Apology email and 30 day extension for "push" terminology

[jandep]

I received this email a few minutes ago.

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

[Sky Blue]

yay! 30 days free!

edit: not seeing the change yet.

[edesignuk]

Seems reasonable enough I suppose.

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

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

[jk48]

wow.

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

[vandozza]

Originally Posted by Sky Blue

yay! 30 days free!

edit: not seeing the change yet.

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

where's my email

[Sky Blue]

Originally Posted by jk48

wow.

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

Joke post, right?

[jandep]

Originally Posted by jandep

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

As I read this again, I thought,

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

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

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

Time will tell.

[creator2456]

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

[iShater]

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

Glad to get the 30 day extension though.

[benmrii]

Originally Posted by jandep

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

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

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

30 days is sweet though.

[rdowns]

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

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost...0&postcount=31

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

[Kilamite]

Seems fair. Quite a worthy apology.

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

[edesignuk]

Originally Posted by rdowns

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

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost...0&postcount=31

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

Steve?

[tallyho]

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

[wildspin]

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

Why do we have two junk mail folders?

[Saladinos]

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

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

[vandozza]

Originally Posted by wildspin

Why do we have two junk mail folders?

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

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

[Daveoc64]

This is wonderful.

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

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

[jandep]

Originally Posted by wildspin

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

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

edit: TUAW is reporting it now

[vandozza]

Originally Posted by Saladinos

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

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

but that's like a year away

i want my push-cal's now!

[Hawkeye411]

hmmmmm ... A free month ...

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

Thanks Apple!!

[brn2ski00]

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

[sananda]

Originally Posted by rdowns

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

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost...0&postcount=31

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

very nearly spot on!

front page would be a good idea.

[wildspin]

Originally Posted by vandozza

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

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

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

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

[kdog1176]

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

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