yet.

[Prof.]

I didn't get an email yet. Are we absolutely sure this is legit and not some type of prank?

[HLdan]

I didn't get an email yet. Are we absolutely sure this is legit and not some type of prank?

No, don't worry, it's not a prank, I thought so too until I received my letter from Apple. I think they are sending it in spurts to avoid server overload. Even if you don't get it you can call Apple and they should explain it to you.

[Prof.]

No, don't worry, it's not a prank, I thought so too until I received my letter from Apple. I think they are sending it in spurts to avoid server overload. Even if you don't get it you can call Apple and they should explain it to you.
Thanks, HLdan!:) I'll wait a few more days for the email. If I don't get one, I'll call my local Apple store.

[NJPitcher]

Yea, I have not received my email yet, but I'm not surprised because given how poorly my mobileme is working, apple may not be aware that my account even exists :p

[chris3g]

I didn't get an email yet. Are we absolutely sure this is legit and not some type of prank?

the letter is somewhere on apple's support site. Also, take a look at the mobileme product page on the website. they have removed every instance of the word "push" from the verbiage.

[nvbrit]

Thanks, HLdan!:) I'll wait a few more days for the email. If I don't get one, I'll call my local Apple store.

A lot of people haven't got an email, it's really not important, this is legitimate and the information is on Apples website for all to see, with full details of who qualifies for the 30 day extension.

You can read it here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2408

[nvbrit]

I don't know what the heck you are talking about.
I haven't changed my opinion on this and nothing you have said has changed it either.

You are being fooled. Your "free month" is only on paper and constitutes no real value. In fact it's so obvious I don't understand why you are even arguing about it. I'm sure it's irritating to be fooled like this, but once someone points it out to you, the only rational approach is just to admit that you were fooled, not just claim that black is white.

If you are on a free trial (the market the "free month" promotion is aimed at), it's a good value. It give you the time to truly assess the service given that the first week or two were total crap.................
.

If you have a 12 month subscription that is due for renewal on August 1st, then you will have to pay out $99 on August 1st for that renewal, now with the 30 day extension the money remains in your pocket for another month so you gained the benefit of having that money longer than orignally anticipated, so of course it's a benefit.

Another way to look at it is you paid $99 for 12 months of subscription and got 13 months so again how is this NOT a benefit when you get more than you paid for?

If you had planned on NOT renewing your subscription because of the problems with MobileMe, now you don't have to worry becuase you can give it more time for Apple to work out the kinks without spending more money, again a benefit!

[zoktoberfest]

As someone, apparently, still computing in the prehistoric age (G4 / 10.3.9) the "me.com" transition was a meaningless inconvenience. MobileMe does not support older platforms, and my iSync is still desperately trying to sync to (.mac). Every half hour or so, I get the failure message. Will it ever stop? Sometimes it refuses to quit, and I have to execute a forced quit from the activity monitor.

Why couldn't Mac. have staggered its' transition load, by say, membership date. When a flight boards, they say "rows 21 through 28 now boarding at gate 3". They don't say, "hey, the planes here", and even though the arriving passengers aren't off yet, "last one on is a rotten egg". Mac did a poor job anticipating the wisdom of "Murphy's Law". Too much, too fast, always a no-go.

The apology did little to abate my sense of increased abandonment. In the quest to satisfy the jet set, power users, carelessly imposing forced obsolescence on those who can do without the endless bells and whistles. Another perfectly functional computer destined for the scrap heap.

[donga]

As someone, apparently, still computing in the prehistoric age (G4 / 10.3.9) the "me.com" transition was a meaningless inconvenience. MobileMe does not support older platforms, and my iSync is still desperately trying to sync to (.mac). Every half hour or so, I get the failure message. Will it ever stop? Sometimes it refuses to quit, and I have to execute a forced quit from the activity monitor.

Why couldn't Mac. have staggered its' transition load, by say, membership date. When a flight boards, they say "rows 21 through 28 now boarding at gate 3". They don't say, "hey, the planes here", and even though the arriving passengers aren't off yet, "last one on is a rotten egg". Mac did a poor job anticipating the wisdom of "Murphy's Law". Too much, too fast, always a no-go.

The apology did little to abate my sense of increased abandonment. In the quest to satisfy the jet set, power users, carelessly imposing forced obsolescence on those who can do without the endless bells and whistles. Another perfectly functional computer destined for the scrap heap.

completely agree (i'm still on panther too). trying to get people to keep on buying newer, bigger, better....

[ynnoj]

They took their time, but we got there in the end.

Props to Apple.

[adamget]

still no email

[-Garry-]

Hurray! I just got another month free too, due to a billing cock up with many trial accounts set up on the 10th July...

http://www.*****************/uploads/tn1216426387006609300.jpg (http://www.*****************/viewpic.php?p=1216426387006609300&x=jpg)

[*GG*]

still no email

It's okay it's the same here - another day, and no email. I am wondering if this offer is only for people living in the US and those of us outside it won't get a month free.

[-Garry-]

It's okay it's the same here - another day, and no email. I am wondering if this offer is only for people living in the US and those of us outside it won't get a month free.

Nah, I'm in England and got the e-mail...

[queshy]

So my MobileMe trial now goes did 08/11/08, which according to my iCal, corresponds to November! That's one sick free trial!

[DiamondMac]

It's okay it's the same here - another day, and no email. I am wondering if this offer is only for people living in the US and those of us outside it won't get a month free.

If you have free time at work, do their Mobile Support if you can stand to wait 2 hours or so for them to help :(

[TuffLuffJimmy]

It's okay it's the same here - another day, and no email. I am wondering if this offer is only for people living in the US and those of us outside it won't get a month free.

I'm in the US and I never got an email

[LockedOut]

Seems reasonable enough I suppose.

Such a huge transition of systems will never go smoothly, their wording regarding the push features was evidently a grave mistake.

I think an additional month of service for free is adequate.

It would've been reasonable to test the product more before it's roll out. Apple is emulating microsoft on this one.

[Daveoc64]

Still no e-mail for me.

[BackFocus]

I don't understand what the big deal is? This will most likely be fixed in a software update. I mean, if they can push from a phone...I think they can from a computer. I'll take my extended trail period though :)

[Dias]

Does "ME" work anyway? I can't access my email for 2 days already (webapp does not work, iPhone can't fetch it neither).

[Daveoc64]

I don't understand what the big deal is? This will most likely be fixed in a software update. I mean, if they can push from a phone...I think they can from a computer. I'll take my extended trail period though :)

The big deal is that they said that the service was push no matter what device you used.

Apple has now changed all of its marketing to reflect the fact that it does not.

Imagine if they said iPhone could play WMV files. Some people would be really unhappy, others wouldn't care because it actually plays MPEG4 files.

[Dias]

Btw, I bought MobileMe box few weeks ago, can I ask to give me back my money?