Apple Focusing on MobileMe Improvements in Latest 10.5.6 Builds

[MacRumors]

Apple is still hard at work on the next version of Mac OS X 10.5.6 according to published reports on the internet.

The latest Mac OS X 10.5.6 (9G35) build appears to focus heavily on testing of MobileMe syncing features for notebook computers in various scenarios. MobileMe is the online mail, calendar, contact and sync services available to Mac or PC users. MobileMe's initial rollout in July was marred by poor performance, downtime and some data loss.

Mac OS X 10.5.6 also incorporates the usual laundry list of big fixes and other tweaks to the 10.5 operating system. Apple released the last update to Mac OS X in September. There's no timeframe for 10.5.6's release, but will be a free update to all Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) customers.

Article Link: Apple Focusing on MobileMe Improvements in Latest 10.5.6 Builds

[JC4]

Too little, too late. I let my subscription expire 11/5. I regret ever signing up 3 years ago, and believing improvements and great new features would ever appear. It was a waste of $300.

Bye-bye!

[SydneyDev]

How long have they been working on sync now?

[plumbingandtech]

idisk usually takes a long time to mount and slow to copy for me.


I hope that's one of the improvements they are working on.

[gibbz]

Despite the rollout problems, I have been very happy with MobileMe. I am interested to see what comes of the 10.5.6 update.

[BLACK MAC]

When I first signed up it was really buggy. But after some time I do some major improvements done. I am a fan of it now. Hope for better improvements, especially on MobileMe websites.

[plumbingandtech]

Originally Posted by gibbz

Despite the rollout problems, I have been very happy with MobileMe. I am interested to see what comes of the 10.5.6 update.

Me too. I started using the sync (to my iPhone ) a couple of weeks after the buggy rollout period. Since then I have to say that syncing has been A+ for me.

For $99, it's worth the sync alone since it is transparent to me.

[nyamanku]

How do you know it'll be free? Did they say that? 'Cause that would be so cool.

[dudup]

I was happier on the .Mac era.

I really love iSync and iDisk, but they are so unreliable these days, and major CPU hogs.

At least everything is running great on the iPhone side -- which is no surprise to me, since it's Apple's the main focus these days...

[PlaceofDis]

Originally Posted by nyamanku

How do you know it'll be free? Did they say that? 'Cause that would be so cool.

all 10.x.x updates have been free. the 10.x upgrades have always been the paid for ones. there is no way that this would change since its a bug and slight enhancement update more than anything.

[dudup]

Originally Posted by nyamanku

How do you know it'll be free? Did they say that? 'Cause that would be so cool.

The OS X update should be, not the Mobile Me services.

[Ampidire]

Been a subscriber since it was just .mac when I got my first MacBook back in '06.

I've never been a huge power-user of it, but have begun to use it a lot more since the MobileMe roll-out, of which I only suffered one day where my contacts on my phone weren't correct, otherwise it's been fine for me.

I plan to let my account renew next month.

[crees!]

This would be nice. I'm tired of my KeyChain getting @#$*@&'ed

[MrCrowbar]

Did they fix ATSServer? 10.5.5 introduced this bug that when Finder (or Preview, Spotlight, Quicklook) has to display a thumbnail for certain PDF files, the ATSServer process takes up all CPU power and the system basically freezes. You can't restart or do anything besides move the mouse cursor. This bug is on all my Intel Macs (Macbook, Mac Mini, iMac) since 10.5.5 and affect about 70% of the PDFs.

Seriously, this is worse than any Windows Bug I've encountered so far.

[swissmann]

I just bought another retail box to renew. I've been using it since it was free and called iTools (or something like that - I forget). I have about 25 websites published through it. I sync 5 computers and my iPhone. Two of my businesses use the iCal publishing. I use backup.app regularly. My clients proof my work through it. My off site employees use it to access files. When out of town I use back to my mac to get to things as needed.

I would like to see filemaker web server, PHP, SQL support added. Basically beef up the web hosting service.

I'd love to build a database in filemaker and hit a magic button like publish to iWeb and then have mobile me host it so that people could fill out web forms and have it auto populate my filemaker database.

Curious to see what iLife update improvements are around the corner to correlate with mobile me.

[Daveoc64]

"If you are working behind a firewall (ie. corporate proxy), we would like to know your experience with the syncing"

I hope there have been some improvements in this area.

My University network blocks anything like MobileMe sync, so when the computer tries to sync it ends up with SyncServer or dmnotifyd using up all the CPU which makes my battery die quickly.

I don't really expect the sync to work, but it would be nice if it gave up when it can't connect.

[*GG*]

I will believe it if I see it. As soon as my subscription runs out it will not be renewed. It is an appalling service.

[ltldrummerboy]

Good to hear they're still working on fixing it, but I'll just stick with DropBox and Gmail.

[stockcerts]

I am happy with the service, but there is room for improvement. There are many retailers that sell the service for less than Apple, such as Amazon. I believe I paid $75-.

[Small White Car]

.Me keeps my calendars, bookmarks, and contacts synced between my 3 macs and my iPhone.

This alone is worth $100 a year and it has yet to disappoint me. Anything else is does is cool, but is really just a bonus.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot about the online photo galleries. I've yet to see any other photo hosting service half as cool and simple to use. They really are amazing.

[guzhogi]

I've been a member off & on since the iTools days. Little buggy, but useful.

[nyamanku]

Originally Posted by dudup

The OS X update should be, not the Mobile Me services.

Oh, silly me, I misread it. Thought it said 10.6 or something.

[Rivix]

Sounds good! I still have problems with syncing.

[koobcamuk]

Originally Posted by ltldrummerboy

Good to hear they're still working on fixing it, but I'll just stick with DropBox and Gmail.

Dropbox is exactly how iDisk should be. iDisk sucks. I just use backup.app to backup my dropbox folder

Everyday I have sync conflicts that don't actually exist. So annoying.

[iSee]

Originally Posted by JC4

Too little, too late. I let my subscription expire 11/5. I regret ever signing up 3 years ago, and believing improvements and great new features would ever appear. It was a waste of $300.

Bye-bye!

FYI, .Mac/MobileMe can generally be found for substantially less than the retail price of $99/year. For example, a year of MobileMe is $67.25 right now on Amazon.

You could have only wasted $200-$210


For my part, I find iSync, iDisk, and the web page hosting to be very useful, so it is well worth it for me. The cost works out to < 6$/month. The web site hosting is very basic, but it's all I need.

I don't use the email, though--gmail is much better--nor the other features.