Two Weeks Later: Mobile Me's Uptime Calculated (96%)

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Two weeks after Apple announced that all MobileMe systems were up and operational after a rocky transition (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/05/steve-jobs-acknowledges-mobileme-missteps/), there continue to be sporadic reports around the web of various service outages inclusive of a 4.5 hour mail outage yesterday. But has MobileMe gotten more reliable?

According to Apple's MobileMe status history (http://www.apple.com/support/mobileme/system_status_history.html), there have been approximately 13.5 hours of various downtime over the past two weeks (336 hours); that is, MobileMe has a 96% overall uptime over the past two weeks.

Determining whether 96% is good or bad can be subjective to the user. This editor and user of MobileMe has hardly been affected by the outages but other users may have been more affected by the timing or the content of the outages. In general we would consider a consumer-oriented service such as MobileMe to have an uptime of at least 98% which would effectively half the downtime that MobileMe currently experiences.

Walt Mossberg has expressed similar sentiments, saying that currently MobileMe is far too flawed to be reliable (http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20080723/apples-mobileme-is-far-too-flawed-to-be-reliable/).

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/12/two-weeks-later-mobile-mes-uptime-calculated-96/)

[thecritix]

Of course offering the stats based on a period you set, is not nearly as interesting as the stats on Mobile Me's history, in my case I'd say that figure could be as low as 50-60% uptime.

96% is awful for this service!
And I personally believe some individuals will have it worse than that.

[Veri]

In general we would consider a consumer-oriented service such as Mobile Me to have an uptime of at least 98% which would effectively half the downtime that Mobile Me currently experiences.
Why such low expectations? Computers don't need rests. Apple doesn't need to work on a tight budget. What aspect of the Internet / Apple's hosting software requires 2% downtime?

[bigandy]

Well I'm definitely not moving in their direction for anything - even a free account. :rolleyes:

[longofest]

Why such low expectations? Computers don't need rests. Apple doesn't need to work on a tight budget. What aspect of the Internet / Apple's hosting software requires 2% downtime?

Scheduled maintenance to perform updates, etc. Typically business-grade systems have above 99% uptime. I just think it's a little presumptuous to expect that of something targeted at consumers (kind of like how server-grade hard disks have higher mean time between failures than consumer-grade hard disks).

That being said, 96% is too low.

[Iggy]

Well I missed a whole week on top of that 13.5 hours. I'd like to see what that percentage would look like if it applied to the whole month. I can't complain though, Apple shut me up with a free years mobileme.

[spicoli]

First off, I am holding on to hope....

MobileMe has not worked out for me at all. My set up is Macbook, MM, iPhone, PC (vista/Outlook 2007 in corporate setting). My goal was to sync my work contact and calendars with my personal info and have them all on my iPhone. The mac side seems to work after a couple of weeks of flubs. At first, calendars on mac did not sync at all, then OK. Then contacts duplicated, then only partial sync (about 20% synced). Then only names synced with no e-mail addresses, no phone numbers. That appears to be working ..... for now.

PC syncing has never worked well. I understand that the corporate setting may be impacting me (proxies, firewalls, etc.), but I understood from the presentation Steve Jobs gave earlier in the year, that I would be able to do what I want. Sync my work stuff with my other stuff.... on my iPhone. As of yesterday afternoon, my work PC won't even log into MobileMe.

I am glad MobileMe is working for most and I am still holding on to hope. Let the updates begin.

[longofest]

Well I missed a whole week on top of that 13.5 hours. I'd like to see what that percentage would look like if it applied to the whole month. I can't complain though, Apple shut me up with a free years mobileme.

Yeah, obviously if you take into account the extended outage at the beginning the percentage goes WAY down. But I think that taking that into account doesn't give an accurate description of the current state of MobileMe. The article is supposed to look at the reliability after the rocky transition finally finished, i.e. 2 weeks ago.

[Darkroom]

interesting... gmail was out for about that long yesterday as well...

[archi17]

I think that Mobile Me will have a higher uptime in the future, when they get over their starting hurdle. Currently the downtime calculated over apples initial stat is going to make the numbers look low

[swingerofbirch]

I wonder why Apple gave up on the MobileMe Status blog. They promised an update last week that never came.

[dual64bit]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5B108 Safari/525.20)

I certainly wouldn't want my business to rely on MobileMe. I have noticed the issues, but only he it for my personal e-mail

[Kilamite]

I've still had no problems.

But I use OS X Mail, I don't actually go to me.com - so I might not even know if Mail is down.

[mdntcallr]

honestly, Blackberry has been criticized alot lately for outtages,
so has Gmail.

Which only underscores the importance of a 99.999% reliability, Apple is running into terrible territory when they are setting themselves up for problems.

to not have email for almost 5 hours? will make alot of customers very very unhappy. especially when mobile me is getting billed as exchange or blackberry replacement.

so.... Apple has to get their **** together or... mobile me will be known as the kiddie version of "Blackberry" or Exchange.

lets go back to .Mac .... at least it was more reliable.

[GT500Shlby]

It's only been a few weeks. I don't think the flaws are permanent. It will evolve and get better. I'll wait until next year when all the bugs are worked out and then I'll try it out for 30 days. See if I like it.

[mdntcallr]

I've still had no problems.

But I use OS X Mail, I don't actually go to me.com - so I might not even know if Mail is down.

i noticed problems via my Mail app. then i tried logging in via a web browser, to no avail. if the .ME / .Mac service mail is down, didn't matter what you got your email via. all of it was down

[Shasterball]

If I can't do something I pay for almost 1 in 20 times, that is BAD.

[Kilamite]

This free 30 days isn't going to seem like much since most of the 30 days are going to be up and down.

[longofest]

lets go back to .Mac .... at least it was more reliable.

No, it wasn't. It was about the same. Mobile Me just has more heat on it because it's new.

[queshy]

I'd be willing to accept 24 hours of outage over a one year period. So 365 * 24 h = 8760 h/year.

24/8760 x 100% = 0.28%.

[hikinman]

I'm not a mobile me user, but 96% uptime is bad.

I realize that this is only for 2 weeks, but if 96% uptime continued, that means MobileMe would be down for 14.6 days per year!!! Thats 2 weeks a year for a service you pay for.

Since I started using gmail (which is still in beta), about 4 years ago, I don't believe they have had that much downtime in 4 years (if they did, i certainly didn't notice).

I would get fired if the data network I support only had 96% uptime.

-r

[nickane]

28 weeks later: Eradication. Sterilization. Re-Population. Re-Infection.

[odedia]

In my company, we have a commitment to our clients for a 99.9% uptime.

I think a company as big as Apple can get away with at least 99%.

They truly have a long way to go.

[Abraxx]

I consider 96% for such a service as laughable and embarrassing.
For this kind of service I expect uptimes close to airplane engines ;) and
I wouldn't want to fly with a plane whose engines have an "uptime" of only 96%....
:D

my 2 cents

[whooleytoo]

96% sounds good, but is direly poor. That's approx. 1 hour down every single day. And when you bear in mind it's a global service, it means the downtime will be during business hours for someone.

[blehpunk]

well not only did i not have email for a week, but i have lost over 3,000 messages. these are un-retrievable they said.

[The Tall One]

My company uses servers and webhosting with worse uptime than that. I do agree that they should strive for excellence since Apple's reputation is based on how stable and reliable their systems are however...

[Panu]

My web hosting company guarantees me no more than four minutes downtime per month, so MobileMe has a lot of room for improvement--however, it is improving, and that is a very good sign. I would imagine that some downtime is unavoidable during the time they work on the server setup while it's live.

I have never had any problem with MobileMe. It has always worked, and the downtime was not inconvenient. I did have a problem that MobileMe would pretend to sync iCal on my iMac, but nothing was changed. Then I discovered it was my own fault. I had accidentally put an extended attribute (group:everyone deny delete) on the files in my library folder. That was enough to prevent the sync. I removed it, and MobileMe was instantly able to sync.

Incidentally, the web hosting company's guarantee doesn't mean that I have less than four minutes of downtime a month. About once a year it goes haywire, and I lose a big chunk of a day. Computers don't need rests, but occasionally they take a nap anyway.

[UpQuark]

Bummer.... I use MobileMe for my web hosting and email. I don't synch much, but it is starting to bother me that this outage situation is seemingly getting out of hand.

My older bro is on the other extreme. He is one of the 1% and is completely frustrated. I hope they get their stuff in one sock soon.

[UpQuark]

well not only did i not have email for a week, but i have lost over 3,000 messages. these are un-retrievable they said.

No offense, but personal backups dude. Trust, but always verify.

[Hattig]

Scheduled maintenance to perform updates, etc. Typically business-grade systems have above 99% uptime. I just think it's a little presumptuous to expect that of something targeted at consumers (kind of like how server-grade hard disks have higher mean time between failures than consumer-grade hard disks).

That being said, 96% is too low.

Updating a website with an entirely new website deployment should take on the order of minutes, not hours, and you perform them at the dead of night when you have systems that tens of thousands of people use and pay for.

[jonhaxor]

I'd be willing to accept 24 hours of outage over a one year period. So 365 * 24 h = 8760 h/year.

24/8760 x 100% = 0.28%.

in the enterprise - it's generally expressed in the number of consecutive 9's .. hence 1 hour outage for a year represents 99.99988% uptime or five 9's .. apple's having a hard time with one 9 over the period of about a month

that does not bode well for any business .. (free to the consumer included) .. there are ways to do 100% uptime (seamless failover systems), but apple really doesn't play that well in the high availability or enterprise market

[savar]

Scheduled maintenance to perform updates, etc. Typically business-grade systems have above 99% uptime. I just think it's a little presumptuous to expect that of something targeted at consumers (kind of like how server-grade hard disks have higher mean time between failures than consumer-grade hard disks).

That being said, 96% is too low.

Business grade systems usually have uptime far higher than what you specify. 99.99 would be a low-end business, 99.999-99.9999 would be in the realm of most mission-critical business systems for fortune 500 companies, and 99.99999 is achieved by many very high-end systems used at very large companies.

MobileMe should probably be in the 2-3 nines range, which is 1/100 to 1/1000 of the downtime that you suggest is normal for business-grade systems, and much lower than their actual downtime.

The fact that people are being fired or demoted over this implies that Apple realizes the business threat of a reputation for instability. I'm sure many small business owners (independent contractors, etc.) will be looking at the iphone/mobile me combo as a cheaper alternative to a full blown exchange server set up; but I don't think that they will tolerate a service that is down at crucial hours of the day when they could be closing business deals.

[spaced]

Are you people idiots? Nobody calculates SLAs in 2 week timeframes. I've always seen SLAs expressed in annual uptime. Hitting Apple at their weakest with this voodoo math is retarded.

Anyone familiar with how IT actually works knows that the more 9's you want, the more you pay. Period. You people need to chill out -- Apple will not maintain "96% uptime" over a more reasonable sample of time.

[besson3c]

Scheduled maintenance to perform updates, etc. Typically business-grade systems have above 99% uptime. I just think it's a little presumptuous to expect that of something targeted at consumers (kind of like how server-grade hard disks have higher mean time between failures than consumer-grade hard disks).

That being said, 96% is too low.


MobileMe is likely running on Unix systems. Unix systems (and I'm assuming that they aren't running OS X Server, because that would be a very dumb move on Apple's part) don't fall within the patch + reboot cycle that Windows and OS X does.

Moreover, you build these server infrastructures in clusters/pools that are not tethered to data. The vast majority of maintenance can be performed by pulling machines out of the pool one by one and applying updates. For machines that are tethered to data (e.g. SAN attached disks), you fail over to a spare that has the appropriate disks presented to it.

This isn't the 90s anymore, you don't need to plan for downtime for the vast majority of maintenance tasks. Downtime usually occurs when there are hardware/network failures and no redundancy (which is also inexcusable for Apple), or somebody goofs. This is why most serious hosting providers can promise 99% uptime, and mean it.

[spaced]

Updating a website with an entirely new website deployment should take on the order of minutes, not hours, and you perform them at the dead of night when you have systems that tens of thousands of people use and pay for.

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

[besson3c]

interesting... gmail was out for about that long yesterday as well...


For you, or for others? Is this documented somewhere?

[savar]

Updating a website with an entirely new website deployment should take on the order of minutes, not hours, and you perform them at the dead of night when you have systems that tens of thousands of people use and pay for.

To be honest, a professional website doesn't tolerate any downtime for software patches.

MobileMe is hosted by an array of servers sitting behind a load distribution proxy. During upgrades, the proxy will be configured to avoid some percentage of the servers. Those servers will then be upgraded and tested. Then the proxy will be flipped to direct all traffic to the upgraded servers and none to the servers running the older version. Then they'll upgrade those servers and bring them all back online with the proxy.

Zero down time.

[Macmaniac]

Just switched to gmail a few weeks ago, so far no downtime, everything syncs great with Mail, and I can get to gmail online from anywhere with no issues, and I pay $0. For once I must say Apple has really dropped the ball, they can't win em all.

[spaced]

Just switched to gmail a few weeks ago, so far no downtime, everything syncs great with Mail, and I can get to gmail online from anywhere with no issues, and I pay $0. For once I must say Apple has really dropped the ball, they can't win em all.

Guess you weren't trying to get your email yesterday afternoon, eh?

[johnnyjibbs]

I haven't been having the serious downtime that others have been having but the service has definitely been a little flaky, even now.

My iPhone doesn't always receive the push emails when they come in, then suddenly gets a big bunch in one go. Other times they push fine. I have not had these problems with contacts and calendars though, which generally update automatically.

The web interface is definitely way too slow, and in fact generally crashes FireFox on my work PC (although soon we will be getting Outlook/IE).

It's slightly annoying that for people like me who upgraded from .mac (no choice there), these problems have emerged but, like Walt Mossberg says, I think the service will one day be great once this has all been ironed out.

That said, I think that Apple is going to be losing customers fast unless it gets all these things fixed very very quickly.

[twoodcc]

well, 96% uptime doesn't seem too bad.

[DarkRail]

For you, or for others? Is this documented somewhere?

Gmail's outage yesterday was documented just about everywhere. Here are a couple for you:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210002460

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/08/gmail-outage-st.html

[TonyHoyle]

Guess you weren't trying to get your email yesterday afternoon, eh?

I was having quite an important conversation yesterday afternoon over gmail... I'd have noticed if there was an issue. The downtime hasn't been zero (it took a couple of days for my account to allow sending from my domain properly) but it's been *way* better than either mobileme or .mac.

Those links say the website went down.. I don't think I'd notice if they deleted it altogether - never used it.

[parapup]

Where I work, with that kind of availability numbers, the dev and deployment teams would be out on the streets in virtually no time.

Boy - that's scary. Apple should may be farm out the MobileMe service development / hosting to the smarter people at Google before MobileMe becomes Hotmail or Windows Live - one in every 2 request errors out. :p

[macaddiict]

It sounds like MobileMe's launch was a real mess, but .Mac wasn't exactly the most reliable as far as uptime was concerned... I don't get why anyone would expect a brand new service to be more reliable right off the bat...

THAT SAID -- what do you people use MobileMe for?! I use it to check my email, keep my bookmarks sync'd, and to sync contacts... if I had to wait 4 hours to access any of that info, I'd pull out my phone or my computer and use the local copy, or do without, or use my memory. I can't imagine the situation where 4 hours of downtime would cause me undue problems...

Then again, maybe I just have low standards :D

[TonyHoyle]

THAT SAID -- what do you people use MobileMe for?! I use it to check my email, keep my bookmarks sync'd, and to sync contacts... if I had to wait 4 hours to access any of that info, I'd pull out my phone or my computer and use the local copy, or do without, or use my memory. I can't imagine the situation where 4 hours of downtime would cause me undue problems...

Then again, maybe I just have low standards :D

Possibly :p

Generally when something hits my inbox there's some reason for it (the boring stuff is filtered to folders long before it needs to bother me). Sometimes it's my boss trying to get me urgently to deal with an issue with our servers or to answer a question from a customer (who are on 2 hour response contracts) - a 4 hour delay on either of those could be costly. In fact the only time he'd email me out of hours direct to my home email is in the case of something fairly urgent - the noncritical stuff can stick to the office email.

It goes without saying I'd sell the iphone rather than put the office email on it.. :p

[ViRGE]

Uptime Time lost in a year
96% 14.6 days
98% 7.3 days
99.0% 3.7 days
99.9% 8 hours
99.99% 1 hour
99.999% 5 minutes
Apple has already missed 99.9% uptime for the year. It's hard to be enthusiastic about MobileMe when at this rate we're going to be lucky if it ends up being 99% for the entire year.

[tivoli2]

No, it wasn't. It was about the same. Mobile Me just has more heat on it because it's new.

Despite your casual assertion, I can't recall my .mac mail being down during working hours when I need it most. Having it down and out yesterday for the majority of the workday makes it an official handful of times since the MobileMe rollout. My experience with .mac vs. MobileMe so far? Yes, .mac was more reliable.

[ncbill]

Looks like MobileMe is just as big of a joke as was .Mac.

I can't believe people are using MobileMe for something as critical as their business!

Apple never got .Mac to run reliably enough to support mission-critical business operations.

What makes you think MobileMe will be any different?

[137489]

interesting... gmail was out for about that long yesterday as well...

I think there was something going on yesterday with the web as a whole. I work from home and for an hour I could not access our company's main home page to be able to startup a webex. I ended up leaving for a doctor apt, but all seemed to come back ok by the time I returned. All it takes is for one router at an ISP to be down.

What I mean by all it takes is for one router to be down:

I worked for a company that had 1000 PC's in the field. It would be interesting sitting in Greensboro, NC and ping the PC in Raliegh, NC using the command that shows all the hops and watch the packet hop up to Wash DC, then on to Tennessee and then up to Maine and ultimately back to Raliegh.

Some cases when we lost connection on those PC's, I could see that sometimes the packet hopped out west (Indiana) until it came back to Ashville.

[BornAgainMac]

Maybe eCards will come back with a new section of "I am Sorry" cards.

Other names for the service:
mobileyou.com
mobileuptime.com
mobileupyours.com

[manhattanboy]

Is anyone having problems with push on their mobile me?
It seems my iPhone never updates anymore and this started yesterday after the mobileme hiccup.
This sucks major balls.

[OneMike]

The seriousness of uptime for me is more about when the downtime occurs. If you're down one hour each day from 4-5AM that would still be bad but if you're down every day at 4-5PM that's something totally different.

If you run servers or have hosting anywhere you'll know downtime will always exist.

My only thing right now is the resolution time.

[shoobe01]

Determining whether 96% is good or bad can be subjective to the user.

Mmm.... no. 96% is atrocious. That's over two WEEKS of downtime a year. Reliable systems strive for more nines. 99.99% is a nice number that still has almost an hour of downtime a year. If that's all at once, some users will be "very annoyed."

If the downtime is not evenly distributed, or some don't run into it due to time-of-day variations, then some folks might be happy. But it's not "subjective."

[OttawaGuy]

We feel your pain, and we're sorry
Monday, August 11, 2008 6:05 PM
Posted by Todd Jackson, Gmail Product Manager

Many of you had trouble accessing Gmail for a couple of hours this afternoon, and we're really sorry. The issue was caused by a temporary outage in our contacts system that was preventing Gmail from loading properly. Everything should be back to normal by the time you read this.

We heard loud and clear today how much people care about their Gmail accounts. We followed all the emails to our support team and user group, we fielded phone calls from Google Apps customers and friends, and we saw the many Twitter posts. (We also heard from plenty of Googlers, who use Gmail for company email.) We never take for granted the commitment we've made to running an email service that you can count on.

We've identified the source of this issue and fixed it. In addition, as with all issues that affect Gmail and our other services, we're conducting a full review of what went wrong and moving quickly to update our internal systems and procedures accordingly. We don't usually post about problems like this on our blog, but we wanted to make an exception in this case since so many people were impacted. In general, though, if you spot a problem with your Gmail account, please visit the Gmail Help Center and user group, where the Gmail Guides are your fastest source of updates.

Again, we're sorry.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/we-feel-your-pain-and-were-sorry.html

[137489]

Here is an interesting thing about Mobile me. I contacted Apple and never got a reply.

1. My Dell is dying so I uninstalled Office. I could not find an uninstall for Windows Mobile Me.
2. Sync kicked off on my Dell, before I could set the preferences to not Sync (did not even realize it kicked off, and it did not warn me it was about to delete my cloud).
3. Since Outlook had already been uninstalled, MM Sync could not find anything and deleted my contacts and calendar in the cloud.

I did not realize it until I fired up my mac later on, and when that went to sync it gave me a warning that it was about to delete contacts and calendar information on my mac. Luckily I could cancel.

I went into preferences and immediately chose to reset and push to the cloud.

This is a warning for all those who may not have all computers in sync, either due to uninstalling the product, or just not using that one computer for a while.

Maybe this is what happened when other people lost their contact or what ever. Either way, this is not good for people who have multiple computers and do not have them all on at the same time. It could also be a glitch where (and timing this would be hard), where you make an update on one computer, the sync kicks off and before it reaches the cloud, the sync on the other computer kicks off and deletes stuff - then the computer you were just working on gets deleted. Another warning for those who do not have each computer on the same sync schedule - or have long waits between syncs.

I can see this as a huge problem for those who may be onthe road and trying to get and update information on the main company server.

Now with MS exchange, everything is stored on the server - not your PC and your outlook has to be logged onto the server and you are acutally storing your stuff on the server - not the PC. You only archive older emails to your PC.

Mobile Me needs to work like that. But then again - there is the privacy thing, and the storage issues for Apple. With Exchange, technically you are working on a company's network and everything is owned by the company.

It would be nice if MM could work more like exchange. I never lose my exchange information and that also syncs my calendar to my phone. Nice thing about exchange is, I can share my calendar with order users -so if they schedule an appointment for me. They will see if I am busy right away.

This is probably the only time I will say this, where Apple needs to learn from MS and from Google.

[ucfgrad93]

MobileMe has been working great for me. That said, Apple needs to improve its performance.

[jellomizer]

Why such low expectations? Computers don't need rests. Apple doesn't need to work on a tight budget. What aspect of the Internet / Apple's hosting software requires 2% downtime?

Exactly most internet services compete in decimals of percentages 99.9999% (down one hour a year) uptime vs. 99.999999% (down 30 seconds a year) uptime. 98% uptime. is a full week of downtime.

[PinkyMacGodess]

I tried to login via MS Exploder 7 and it's still not 'fully compliant' and said that I should use Safari or Firefox. Did I crash MobileMe? I got a message that Mail was experiencing a 'technical difficulty' and something about there being no way to tell how long it will be ill.

Couldn't get email BUT one thing I discovered is that my dot-mac 'web page' is gone. The whole thing, everything. I think it was called a 'gallery' from the old dot-mac and I got a few hits through it and now it appears to be gone. Or did they move them somewhere else and change how you get to them.

Whatever. IE7 compatibility isn't a 'deal breaker' but when I'm on the road and bouncing through client offices I don't have the luxury of installing an 'approved' browser because MobleMe throws a snit.

[137489]

I tried to login via MS Exploder 7 and it's still not 'fully compliant' and said that I should use Safari or Firefox. Did I crash MobileMe? I got a message that Mail was experiencing a 'technical difficulty' and something about there being no way to tell how long it will be ill.

Couldn't get email BUT one thing I discovered is that my dot-mac 'web page' is gone. The whole thing, everything. I think it was called a 'gallery' from the old dot-mac and I got a few hits through it and now it appears to be gone. Or did they move them somewhere else and change how you get to them.

Whatever. IE7 compatibility isn't a 'deal breaker' but when I'm on the road and bouncing through client offices I don't have the luxury of installing an 'approved' browser because MobleMe throws a snit.

Whoa, you had me scared for a minute when you said your web page is gone.... I just checked my HTTP://WEB.ME.COM/SHERVIEUX and it is still there. I had been working for a few days building this web site.

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5B108 Safari/525.20)

I guess this is to be expected. I did experience outages with .Mac from time to time. I am at least glad that it appears that Apple is hard at work on getting the kinks ironed out. Down time stinks and it will probably hurt business but at least they are trying to fix it.

[TVGenius]

Is it even really worth debating if 96% is acceptable. If it's up 96% of a day, that means it's down for AN HOUR A DAY. 99% (15m of downtime a day) is totally unacceptable also. I don't understand how they can charge with a worse than 99% uptime. This is a bigger disaster than Microsoft Bob.

[137489]

This is a bigger disaster than Microsoft Bob.


:o ouch!, I felt that from here. Luckily I never had a computer with Bob - but I had to recover some files from crashed Bob's (including a laptop that had been through a fire - only the case and keyboard was melted, the insides were dirty and full of soot, but the harddrive motherboard and memory was still functional).

From what I seen with it, Bob was an interesting product - it appears the whole OS was an interactive cartoon where you had to walk up and ask Bob permission to do anything and then walk to and pull your file from a bookshelf. Cute for kids, but never could see why they tried to make it mainstream.

Equating MM failure to the failure of Bob may be a little extreme.

[Magsec4]

96%... not that great for this kind of service.

Still, not as bad as Twitter...

[digitalbiker]

Scheduled maintenance to perform updates, etc. Typically business-grade systems have above 99% uptime. I just think it's a little presumptuous to expect that of something targeted at consumers (kind of like how server-grade hard disks have higher mean time between failures than consumer-grade hard disks).

That being said, 96% is too low.

That's ridiculous!

I have mail through AT&T as well as through .mac / MobileMe. I have had the AT&T mail address for 20 years. In that twenty years AT&T has only gone down once for 6 hours to reconfigure the system for a major update.

They perform all maintenance on servers that are offline and just rotate the offline and online servers. AT&T has never lost any of my mail.

By comparison .mac is down at least a little everyday and has lost a some of my mail over the past 4 years.

Just because it is for consumers doesn't mean that it has to be flakey.

Let's face it, Apple is just not very good with large scale network services.

[geerlingguy]

I have my iPhone set to check for mail every 15 minutes, and I've been getting email on my MobileMe account at least once an hour for the whole time Apple's switched over. I guess I'm just lucky, but I haven't experienced any downtime. Of course, I go to sleep at night, so maybe that's when the servers are going down?

[digitalbiker]

Is anyone having problems with push on their mobile me?
It seems my iPhone never updates anymore and this started yesterday after the mobileme hiccup.
This sucks major balls.

Yeah, I have a lot of problems with push to the iphone.

Where I live, there is no cell phone coverage at the house. I do have broadband internet with a wi-fi onnection though.

Iphone is suppose to update through the wi-fi with push services but it doesn't work for me. I now wish Apple had a sync now button on the iphone so that I could force a sync manually. I can't seem to get contacts, bookmarks, and calendars to sync manually.

I always wonder what happens if iphone is out of service or is off when a change is made to the cloud data. Will the iphone get the data when it is in service or turned on? Or will it require another change in the cloud while the phone is on to activate an updated push?

[diamond.g]

Is mobile me mail down? The web app seems to not be responding anymore.

[Bobo Decosta]

96% is not acceptable for this service and surely not if it's branded by Apple. Even 99% would not be acceptable. I hope Apple will get 99,9% soon. Less is insulting for all it's customers.

[bobbleheadbob]

Since my fancy new iPhone 2.0 and 2.0.1 software has been so busy crashing, freezing and re-booting for the past month, I'd almost forgotten about all of the problems with MobileMiniMe. Kind of like dropping a safe on your foot will make you forget about your headache. :eek:

Anyways, thanks for the reminder! :D

[superfula]

Apparently I'm in the minority. Since MM went live, it has been up 100% of the time for me. I use it almost non-stop throughout the day and evening hours, so I'd notice if it went down. From what I can tell, the push/syncing is performing nicely as well.

I dumped Gmail because of it's atrocious IMAP support and don't plan on going back

[Insulin Junkie]

In the face of these figures I might hold out a while before getting MobileME.

[lazyrighteye]

Ugh. MM is still way buggy for me and a few other users I know - which in my little world, is a lot.

Just today, I (again - has happened several times since that cursed 2.0 went live) lost all my Contacts on my original iPhone.
iPhone OS = most up to date.
Mac OS = most up to date.
iTunes = most up to date.
Been with .mac since the free days.
This has all been so uncharacteristically unacceptable.

Maybe I am an anomaly, but I have had a very smooth relationship with Apple for 20 years. These past 2 months have been brutal. And sure, this might highlight how well Apple has done thus far. But it also might highlight how they're slipping. It's hard to know from my limited vantage point. But what I do know is that it's all been just so unApple. Wonder if there is something bigger happening up in Cupertino than I/we realize?

I had planned on passing my wife my original iPhone and upgrading to an iPhone 3G. But I can hardly imagine telling her "OK, now if this happens, delete this account and reenter all your info, or press the Power & Home buttons at the same time, or..." Too much for her. Which is a shame. Prior to 2.0, this device was so solid, so smooth, so responsive, so easy. Since then; sluggish, hangs, crashes, Restores, Resets, etc.
I have felt like a struggling IT manager constantly trying to keep the ship, simply, afloat.

Surely I can't be alone. Wonder how many other long-time Apple users are feeling this same uneasiness?

Just... so... odd...



Help?

[rtdunham]

If I can't do something I pay for almost 1 in 20 times, that is BAD.

that's about my rate with blockbuster brick-and-mortar store rentals, maybe 5% of the disks i get home with won't play.

maybe that just reinforces your point: apple doesn't want to be perceived in that manner, or shouldn't.

[Panu]

Since Outlook had already been uninstalled, MM Sync could not find anything and deleted my contacts and calendar in the cloud.

That's exactly what it is supposed to do. When you uninstalled Outlook, you deleted all the contacts and calendar in it. When MobileMe compared the cloud with your computer, it synced them correctly. MobileMe can't know that it is supposed to ignore a deletion and not sync it.

The same thing would have happened if you were using something like ChronoSync between two computers.

If you want to delete the local copy of the information without affecting the cloud, turn off sync for that information before you delete it.

[jpine]

I think the whole thing was jinxed the moment they decided on the name Mobile Me. :rolleyes:

[137489]

Ugh. MM is still way buggy for me and a few other users I know - which in my little world, is a lot.

Just today, I (again - has happened several times since that cursed 2.0 went live) lost all my Contacts on my original iPhone.
iPhone OS = most up to date.
Mac OS = most up to date.
iTunes = most up to date.
Been with .mac since the free days.
This has all been so uncharacteristically unacceptable.

Maybe I am an anomaly, but I have had a very smooth relationship with Apple for 20 years. These past 2 months have been brutal. And sure, this might highlight how well Apple has done thus far. But it also might highlight how they're slipping. It's hard to know from my limited vantage point. But what I do know is that it's all been just so unApple. Wonder if there is something bigger happening up in Cupertino than I/we realize?

I had planned on passing my wife my original iPhone and upgrading to an iPhone 3G. But I can hardly imagine telling her "OK, now if this happens, delete this account and reenter all your info, or press the Power & Home buttons at the same time, or..." Too much for her. Which is a shame. Prior to 2.0, this device was so solid, so smooth, so responsive, so easy. Since then; sluggish, hangs, crashes, Restores, Resets, etc.
I have felt like a struggling IT manager constantly trying to keep the ship, simply, afloat.

Surely I can't be alone. Wonder how many other long-time Apple users are feeling this same uneasiness?

Just... so... odd...



Help?

I am a switcher since April, my only complaint is with MobileMe. But like you said - I wonder....

when I was in the Apple store buying my wife a mini - the associate could not believe that I chose iWork over the buggyness of Office 2008. Then he tried to sell us a Mobile Me. I told him that I already had it, my wife would have no use for it, and I was not paying another $100 a year on top of my $100 already (after my trial expires) given the problems it has.

The associate looked at me and said "What Problems?" I began to explain, and thats when he interupted me said "Well, I have been working too many hours since the iphone dropped to even try Mobile Me, I guess your issues are with your system as no one ever brough this to my attention"

I went over to another rep, and asked what was up with the guy I was just talking to (since he overheard the conversation). the 2nd guy told me "tell ya the truth, we know less here about the going ons at Apple than you think. they keep us in the dock and we only get to see the new product when it is shipped, then we have a 1 day crash training course to get up to speed on it. Most of the people you see giving demo's and personalized shopping experiences have either been here a while, or where specially trained in the products to demo it." He said if he did not spend hours on blogs outside of work, he would not know as much either - Apple is very secrative even to its store employees..

So - given MS ups and downs and this Mobile ME issue; what's instore for us???

[skellener]

Walt Mossberg has expressed similar sentiments, saying that currently MobileMe is far too flawed to be reliable (http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20080723/apples-mobileme-is-far-too-flawed-to-be-reliable/). So other than the name change from Dot Mac to MobileMe basically nothing has changed. :rolleyes:

[skellener]

I think the whole thing was jinxed the moment they decided on the name Mobile Me. :rolleyes: Not really, Dot Mac has been flawed since back when they introduced BackUp.app. It never worked. Much of Apple's online offering over the years hasn't worked. Had MobileMe really taken off and delivered on feature promises and stability, I was ready to give Apple kudos. But as someone who stared long ago with iTools and bought in to Dot Mac the first couple of years....they really haven't done much to improve it. How's that iDisk working out? Still slow as molasses. I used to use Transmit with iDisk because it as much more stable, speedier and gave accurate completion times. I see nothing with this launch that has changed my opinion of the service. The demo was fantastic when Steve gave it. Now if they can just deliver that, I would be impressed.

[tivoli2]

Surely I can't be alone. Wonder how many other long-time Apple users are feeling this same uneasiness?

No, I'm with you. I've felt vague unease since the buildup to the first iPhone... what I will say, however, is that Apple has gone through HUGE changes, what with the Intel switch, etc... my guess is that they're revamping huge pieces of the business and it's (somewhat) rough right now, but all for a better tomorrow. (Sheesh... that sounds corny.) Speaking of the Intel switch, since it went pretty smoothly for Apple, maybe they thought they could make all transitions as smooth?

Just a thought.

[137489]

That's exactly what it is supposed to do. When you uninstalled Outlook, you deleted all the contacts and calendar in it. When MobileMe compared the cloud with your computer, it synced them correctly. MobileMe can't know that it is supposed to ignore a deletion and not sync it.

The same thing would have happened if you were using something like ChronoSync between two computers.

If you want to delete the local copy of the information without affecting the cloud, turn off sync for that information before you delete it.

Actually, I would have thought it to error since it could not find the data for it to sync (ie outlook gone - the app it grabs the information from does not exist anymore), rather than it deleting. the google sync errored and did not destroy my google calendar.

Either MM needed to error (like the Google one did) - or Apple needs to put in (like when MM cloud updates your computer) that xx% of data on the cloud is going to change (and like when it updates your computer - show you the number of adds, deletions, etc that will take place on the cloud), and give you the <cancel> <continue> buttons like you get when it overwrites data on your computer...... This way I could have easily said "oh crap, cancel".

It may have done what its supposed to -but this is a design bug. Why if it can tell me that my computer is going to be effected and give me a choice, it can't do the same for the cloud?

This really negates the possibility of trying to have multiple computers or even phones stay synced. Ya never know which one will screw ya - because it was not the latest one used..

So if you are not going to use a computer for a while....

1. Turn off the sync or set it to manual before shutting down.
2. Turn on your computer, fire up mobile me.
3. Manually sync from the cloud to that computer
4. Work on your computer
5. Manually sync your changes to the cloud
6. repeat steps 1-5 for the next computer you are using

I would have to do this every time I switch between computers just to be sure I did not accidently overwrite something.

So the point it - be very careful if you are not manually syncing.

Like I said - MM needs to work like Google. Or better yet like exchange where you are actually working from the server and not a local copy. With MS exchange, as long as I am logged in - I get what I need. then when I log off and log back in on another computer - I have what I need right in front of me. No sync'ing.

[digitalbiker]

Not really, Dot Mac has been flawed since back when they introduced BackUp.app. It never worked. Much of Apple's online offering over the years hasn't worked. Had MobileMe really taken off and delivered on feature promises and stability, I was ready to give Apple kudos. But as someone who stared long ago with iTools and bought in to Dot Mac the first couple of years....they really haven't done much to improve it. How's that iDisk working out? Still slow as molasses. I used to use Transmit with iDisk because it as much more stable, speedier and gave accurate completion times. I see nothing with this launch that has changed my opinion of the service. The demo was fantastic when Steve gave it. Now if they can just deliver that, I would be impressed.

I agree 100%.

Why is idisk so slow after all these years? Can't Apple even produce a decent file serving network over the internet?

My idisk is tragically slow. I don't even use it for files larger than 20 MB and that defeats the whole purpose.

I also use transmit as it is the only reliable way to get files to the idisk.

[digitalbiker]

Actually, I would have thought it to error since it could not find the data for it to sync (ie outlook gone - the app it grabs the information from does not exist anymore), rather than it deleting. the google sync errored and did not destroy my google calendar.




I think all of these systems need better reporting as to what they are actually going to do.

I know that Apple and others want to fully automate the system but they need to pop up some sort of response prompt that gives you information as to what is going to happen regarding the sync.

Then if you have worries you can check the information about to be synced and approve it or cancel it. There should be a list of changes that you can navigate and see as little or as much detail as you desire.

If you are comfortable with the system having full control you can turn off all prompts.

I think this approach would be far more comfortable for the user.

[skellener]

I also use transmit as it is the only reliable way to get files to the idisk.I didn't think I was alone. Thanks digitalbiker! I gave up on Apple's online offerings long ago. For just a bit less than the $99 a year they offer for MobileMe service, I have 1TB of webpsace, my own domain (actually multiple domains), reliable - fast FTP, unlimited email accounts, what seems to be 100% uptime and none of the issues that MobileMe has been experiencing. Oh, and I actually get emails from the company if something goes wrong - which as far as I know has happened only once. I've had them for about 4 years now.

http://www.globat.com

[jnaeve]

Apparently when I recently posted a thread on Apples Discussion forum regarding the .Mac to MobilMe transition and referenced Walt Mossberg's thread about "Apple's MobileMe is Far Too Flawed to be Reliable", Apple chose to remove my post and referenced the "Terms of Use" agreement with the reason that "it contained the following: * Off-topic or non-technical posts".

======================
Topic title:
Read and watch Walt Mossberg's views on MobileMe before you decide

Body verbatim:
This is a very well written article and VOD from the highly respected techno-journalist Walt Mossberg. I agree that in concept, this is a fantastic service but in execution, its very flawed unfortunately.

http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20080723/apples-mobileme-is-far-too-flawed-to-be-reliable/
======================

Okay, I'll be the first to suck it up and take my licks when I screw up but I'm having a hard time with this one. Out of nearly 5 years of posting many posts to this forum, this is the first time I've ever been rebuked for trying to be helpful. I wish I had seen this article when it first came out several weeks ago but I missed it and really wish someone had referenced it here when I began to have difficulty with MobileMe.

I'm sorry but I feel like I was just censored for posting a helpful (albeit critical) review from a well-known and respected author of technical journalistic reviews, Walt Mossberg.

Was I wrong :eek:? I started to reply to the note asking for clarification but they don't accept replies.

Thoughts?

[PinkyMacGodess]

Whoa, you had me scared for a minute when you said your web page is gone.... I just checked my HTTP://WEB.ME.COM/SHERVIEUX and it is still there. I had been working for a few days building this web site.

No, it's there: http://web.me.com/gonzoid/ It's kinda dry (science) but I had a great time.

[branjosef]

Everytime they ask me if I would like to subscribe to mobile me. I stare at the salesman blankly and reply. NO HABLO ESPANOL.

[Virgil-TB2]

... According to Apple's MobileMe status history (http://www.apple.com/support/mobileme/system_status_history.html), there have been approximately 13.5 hours of various downtime over the past two weeks (336 hours); that is, MobileMe has a 96% overall uptime over the past two weeks....And if you actually *believe* those numbers are true, you don't know anything at all about MobileMe, it's .Mac predecessor or Apple in general.

Seriously, who is going to gauge a companies performance on performance numbers provided by the company itself, and why would that be anything like a useful exercise?

For years .Mac had outages and downtimes that were not recorded, MobileMe has already done this several times also. These numbers are complete PR and have nothing to do with a decent analysis of the system, so why bother?

[skellener]

And if you actually *believe* those numbers are true, you don't know anything at all about MobileMe, it's .Mac predecessor or Apple in general.

Seriously, who is going to gauge a companies performance on performance numbers provided by the company itself, and why would that be anything like a useful exercise?

For years .Mac had outages and downtimes that were not recorded, MobileMe has already done this several times also. These numbers are complete PR and have nothing to do with a decent analysis of the system, so why bother? You said it Virgil!

[lazyrighteye]

I think the whole thing was jinxed the moment they decided on the name Mobile Me. :rolleyes:

LOL! FTW!!
Brilliant...

[137489]

I didn't think I was alone. Thanks digitalbiker! I gave up on Apple's online offerings long ago. For just a bit less than the $99 a year they offer for MobileMe service, I have 1TB of webpsace, my own domain (actually multiple domains), reliable - fast FTP, unlimited email accounts, what seems to be 100% uptime and none of the issues that MobileMe has been experiencing. Oh, and I actually get emails from the company if something goes wrong - which as far as I know has happened only once. I've had them for about 4 years now.

http://www.globat.com


Cool - some one on another post also mentioned lunarpages.com. But globat for 1tb of space and 1 tb bandwidth is pretty cool.....

Do you have any information on how globat is with iweb created pages. I used to use Front Page before it was discontinued.

No, I am not a novice - however considering what I want my website for, I want to focus more on content than with all the programming that must go on behind the scenes. I am not a fan of DreamWeaver and iWeb gave me what I lost when MS Front Page went away. the new MS Web Essentials costs alot and it stripped down in functionaility.

take a look at:

HTTP://WEB.ME.COM/SHERVIEUX

and let me know if globat can handle that? I am still in my trial period with mobile me, my MM usage is not mission critical, but annoyances turn me off. Right now the only advantage I see is contact sync'ing and webhosting. the rest I can get with Google.

[jmmx]

Well - I am not a heavy MM user. Most of my email comes through another source.

I have noticed, however, so improvement on the MM service regarding push email. The other day I sent out an email to a bad address using Apple OSX's Mail program. The pushed "Unable to Deliver" msg came back so fast, it felt it was there before the original was sent. I mean, the "Sent" swoosh sound ended and the :New Mail: bong sounded without a pause.

For what it is worth.

[137489]

Well - I am not a heavy MM user. Most of my email comes through another source.

I have noticed, however, so improvement on the MM service regarding push email. The other day I sent out an email to a bad address using Apple OSX's Mail program. The pushed "Unable to Deliver" msg came back so fast, it felt it was there before the original was sent. I mean, the "Sent" swoosh sound ended and the :New Mail: bong sounded without a pause.

For what it is worth.

Mail and web hosting has never really been a problem for me. my problem is sync'ing (contacts and calendar) and a slow web interface.

yes, it seems like improvements are being made, but my sync issues are my biggest drawback. and the web interface - for whatever reason is slow on my work computer. hit that dang infinate load again (firefox v 2.0.0.16 on Windows). FWIW - never had a problem using firefox on my now dead dell, and never had a problem with safari. Must be a problem with this dell.

Maybe I'll just give up using the web interface on a non-mac and only use mm on one computer. I mean safari is snappier (sorry could not resist:p).

[skellener]

Do you have any information on how globat is with iweb created pages. I used to use Front Page before it was discontinued.
As long as you can FTP it, it should work with Globat. I didn't think iWeb worked with anything but MobileMe(.Mac). Looks like you can FTP with iWeb with this....

Easy iWeb Publisher (http://www.plyxim.com/free)

I use Rapidweaver. It's been around long before iWeb and I think it's much more powerful. Works with FTP or Dot Mac. Have a look. It's worth every penny.

Rapidweaver (http://www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver)

Many, many more themes and plug-ins to choose from by RealMacSoftware and third parties.

[EnderTW]

EXCHANGE FOR THE REST OF US

lol ... I knew Apple wouldn't be able to pull it off. They probably won't get all their promised features when they demoed it out for at least a year. (Push between computer and mobile me, vice versa).

When it comes to the enterprise market, when someone brings up Apple, they laugh you out the door.

Apple has never made a push into the enterprise market on their own, they are using ActiveSync, developed by Microsoft for a reason.

Apple should stick with what it does best, consumers.

[fixerdude]

MobileMe sync'ing issues forced me to look for an alternate solution. Cancelled my MM account and switched to Funambol and it works like a charm.

[137489]

MobileMe sync'ing issues forced me to look for an alternate solution. Cancelled my MM account and switched to Funambol and it works like a charm.

Never heard of Funambol.... but using Google/gmail, GoogleSync, and Busymac for my needs (email, calendar). Looking at other web-hosting options. need to find a good working Google Contact Sync that works with mac's address book.

I am sad, but MM did look good and would give me what I need, but I am getting close (about 50 or so days) until my trial is over.... May be cancelling my MM also.

[calzon65]

96% for a paid service is ridiculous. The management who created and deployed MobileMe were a bunch of bone heads that obviously had no high-availability application experience.

[koobcamuk]

Surely I can't be alone. Wonder how many other long-time Apple users are feeling this same uneasiness?

Me, both work and private life have been drastically effected through this unfortunately.

The demo was fantastic when Steve gave it. Now if they can just deliver that, I would be impressed.

Maybe because he was the only person in the world using it at that time and so the servers could cope.

Like I said - MM needs to work like Google. Or better yet like exchange where you are actually working from the server and not a local copy. With MS exchange, as long as I am logged in - I get what I need. then when I log off and log back in on another computer - I have what I need right in front of me. No sync'ing.

What happens when I am not connected to the internet??

[SC68Cal]

well, 96% uptime doesn't seem too bad.

Wipe the Kool-Aid off your bib.

Are you people idiots? Nobody calculates SLAs in 2 week timeframes. I've always seen SLAs expressed in annual uptime. Hitting Apple at their weakest with this voodoo math is retarded.

Anyone familiar with how IT actually works knows that the more 9's you want, the more you pay. Period. You people need to chill out -- Apple will not maintain "96% uptime" over a more reasonable sample of time.

And you blame voodoo math for Apple's poor numbers. How are they going to make five nines? Steve Jobs' reality distortion field can't make a year longer.

Apparently when I recently posted a thread on Apples Discussion forum regarding the .Mac to MobilMe transition and referenced Walt Mossberg's thread about "Apple's MobileMe is Far Too Flawed to be Reliable", Apple chose to remove my post and referenced the "Terms of Use" agreement with the reason that "it contained the following: * Off-topic or non-technical posts".

Thoughts?

Welcome to Apple. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Thanks for playing!

[winterspan]

Hey, I'm the first one to criticize Apple when I feel it's necessary; I'm not a die-hard fanboy with decades of Apple loyalty. And in this case, they indeed deserved a beating for launching Firmware 2.0, The App store, and the whole MobileMe suite at the same time they were trying to sell and activate a million new iPhone 3G units, not to mention releasing MobileMe without adequate testing...

However, although the launch period was a disaster, give them some time to work everything out. Although a week or two may seem like a lot to consumers, those who have worked on or seen a major service rollout know that it can take weeks and even months to have all the bugs worked out. Current customers should just hold on, and those looking to join should let a few more weeks go by so Apple can get everything straightened up.

I'd be willing to bet that MobileMe will soon become an excellent service, and will be very popular along with new iPhone purchases this holiday season...

[bpl323]

Mine has been fine, haven't noticed it offline since the upgrade.

[Spades]

Although a week or two may seem like a lot to consumers, those who have worked on or seen a major service rollout know that it can take weeks and even months to have all the bugs worked out.

All the bugs? Sure, that takes awhile. Almost like clockwork we'll have something come in from a customer three weeks after a release.

But it's a small issue. Critical issues that result in days of downtime at launch and extended periods of no service over the next few weeks? You do not let that happen. Not if you know what you're doing, but Apple clearly doesn't know what it's doing.

I'd be willing to bet that MobileMe will soon become an excellent service

The history of .Mac doesn't provide much hope for that.

[calzon65]

This post (cut and pasted from the Apple support board) seems to sum things up...


As a Windows XP user who has been keeping an open mind to Apple, I've been spending a lot of time in my local Apple store learning more about Apple products. I made the first step into "Apple land" by getting an iPhone 3G, but my MobileMe experience has halted my Apple migration in its tracks. I see the increadibly bad job Apple has done in creating a service like MobileMe that costs $99 per year and except for the push/sync to the iPhone, has only a fraction of the services you get from FREE email providers like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft's hotmail.

In spending time with Apple store employees and listening to their "Apple culture speak", I'm starting to think that Apple may be totally focused on creating products that in some ways are actually overly simple. When I speak with multiple Apple store employees, they tell me how thrilled they are with MobileMe and can't understand why I would want the features so many people on this board are demanding. It's as if these people think I'm a nut and that I can't just get with the Apple culture of "trust all things in Apple". True, Apple has some very cool products on the Macintosh.

With the iPhone 3G and MobileMe, Apple seems to be trying to stick its toe into the water of the "business user", yes there're certainly many business that successfully use Apple products. But Apple has a miniscule slice of the business market share, so there must be a reason why they have not been more successful against Microsoft. Could it be this preoccupation with over simplification?

Anyway, maybe we will never see what I (and a lot of other people) consider to be basic features of a hosted email service such as server side filtering, use of your own domain, the ability to change your outbound email address, etc., etc. Just mess around with gmail, Yahoo mail, and hotmail if you want to sample a smorgasbord of cool/mature features. Maybe Apple wants to keep MobileMe so simple that the far less sophisticated users will be happy and not mess something up. I think for the vast majority (e.g., the rest of us) MobileMe is seriously lacking in not just reliability (that's a whole discussion in itself) but a long list of core features already being offered by the major FREE email providers.

[bobbleheadbob]

My MobileMe is down again tonight. :mad: Oh well, I guess I really didn't need to check my e-mail now after all. :rolleyes:

Seriously, I'm starting to get really annoyed again that this hasn't been fixed yet.

Update: Luckily a MobileMe on-line chat rep will be available to help me in only 21 minutes....

[darrens]

I've yet to find anything in MobileMe that is better than .Mac was. It just seems to me that I've lost a lot of functionality so people with iPhones can use this service.

When I was on holidays, .Mac changed over to MobileMe and I was suddenly locked out of my email by MobileMe because it doesn't support IE 6 - and most of the internet cafes/vending services I went to only had IE 6

This "upgrade" has been a real fizzer for me.