Is Mobile Me worth it?

[ronmaverick88]

I hardly go anywhere unless its downtown to school.. I never used mobile me or iweb.. is it the same thing? I was just wondering because I see it is not free and I have a ipod touch so what is the difference between paying for mobile me and having a ipod touch? isn't it the same thing, you have all your files and able to take them anywhere?

also for iweb does it host the site and everything once you pay? like after i pay and make a site will i still need a domain and all or does apple host it too?

[thithi]

I hardly go anywhere unless its downtown to school.. I never used mobile me or iweb.. is it the same thing? I was just wondering because I see it is not free and I have a ipod touch so what is the difference between paying for mobile me and having a ipod touch? isn't it the same thing, you have all your files and able to take them anywhere?


MobileMe (http://www.apple.com/mobileme/) and iWeb (http://www.apple.com/ilife/iweb/)are not the same thing. Check out the information on the Apple web site.


also for iweb does it host the site and everything once you pay? like after i pay and make a site will i still need a domain and all or does apple host it too?


iWeb does not host sites. You create sites in iWeb. The sites can be hosted on MobileMe. You don't need a domain if you use MobileMe. I use MobileMe to host my site (http://web.me.com/thierry.cornelis/Site/Blog/Blog.html).

[bindigok]

Mobile Me is not worth getting. It was great when it was mac.com, but the features often have bugs and are lacking. The sync feature messes up constantly with Mobile Me. I would not recommend using Mobile Me. If you need hosting, look somewhere else.

I will not be renewing Mobile Me this year.

[numbersyx]

Mobile Me is not worth getting. It was great when it was mac.com, but the features often have bugs and are lacking. The sync feature messes up constantly with Mobile Me. I would not recommend using Mobile Me. If you need hosting, look somewhere else.

I will not be renewing Mobile Me this year.

If you have an iPhone it almost certainly is. I have had no problems with it although I have been reading about lots of difficulties. I find it very easy to share photos with relatives through it. I also like the sync of my address books and calendars.

I don't have an iPhone yet but the push e-mail would certainly be a benefit if I did.

[Akitakoi]

I had the free trial for almost 3 months, I found nothing useful about it. I use Yahoo mail and Exchange for my job so I did not use the mail. I guess the back up would have been nice if I didn't sync my phone every day to my computer.

[thithi]

If you have an iPhone it almost certainly is. I have had no problems with it although I have been reading about lots of difficulties. I find it very easy to share photos with relatives through it. I also like the sync of my address books and calendars.

I don't have an iPhone yet but the push e-mail would certainly be a benefit if I did.

I also use it to share photos and videos with friends and relatives. And now started using it for a small website. I find the integration with iPhoto and iMovie easy to use.
The web application http://www.me.com should have extra functionalities:
* support for subscription calendars
* sending email from a different domain
* iWeb

[csmitty]

Ha, it'd be nice if the subscription calendars worked in iCal :rolleyes:

[Hartel]

I purchased MobileMe and I would say its definitely worth it. I can host multiple sites through the service allowing me to have my family's website, tech blog, or anything else loaded up to the FTP for only $99.99 a year. And with the dedicated email, iWeb, and other functions and features of MobileMe I think it is a service worth having.

[Jeremy81]

I picked up a family pack on eBay for 40 something. It is worth it for the no hassle syncing of email, contacts, bookmarks, and calendars between multiple Macs and/or iPhone/iPod. If you purchase a new iPhone, iPod, or Mac it literally takes less than a minute to get your information synced.

[Duff-Man]

Duff-Man says....I wish I had a dollar for every "is .mac/mobileme worth it" thread that has been started....oh yeah!

[bindigok]

Mobile Me does not work well with Windows XP. Mac.com worked better because it was web-based and worked well in a browser. Syncing Mobile Me in XP works about 2 times, then has to be reset or reinstalled or something else goes wrong.

I guess if I had an iPhone, it would be worth it, but I don't plan on buying an iPhone until it's on Verizon or Alltel.

[OttawaGuy]

Hi, Are .mac registration codes still valid for mobile me?

[Daveoc64]

Hi, Are .mac registration codes still valid for mobile me?

Yes.

[OttawaGuy]

Thanks

[ronmaverick88]

Thank you for taking the time to reply :)

[majordude]

If you have an iPhone it almost certainly is.

How do you figure? I'm serious. I have a .mac account but only use it for email.

[OttawaGuy]

To the OP; I picked up a .mac/ mobileme registration code on fleabay for 53 dollars US. Not a bad price to check it out.

[IgnatiusTheKing]

How do you figure? I'm serious. I have a .mac account but only use it for email.


I use MobileMe email for my freelance design work so it doesn't get mixed in with my regular, personal Gmail account. I have it set up as an IMAP account on both my iPhone and my iMac.
I use the iDisk to transfer large files to my clients.
I use the iDisk to keep working and backup copies of files I'm working on so I can access them anywhere.
I use MobileMe to host my website (a domain I bought from GoDaddy).
I use MobileMe to host review copies of HTML emails I design.
I sync my Address Book and Calendars between my MacBook, iMac and iPhone.


I'm sure there's more I do with MobileMe but I can't think of anything else right now. Clearly, it's not for everyone, but for those of us who need/want to keep things synced up and have/share access to large files, it's a great service. It also helps that you can pick it up on Amazon (I got mine for $70) or eBay (even cheaper) for quite a bit less than the regular cost.

[yuanmoons]

As above, i got my next two years of mobileme for half price picking up .mac bargains on ebay. Having said that, id pay the full amount.

I use it for
* email (includes 5 aliases)
* address book, ical, bookmarks - sync with mac & iphone - almost instant/seamless now in my experience.
* gallery for upload of personal and public photos & videos + iphone photos easy upload
* idisk for storing 'archive' info to supplement backups to external drives ie. off-site backups of key data (using 10gb of 20gb so far)
* idisk public folder for sharing files when necessary to anywhere in the world
* web hosting using iweb - hosting a simple 'trial & fun' web page & will buy domain soon to develop future site.

Its proper value for money for me.

Im not saying its perfect
* need ftp client like cyberduck to get stable connection to idisk for file transfers at the moment
* notes within mail is very erratic - creates duplicates & doesnt always save updates (these sync with notes folder on mobileme email on iphone)
* probably some other minor stuff that i tend to overlook.

* it seems to be getting better - stability & speed-wise - over last few months

On the whole i love that this all-in-one solution is available. And being from Apple they should continue to develop the service (although they've been alittle slack until MobileMe launch)

[TLewis]

If you have an iPhone, MobileMe is worth it if you also need to synchronize contacts/calendars across multiple Macs/PCs, or if you're also not terribly computer literate. The synchronization features are actually quite nice, and some people will like having a single, easy-to-use place for email, photos, online storage, etc., etc.. Now, whether or not all this is worth the price, that's another question. It'll be worth it for some, but not others.

Now, if you're moderately computer-literate, and are willing to go through the hassles, you can get some of the features for free:

Google and Yahoo have good, free email services, and you can even get free push email accounts from some places. Also, if you use an email provider with server-side filtering/autoforwarding (gmail), you can get push of only selected email.


There is at least one site that provides free push calendar and contacts to the iPhone. (However, I don't know of any place that provides a way to synchronize multiple iCal/Mail.app/Outlook contacts and calendars, like MobileMe.)


There are sites that provide free photo sharing (like Google's Picasa). Disk space may be limited, though.


There are online storage providers that give you a modest amount of disk space for free. Dropbox is one of the best. Not only do they give you 2GB free (with a max file size larger than 2GB), but it works on Macs, PCs, and linux. Oh, and it also auto-synchronizes files between your computers. If you're willing to pay, services like the paid versions of Dropbox or JungleDisk (PC-only, unfortunately) provide cheaper (and possibly more reliable/secure) storage than MobileMe.

Dropbox is really good -- check out their video at: http://www.getdropbox.com

[bindigok]

More troubles with Mobile Me. Today unable for Mail to connect with Mobile Me server, and Apple says nothing is wrong. Their support for Mobile Me is terrible!!!

[angemon89]

It is for $35 (price I paid on eBay)

[Burger Thing]

7 words: NO! It is a waste of money.

[Theophany]

To use the Messiah's own words: It's a bag of hurt.

[Razeus]

I tried it during the trial plus all the extra months they gave for free. It's a good concept, but too bad it's doesn't work consistently and generally unreliable. I now discovered drop box to sync & store files and being that I own a Macbook Pro and iPhone, I really don't need to worry about keeping my calendar and contacts in sync, since iTunes does it for me anyway. As for getting mail, I just use the email app on my iPhone when on the go. MobileMe is completely unneccessary.