MobileMe should be free.

[stevey500]

MobileMe has its useful points...

But its absolutely very far from worth what apple charges for it. If apple didn't give it to me for 60% off because of a mass confusion between employees when I was last there in july I would have never bought it.

After the many OS/x and iphone updates to fix mobileMe's early issues, its still boarderline useless to me, the whole "cloud" thing is a great concept, but why is it that us mac owners that spend hundreds more on a machine that has the same hardware inside that cheap budget machines have and have to pay for mobileMe as an option? At least having "push" capabilities for free and a small storage account would be nice and then having a small extra price for the web-serving and email capabilities as a bonus?

Things that still bug the Shi# out of me. . .

Uploading files on me.com file browser sometimes neglects to even open the OS's browser. When uploading a file it gets stuck at 80%, or never begins uploading.

It's very rare that I can even get iDisk to connect to my mobileMe account and if it DOES connect and I am on a slower connection at a hotel or a friends house, finder it self stalls the whole computer as it waits.. and waits. . and then crashes. and then won't connect to idisk until os/x is restarted.

I'm just ranting that I even paid $40 for it.

[cyclingplatypus]

For iDisk, you ever thought about using an FTP client instead of the browser client?

[stevey500]

Well I have my own server set up with FTP, php, etc.. , but its nothing like the great http browser like apple has. If it worked better.

[yuanmoons]

use cyberduck to connect - very stable

( life should be free!!!! we are born into slavery!!!! )

[armoguy94]

Totally agree.. the price they set on it is not even worth it! Customer service from Apple is not even that good if you need it. But Apple overprices everything, and we end up paying far more than what we could've by using non-Apple services or products. They're lucky they can get away with it

[Kilamite]

I'm very happy with MobileMe and think it is good value for money.

But then again, I use all the features and actually use an FTP client (Transmit) to upload to my iDisk.

[Dasutin]

If you have two or more Macs, or even a Mac and a iPhone, MobileMe is worth it. It gets to the point sometimes when you don't even think about it (before all of the patches you did). I like how everything is synced up between the Macs in my house. Pushing works flawlessly now. So a hundred bucks a year is worth it, like everyone else said use a better FTP client when writing to iDisk, its stable and faster. I'm glad when I bought my MobileMe subscription in July when I got my iPhone 3G that I used the demo account first because my subscription was free from July to December. It wasn't worth it during the growing pains, but now it is.

[mac.by.jake]

I've enjoyed it but I think it should cost less. I'm also not fully using to its potential.

I believe I can use it to host websites; I can't remember at the moment. I'll google search it in a minute but does anyone know?

[SnowLeopard2008]

I've enjoyed it but I think it should cost less. I'm also not fully using to its potential.

I believe I can use it to host websites; I can't remember at the moment. I'll google search it in a minute but does anyone know?

iWeb?

[stevey500]

Yes it hosts websites but you're stuck with whatever html will offer you.
No mysql databases or PHP support (that i've tested).

Well, uploading from an FTP client is a good work-around, but I suppose I'm still just not feeling it and I believe that the data "push" features should just come with owning a mac in general as a part of the operating system, like google shares every bit of your data over one login name, your gmail account, also working on the G1, no cost to own a google account.

Its just over priced for the some of us knowing how fast a year goes by and knowing that the first 6 months of its existence was terrible to get it working the way you wanted to. It's rare I can actually hit "upload to mobile me" on my iphone and actually have it work. It's also weird that going to Me.com directly from the iphones browser does not let you log in and do anything, at all. If you want to look at your albums its a completely different and more difficult URL that any not so computer savvy person would not know.

[Digital Skunk]

I've enjoyed it but I think it should cost less. I'm also not fully using to its potential.

I believe I can use it to host websites; I can't remember at the moment. I'll google search it in a minute but does anyone know?

Very worth the $99 price tag if you use half of the major services. It hosts websites that support google adsense and youtube embedding. I rather just have the HTML and hope for future Flash support though.

iDisk is great, just want to have that one feature Apple said was supposed to be there; the emailing of a link that users can just click on the download would automatically start.

The syncing works perfect for me, and with my older services that weren't bundled together I spent more getting what Mobile Me offers.

I guess it's worth it for some, and not for those that don't use most if any of the features.

[nippyjun]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

You can get it cheaper than retail on amazon or eBay.

[Kilamite]

Very worth the $99 price tag if you use half of the major services. It hosts websites that support google adsense and youtube embedding. I rather just have the HTML and hope for future Flash support though.

You think that Google Adsense and YouTube embedding are features of using MobileMe to host websites?!

Or are you referring to iWeb? Which is useless for anything other than diddy websites. Dreamweaver CS4 if you want to be serious about web design ;)

[BroadcastDoc]

You think that Google Adsense and YouTube embedding are features of using MobileMe to host websites?!

Or are you referring to iWeb? Which is useless for anything other than diddy websites. Dreamweaver CS4 if you want to be serious about web design ;)

Let me fix that for you:

TextMate and HTML if you want to be serious about web design. :D

[Digital Skunk]

You think that Google Adsense and YouTube embedding are features of using MobileMe to host websites?!

Or are you referring to iWeb? Which is useless for anything other than diddy websites. Dreamweaver CS4 if you want to be serious about web design ;)

NO, just saying that it's there. When looking at most other websites, all of them look diddy, even the ones done by web pros.

For most pros that don't know anything about web design, especially photogs, putting out an HTML site via iWeb and just having a Flash gallery made in Lightroom is a much better option than paying someone to do the same thing in DW.

[bindigok]

I agree. Mobile Me is crap! Not worth the money. My service expires in July and I will NOT be renewing this year. I've had .mac for years and loved it, but Mobile Me is the most unreliable service, esp. the mail service now.

[Kilamite]

I agree. Mobile Me is crap! Not worth the money. My service expires in July and I will NOT be renewing this year. I've had .mac for years and loved it, but Mobile Me is the most unreliable service, esp. the mail service now.

I haven't had a single problem with Mail since September..nor do I find it unreliable at all.

[BroadcastDoc]

Have to agree with Kila...

I've had no problems at all with MobileMe. I have the family pack and we've had absolutely no problems with it.

[numbersyx]

I agree. Mobile Me is crap! Not worth the money. My service expires in July and I will NOT be renewing this year. I've had .mac for years and loved it, but Mobile Me is the most unreliable service, esp. the mail service now.

No problems for me either. I actually find the syncing and galleries very useful. And although I would hardly use iDisk as my total backup procedure, I do upload documents that I will need when I'm on the road...

[Digital Skunk]

No problems for me either. I actually find the syncing and galleries very useful. And although I would hardly use iDisk as my total backup procedure, I do upload documents that I will need when I'm on the road...

For me, ever since 10.5.4 and a few months of Mobile me, I have never had any issues. The problems I did have with the service have actually disappeared and things work pretty flawlessly.

[edever]

I don't see why MobileMe should be free. It's a service that offers certain features for a cost, if you don't have any use for those features then don't use the service. There are other options...seems rather straightforward.

Having only recently jumped on the Apple bandwagon I missed out on the rollout fiasco MobileMe caused. The service has thus far been reliable and the cost/benefit ratio weighs on the benefit side, for me.

I like iWeb. It's simplicity is refreshing and I'm looking forward to slapping together (an albeit brainless) website and having it just work :)

[jackiecanev2]

I just use dropbox (free) and have aliases which are set up to sync my bookmarks, etc. No email, but it's a quick cloud solution. I'll probably spring for .me when everything gets fixed up though. FWIW.

[rick3000]

Personally, I think MobileMe is useless if you only have one computer. But if you have two or more computer it is well worth a $100 a year to keep everything easily synced, get email, web hosting, etc. Plus, I never pay more than $70 for the MobileMe/.Mac box.

[BlueRevolution]

Yes it hosts websites but you're stuck with whatever html will offer you.
No mysql databases or PHP support (that i've tested).

Exactly. If MobileMe provided decent web hosting services, with PHP/MySQL and virtual hosting, it would totally be worth the money. Still a little more than I'm paying for my shared host, but the extra features would merit the price difference. As it is now? I use two computers, but the only feature that appeals to me is the... you know what, web hosting is really all I'd use. The rest is just a collection of nice gimmicks. IMAP doesn't seem to work too well on the iPod Touch, so it'd be nice to have mail that actually works, but I don't really want an @me email.

[iNash]

I think MobileMe is well worth the price tag (£69.99 in the UK I think - don't pay attention)

I just know that for the services I use, I would happily pay over £100 for it;

Mail - on 2 iPhone's, 3 Mac and from a web browser where ever I want (plus the intuituve way the webmail works allowing you to physically move emails into folders (unlike Microsoft Web Outlook).

Not to mention to fact that you can use aliases to reduce spam etc...

iDisk - Never have any issues uploading, and it's a great way for me to share files between a team of 150 people who are based all over Europe by allowing them to open my public folder and download the files (both Mac and Windows users)

iWeb - Great, easy, fun & fast way of uploading some really cool looking websites and using iDisk allowing people to download content direct from the website.

Back to my Mac - insanely great when I am 80 miles away from home in the office and need to get to stuff!

The Cloud - After all the years of having different calendars and contact on my laptop/phones etc this is so handy to be able to update it all on ANY device and have it auto syncing.


Well worth it

[bindigok]

They made changes to Mobile Me mail yesterday which required some users to need to uncheck SSL in the Mail app in order for it to work correctly. They said it was part of the upcoming change to Mobile Me mail services.

[thejadedmonkey]

It should be free because Microsoft makes a competitor that's free.

For anyone interested in synchronizing two or more computers, check out Live Mesh (http://www.mesh.com). It's free, runs on OS X And Windows, and can sync folders. I use Gmail for my mail and pay for real web hosting which I also use to publish my calendars to.

the only thing I'm missing from this is a way to keep my contacts sync'd.

[Digital Skunk]

It should be free because Microsoft makes a competitor that's free.

For anyone interested in synchronizing two or more computers, check out Live Mesh (http://www.mesh.com). It's free, runs on OS X And Windows, and can sync folders. I use Gmail for my mail and pay for real web hosting which I also use to publish my calendars to.

the only thing I'm missing from this is a way to keep my contacts sync'd.

Curious to know if the Microsoft service has something like "Back to my Mac" and the iDisk with 20GB of storage?

[numbersyx]

Curious to know if the Microsoft service has something like "Back to my Mac" and the iDisk with 20GB of storage?

Yes the 20GB storage certainly seems to make the package far more attractive than Hotmail...

[macintouch]

From a business standpoint, MobileMe is great. It's huge profit. From a customer standpoint, I think at first the price might be daunting but in the end, I do believe it's worth it.

Not to mention, it's not too hard to get them to give you the "w/ a mac" price of $69.99, without buying a mac.

[iNash]

Curious to know if the Microsoft service has something like "Back to my Mac" and the iDisk with 20GB of storage?


Also curious to know if the Windows version stops the Blue Screen issues... ;)

[d21mike]

Curious to know if the Microsoft service has something like "Back to my Mac" and the iDisk with 20GB of storage?

Yes. You can Connect to any Desktop in the Mesh. It only has 5GB of storage.

[Apple Ink]

Now I believe if any company gives away 20GB of online space with push/instant calendar and addressbook updates for free.... its doomed.. or its CEO is gonna get fired by the board!

[TLewis]

Now I believe if any company gives away 20GB of online space with push/instant calendar and addressbook updates for free.... its doomed.. or its CEO is gonna get fired by the board!
For a single company, yes.

However, you can get many of the pieces in MM from multiple places in the web. In particular, at least one site offers 2GB free online storage, with no limitations on the types or numbers of files, as well as no size limitation (well, the limit, if one exists, might be 5GB). You can also get free push email/contacts/calendar from more than one place. You may have to use more than one site to get all of these, though, and there may or may not be severe limitations (e.g., no import/export of contacts, etc., etc.).

[ViM]

Is there actually a free alternative that let's you synch addressbook and ical between an imac, macbook and ipod touch where you can make amendments on either device which gets automatically synched with all the other devices. And something that let's you sync files between a macbook and imac?

[NT1440]

Yup, the company should just give away the product that no doubt had at least a million or two invested in it with thousands of man hours.


Wait a tick.

Why? (note that, "there are other free services" isnt a good answer)

[Digital Skunk]

Is there actually a free alternative that let's you synch addressbook and ical between an imac, macbook and ipod touch where you can make amendments on either device which gets automatically synched with all the other devices. And something that let's you sync files between a macbook and imac?

No,

And not to mention web hosting, 20GB of online storage, back to my PC, and a bunch of other cute features.

[ViM]

ok say you don't care about gallery, idisk or mail. All i want to do is sync calender and contacts between computers and to use the native ical and address book apps, i'm not to fond of webapps. Is mobileme the best alternative or is something like busysync more useful in this respect.

[Digital Skunk]

ok say you don't care about gallery, idisk or mail. All i want to do is sync calender and contacts between computers and to use the native ical and address book apps, i'm not to fond of webapps. Is mobileme the best alternative or is something like busysync more useful in this respect.

It would depend on the user.

[penter]

I'm very happy with MobileMe and think it is good value for money.

But then again, I use all the features and actually use an FTP client (Transmit) to upload to my iDisk.

whats the advantage of using FTP to upload/download stuff from idisk?
Is it because you're using windows?

[Digital Skunk]

whats the advantage of using FTP to upload/download stuff from idisk?
Is it because you're using windows?

For the Mac it's because of Finder.

When I first heard that I didn't believe that using an app like Fetch or Transmit would make a difference. It does thankfully, not a huge one, but I notice a speed increase when uploading.

[Kilamite]

whats the advantage of using FTP to upload/download stuff from idisk?
Is it because you're using windows?

I don't use Windows...

I use an FTP client because it is much more reliable than Finder for larger files. Queue things better, more control.

Can see an upload speed too...

[IgnatiusTheKing]

ok say you don't care about gallery, idisk or mail. All i want to do is sync calender and contacts between computers and to use the native ical and address book apps, i'm not to fond of webapps. Is mobileme the best alternative or is something like busysync more useful in this respect.

I would not pay $5/year (let alone $70 or $99) for a syncing service when there are so many free alternatives. MobileMe is worth the price (to me) because it is a suite of useful features. I don't think I would pay for any single MM feature alone, but as a collective it's entirely worth my money.

[penter]

For the Mac it's because of Finder.

When I first heard that I didn't believe that using an app like Fetch or Transmit would make a difference. It does thankfully, not a huge one, but I notice a speed increase when uploading.

I don't use Windows...

I use an FTP client because it is much more reliable than Finder for larger files. Queue things better, more control.

Can see an upload speed too...

Aaaah. I see. Yeah, I have yet to not run into some trouble when uploading a large file from home.
I upload huge files flawlessly from the computers at my college campus, though... Idk why. But again, they have Mac Pros and super duper awesome internet speeds (T-something).

[Digital Skunk]

Aaaah. I see. Yeah, I have yet to not run into some trouble when uploading a large file from home.
I upload huge files flawlessly from the computers at my college campus, though... Idk why. But again, they have Mac Pros and super duper awesome internet speeds (T-something).

Right, the T1 connection plays a major role in that.