MobileMe Update Adds iDisk Public Folder Features, Makes 'Find My iPhone' More Prominent [Archive]

MacRumors

Oct 9, 2009, 11:39 AM

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/10/09/mobileme-update-adds-idisk-public-folder-features-makes-find-my-iphone-more-prominent/)

Apple today posted a support document (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3883) outlining several changes made today to its MobileMe subscription-based services. A number of the changes affect the viewing of and access to members' iDisk Public folders.- New Public folder page located at http://public.me.com/{membername} now matches the look of me.com and supports drag and drop of files between folders (when enabled for visitors)
- Allowing visitors to upload, move, and delete files on your Public folder can now be set from www.me.com/idisk (http://www.me.com/idisk)
- An iDisk Public folder password can now be set from www.me.com/idisk (http://www.me.com/idisk)
- When logging in to a password-protected Public folder with a web browser, entering the generic username "public" is no longer required
- Adds ability to connect to another member’s Public folder while viewing your own iDisk at me.comOther updates include the addition of a "Find My iPhone" icon on the me.com navigation toolbar and the addition of a direct URL (http://www.me.com/findmyiphone) to allow users to quickly access the "Find My iPhone". Finally, the update addresses a bug related to export of multiple contacts.

Article Link: MobileMe Update Adds iDisk Public Folder Features, Makes 'Find My iPhone' More Prominent (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/10/09/mobileme-update-adds-idisk-public-folder-features-makes-find-my-iphone-more-prominent/)

DMann

Oct 9, 2009, 11:44 AM

"Find My iPhone" rocks! It is the LoJack of phones, and has lead to the recovery and location of many 'lost' iPhones.

rfahey

Oct 9, 2009, 11:50 AM

I want them to add the ability to use the find my phone service from an iphone device

iPhone 62S

Oct 9, 2009, 11:55 AM

They need to do a extra option to have Find My iPhone seperate from MobileMe for a small fee (like £5 a year), I think lots of people would go for that.

HiRez

Oct 9, 2009, 12:07 PM

I'm still waiting for the ability to have separate passwords for multiple folders on an iDisk...did this show up and some point and I missed it? As far as I know it's still password-protect everything, or nothing, which isn't that useful.

Macula

Oct 9, 2009, 12:10 PM

upekkharich

Oct 9, 2009, 12:11 PM

what if they made mobileme work for writing and reading email
that would be really cool
you could read email online, from any computer using the internet, then you could write an email to someone

coolfactor

Oct 9, 2009, 12:17 PM

It is unbelievable how much Apple has allowed itself to lag behind Dropbox (and other contenders). No matter how Apple touches up this lacklustre product, the core technology remains flawed. (Ever heard about 'delta syncing', Cupertino?)

I have already subscripted to a 25GB Dropbox Pro account and intend not to renew my MobileMe service, whose only unique feature is now 'find my iPhone'.

You need to understand that MobileMe's iDisk feature is built on an entirely different technology than Dropbox. I use both services.

iDisk uses WebDAV. Mind you, they could take several pages from Dropbox's book on syncing the offline copy of iDisk with the cloud.

I agree, Dropbox is a far better implementation, but you can't directly compare it to iDisk.

Scallywag

Oct 9, 2009, 12:22 PM

what if they made mobileme work for writing and reading email
that would be really cool
you could read email online, from any computer using the internet, then you could write an email to someone

Umm...this is exactly what Mobile Me does, and every other online Email service. Am I missing something??

MobileMe no longer loads correctly in Google Chrome...my main browser at work. I will be cancelling my account and switching to a Gmail/dropbox solution.

Mobile Me isn't getting better, just bigger with more features I don't need. It's not worth the money anymore, IMO.

sliderocity

Oct 9, 2009, 12:32 PM

Good call with making Find My iPhone more prominent. It's always confused me that the feature was buried on the settings page.

jancz

Oct 9, 2009, 12:36 PM

They should integrate iWork.com into MobileMe. In order just for online documents viewing.

Anyway it's good to hear about those updates.

LlamaLarry

Oct 9, 2009, 12:52 PM

look like they have changed slightly, for me at least.

Now when I look at my phone I see the outlines of the land/lot parcels. I certainly don't remember this and since I live in a rural area the parcels are large enough I would have noticed. Easiest to see in Map view since they are cluttered by buildings/vegetation in Hybrid.

Doctor Q

Oct 9, 2009, 01:20 PM

If you go to "http://public.me.com/" and append a random string that's not a valid MobileMe account name, you get a message that "This might be a problem with your internet connection or MobileMe's servers are temporarily unavailable."

Wouldn't "No such account" or even a 404 Not Found be a more suitable result?

louden

Oct 9, 2009, 01:24 PM

Does anyone else have a problem with even the most SIMPLE Mobile Me features?

I try to keep my dock items synced between three machines. Granted, I don't have the same apps on each machine, but don't you think syncing would be able to keep an ordered, union, list of items? And have the latest action (last in) items take precedence over older information?

Right now, for some reason, I can't keep iTunes in my dock, because every time I drag it there, Mobile Me drags it away! I must have removed it at some point, but now Mobile Me won't let me change my mind.

jbennardo

Oct 9, 2009, 01:26 PM

jms-1958

Oct 9, 2009, 01:30 PM

When you access the new "Find my iPhone" icon in MobileMe it takes you to your mail page. I believe the link is broken. Same for Settings icon.

Fastshutter

Oct 9, 2009, 01:43 PM

"Find my iPhone" should be part of iTunes and free for all iPhone users, not tied to a premium service. MobileMe is too expensive for what it does (just like most Apple products).

Razeus

Oct 9, 2009, 01:45 PM

Simply because the charge for this is what makes MobileMe lame. Total rip off. Dropbox, BusyCal, GMail via MS Exchange does it all for me.

For free.

upekkharich

Oct 9, 2009, 02:08 PM

Umm...this is exactly what Mobile Me does, and every other online Email service. Am I missing something??

i guess i could have been more explicit that i was being ironic, but that wouldn't be very ironic
gmail is free and kicks ass - mobile me, on the other hand, uses the rectum for a far more oral purpose

my complaints are with the "webmail" aspects of mobileme - getting mobileme's web interface to load mail is laughable, most of the time i just give up and whip out my iphone to labor through an email i would rather be more lengthy with

my only use at this point is for backing up and hosting photos

calderone

Oct 9, 2009, 02:09 PM

Simply because the charge for this is what makes MobileMe lame. Total rip off. Dropbox, BusyCal, GMail via MS Exchange does it all for me.

For free.

Maybe you should switch to a cardboard box, scrap paper and hand written notes passed along via others to the intended recipient. That would do it all for you...

For nearly free... cheaper than a computer at least. :rolleyes:

L

Rojo

Oct 9, 2009, 02:19 PM

MobileMe is far from perfect -- but it suits my purposes well, and is still better and more convenient (for me) than all the free services out there. It costs around a quarter a day (much less if you buy it on Amazon), and has saved my butt numerous times -- especially the Find My iPhone feature. It's integrated into my Apple life, which other services just don't do. (Dropbox is great, but I can't use it at work -- so useless to me).

It's worth the price for me now, but I would be happier with more features or better iDisk transfer speeds.

techwarrior

Oct 9, 2009, 02:25 PM

I want them to add the ability to use the find my phone service from an iphone device

If you have it in your hand, why would you need "Find my Phone" service?

If you could put all of your family's iphones in it, then maybe this would make sense so you could find the wife and kiddies.

satcomer

Oct 9, 2009, 02:33 PM

I feel the "Find My Phone" is almost worth the price of the yearly fee. I know others don't but is has helped me lately to find my phone when I accidentally left it in a restaurant seat. A quick call and short drive I got my phone back. The yearly price is almost worth it my case.

However like I said before it is totally up top the user if he/she wants to use this service. DropBox is a viable alternative if all you want to do is sync data across multiple computers & the iPhone.

ryanrul

Oct 9, 2009, 02:36 PM

How about
Search my email.

There's a fancy feature I sure hope their engineering and design teams can pull off one day.

twoodcc

Oct 9, 2009, 03:08 PM

I want them to add the ability to use the find my phone service from an iphone device

i want that as well.

they need to be adding updates to mobileme now, since i need to renew mine soon

ThunderSkunk

Oct 9, 2009, 03:45 PM

It has turned out to be a really useful tool.

I fly with expensive racing bikes nearly everywhere I go. I can't risk shipping them, after numerous forklift incidents over the years, so I fly with them as checked items. ...with the added safety of having my phone taped inside. If I show up at the baggage claim, and the bike does not, I can pop open my MBP, and locate it with airport staff quickly and accurately.

I tracked my iphone yesterday. Drove 30 miles to find it between the cushions in the champagne room. :| Whoops!

cnorth3

Oct 9, 2009, 04:01 PM

How about
Search my email.

There's a fancy feature I sure hope their engineering and design teams can pull off one day.

Given that there's a working search function, I'd say they already have.

cnorth3

Oct 9, 2009, 04:03 PM

"Find my iPhone" should be part of iTunes and free for all iPhone users, not tied to a premium service. MobileMe is too expensive for what it does (just like most Apple products).

Apple should provide this service for free why? Oh yeah, everything should be for free.

German

Oct 9, 2009, 04:17 PM

No https in the web-apps (beside authentication and preferences) is a joke (for a service with costs).

Bregalad

Oct 9, 2009, 05:18 PM

Simply because the charge for this is what makes MobileMe lame. Total rip off. Dropbox, BusyCal, GMail via MS Exchange does it all for me.

For free.

Someone is paying $$$$$$$ for that Exchange server you're using so it's far from free.

MobileMe continues to disappoint me. Every additional feature seems to involve the removal of something else and none of what it does is up to Apple's usual high standards. It seems to be a "hobby" like AppleTV rather than a serious product.

Half Glass

Oct 9, 2009, 05:27 PM

How about ability to sync family calendars in a family pack!!

Frosties

Oct 9, 2009, 05:35 PM

What of servers outside USA? In Europe idisk has been a joke for years. It is sad that Microsoft (25 GB free), dropbox, Google and others owns this market here. MobileMe is really not that great in function or cost here.

NasserAE

Oct 9, 2009, 06:07 PM

"Find My iPhone" rocks! It is the LoJack of phones, and has lead to the recovery and location of many 'lost' iPhones.

I agree. I am also waiting for "Find My Mac" using WiFi. Furthermore, I can see Apple adding GPS chips to their portables now that location based services are becoming very useful and common.

NasserAE

Oct 9, 2009, 06:10 PM

How about ability to sync family calendars in a family pack!!

It is not built in but it can be done by publishing your calender (http://www.trajiklyhip.com/blog/index.cfm/2009/7/31/Sharing-a-MobileMe-Calendar-with-Other-Macs-and-iPhones).

digitalbiker

Oct 9, 2009, 10:42 PM

Has Apple mentioned anything about speeding up the service? My main complaint with idisk is that it is ten times slower than any other file service I have used.

FTP sites, Dropbox, etc. work so much faster for file transfer. idisk always transfers files at a snails pace.

Also it is not very reliable for windows IE users. Half the time I post files for windows users and they have problems with the downloads.

kwfl

Oct 9, 2009, 11:01 PM

how about letting me login to me.com?

i cant really login even after resetting my password. What a shame.

bretm

Oct 10, 2009, 12:50 AM

Kelmon

Oct 10, 2009, 04:50 AM

what if they made mobileme work for writing and reading email
that would be really cool
you could read email online, from any computer using the internet, then you could write an email to someone

This is precisely the reason that I will not be renewing my MobileMe membership this time despite having been a .mac subscriber for the past 6-years. The old web mail system may have been clunky compared to newer systems (like Gmail) but it was nowhere near as annoying as MobileMe's implementation is. The number of times that the application completely reloads the screen, such that whatever action you have requested it to do is forgotten, just drives me nuts. Safari also seems to have a habit of loading MobileMe such that its icons and many screen elements are missing.

I want to like MobileMe but it's just not worth the money. If I am going to pay for a service that can be obtained from other sources for free then I feel I am entitled to expect a better level of service (heck, I pay extra for a Mac to have a better experience). But MobileMe simply does not deliver and for a paid service this is positively criminal. I am not paying for something that annoys...

wfoster

Oct 10, 2009, 05:08 AM

MobileMe sure does need a few updates doing to it.

Searching e-mail, better iDisk, more password-protection, better e-mail system.

Willson

Oct 10, 2009, 06:57 AM

Well i'm happy they brought the public folder interface up-to-date. That thing was such an old relic :eek:

Personally I think Apple took the wrong approach with MobileMe. Instead of sitting down and discussing "How can we make the best email? How can we make the best online storage solution?" etc. etc. they did "How can we make .Mac the best it can be?". It meant iDisk especially had to be updated based on their previous backend WebDAV setup instead of considering a Dropbox type approach.

MobileMe is good if you have a use for most of what it offers. But it does have many things that need looking at.

German

Oct 10, 2009, 07:50 AM

MobileMe sure does need a few updates doing to it.

Searching e-mail, better iDisk, more password-protection, better e-mail system.

+ more security

full https support in the mobile apps
idisk: server-side encryption like dropbox & co

+ Jabber-Account für iChat (instead of proprietary AIM)
+ Jabber-Chat in the Mobile-Apps
+ S/MIME for E-Mail (not only iChat)

Master Chief

Oct 11, 2009, 05:03 AM

I do not use Mobile.me and I also don't plan ever using it. Not only are there free services for most features, of which some are even better, but I also don't use any of them either, simply because I've setup my own Ubuntu server (with WLAN wakeup to make it green). And not at home of course ;) The neat thing is that everything is under my control, works exactly like I want for our family and friends, and I can do with it whatever I want. Nothing like Mobile.me

And tracking your iPhone can be done for free... with help of your MAC address. It just takes a little longer, but it works. Not to mention that deleting stuff from your iPhone won't prevent it from being restored by Joe Smug!!!

If my iPhone gets stolen then getting a new one is all what counts to me. Not about being afraid for the pictures/contacts on it. I mean if you have to worry about the pictures, then you already are in a danger zone. What if it gets broken? Hello Apple?

twilson

Oct 11, 2009, 10:25 AM

MobileMe no longer loads correctly in Google Chrome...my main browser at work.

Not being funny, but as Safari and Chrome both use WebKit as their rendering engine, I'd argue (heaven forbid it be possible) that Chrome is at fault, I could be wrong though.

twilson

Oct 11, 2009, 10:29 AM

No https in the web-apps (beside authentication and preferences) is a joke (for a service with costs).

I agree, that is quite possibly my only pet-peave with MobileMe.

koobcamuk

Oct 12, 2009, 03:07 AM

iDisk is good as an FTP server. Aside from that, I really dont use it...

The fact that people are wishing iDisk was like Dropbox does say that they compare the two, whether or not they use the same implementations.

For the casual user... get dropbox!

jjp007

Oct 13, 2009, 01:11 AM

All the remote find wipe, and lock features require push notification to be on.

So... If you find an iPhone, I guess the first thing you should do is turn off push. Enjoy your new phone.

Shouldn't it be a little more covert. Or perhaps turning off push should require you enter you password? Just seems like a duh to me.

I completely agree. Or all someone has to do is turn off the phone, which is what people usually do when they first 'find' a lost phone and intend on keeping it. My friend left his phone in a restaurant and went back an hour later, of course no one turned it in. Then we went home to use the find my iphone from mobile me and of course, no phone found. they had turned it off. phone gone. I did not renew my mobile me account that expired this week for that very reason. I just didn't use it enough but was willing to keep it for the find my iphone ability but now seeing that doesn't always work if it gets stolen.

djellison

Oct 13, 2009, 09:26 AM

Not being funny, but as Safari and Chrome both use WebKit as their rendering engine, I'd argue (heaven forbid it be possible) that Chrome is at fault, I could be wrong though.

Given that Chrome worked beautifully on Mobile Me before, but doesn't now - the cause of it now no longer working is Apples. And I bet they KNOW it doesn't work, and don't care, hoping people will switch to Safari. Something I will never do on my PC workstations.