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Apple Launches Beta Version of Enhanced MobileMe Calendar Web Application
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Apple has an opportunity. Affinity programs work. Admittedly Apple has one of the most loyal followings on the planet, but free is a powerful motivator and a perceived $99 price simply causes people to search for a better deal and some then drift away discovering products they may never have considered otherwise. MobileMe is pretty mediocre at best and it is pretty close to an OS price.
I have been fiercely loyal to Apple since 1981 and owned more machines and software than I can remember. I currently replace 5 or so computers every 2 years or so plus all that goes with them and get a few stickers. Apple doesn't owe me a thing, I choose to be loyal, but I felt a little sting popping for Mobileme (dumb name too). Google apps are pretty cool. I now use Amdroid phones (ATT is a large part of that). Not sure if a free or $29 Mobilme price would have kept me "home", but it might have. Don't know how much revenue Mobilme brings in compared to tossing a bone to the faithful.
I have been fiercely loyal to Apple since 1981 and owned more machines and software than I can remember. I currently replace 5 or so computers every 2 years or so plus all that goes with them and get a few stickers. Apple doesn't owe me a thing, I choose to be loyal, but I felt a little sting popping for Mobileme (dumb name too). Google apps are pretty cool. I now use Amdroid phones (ATT is a large part of that). Not sure if a free or $29 Mobilme price would have kept me "home", but it might have. Don't know how much revenue Mobilme brings in compared to tossing a bone to the faithful.
I got mine from some guy in Australia. Cost me £35 instead of £59 and he emailed me the code.
Hmm, that's a really bad idea. I got mine from Ebay for $50 USD, but I specifically made sure it was a sealed box. Most of those emailed codes are fraudulent. Sure, they work for a few months but then the seller returns the service to Apple and gets a prorated refund and then your service gets turned off and you don't know why? That's usually the reason. This is why the seller generally won't sell Mobileme or the Applecare with the box, it's so they can keep the box so they can easily return the service.
Nothing's free. Google's services aren't really free either, you just pay for it in different ways. The same would have to be true for MobileMe, which, in my opinion, is currently certainly on the expensive side for what is offered. On the other hand, I have come to prefer to pay actual money upfront for certain things to hopefully free myself at least a bit from companies bombarding me with ads, doing data mining and performing intensive behavior analysis, gaining valuable information that in practice is often really not so anonymous.
I was going to say the same thing. "not paying money" is not always the same as "free". Some people find it worth the subscription cost to keep control over who gets their personal data, other people don't.
Ruahrc
+1
I sync an Intel iMac, G4 iMac, 2 iPhones, 2 ipod touches and a mac laptop to mobileme (I even turn on the old G3 iMac in the garage to check emails sometimes!).
It takes hardly any thinking about to get it working, real world easy for people that don't want to run betas all the time.
Having bookmarks the same on all devices is great. Notes syncing on the iPhones has made shopping lists so easy to keep up-to-date. Calendar syncing is excellent. Find my iPhone gives a bit of peace of mind.
I use iDisk to back up my photo's automatically, just let it chug away, don't worry about the speed.
Worth every penny to me. I can see why peole want it for free, I can't see how they can justify free.
But once you enroll, subsequent renewals are at the full $99 automatically, right? Or is there a way to bypass autorenewal?
Here's the thing, I understand what you mean, but there's a problem...
Mobile Me is a recurring payment service. Sure, you may be able to justify the cost now, but who's to say you will be in the same financial situation years from now? When I move all my contacts, calendars, email, etc. to a service I'm basically committing to use that service, because it's very hard to change as time goes on. I don't want to give out my @me.com email address for 10 years and then suddenly have to contact everyone I know to change it to @gmail.com.
Everything you listed for comparison costs money, but it's a one time fee. If I have $500 laying around and I decide to buy an iPad, it's because I know I have the money right now. If I lose my job next year, or 5 years from now, I'll still have my iPad. I own it. I don't have to give it back or have it drain my expenses.
If Apple offered a lifetime Mobile Me subscription for a few hundred dollars, I would buy it. Because that way I can transfer all of my contacts and information over while feeling secure in the fact that it will always be there for me.
I think most peoples' issue with mobile me isn't that it's not free, it's that they want something that they can count on always being there.
There are a number of ways to look at this.
So yeah less expensive would be very nice. However let's not screw up the service in the pattern of some of the other providers.
That is not a problem at all.
Frankly my biggest fear right now is that Apple has plans to force advertising down our throats via .Mac. I reapply don't want to have to wade through piles of Viagra ads, cra from greenmail, offers for debt resolution or links to lonely Thai girls. Well links to Thai girls are acceptable with pics.
The point is there is some value in a service like .Mac that does things like spam filtering. Filtering in the interest of the user and not the service provider.
Of all the things I spend my computing dollars on, the dot Mac is one of the easyist to pay for. It is all about the spam free E-Mail, the Syncing, the continous improvement and other features.
Dave
Obviously you need to justify the priced based on what you get. I'm both a .Mac subscriber and an owner of a "free" Yahoo mail account. Honestly I'm to the point where the so called "free" account isn't worth the trouble. There is far to much spam. Plus Apples integration with various devices it sells is pretty good. Also Apple has continually updated the service to keep it fresh and expand features.
Well paying less is always nice but then you need to realize it is less than ten bucks a month. That is maybe the cost of one iPod game. The problem is I wouldn't want the service to get so cheap that it becomes advertising financed like many of the so called free e-mail services.
So yeah less expensive would be very nice. However let's not screw up the service in the pattern of some of the other providers.
That is not a problem at all.
Frankly my biggest fear right now is that Apple has plans to force advertising down our throats via .Mac. I reapply don't want to have to wade through piles of Viagra ads, cra from greenmail, offers for debt resolution or links to lonely Thai girls. Well links to Thai girls are acceptable with pics.
The point is there is some value in a service like .Mac that does things like spam filtering. Filtering in the interest of the user and not the service provider.
Of all the things I spend my computing dollars on, the dot Mac is one of the easyist to pay for. It is all about the spam free E-Mail, the Syncing, the continous improvement and other features.
Dave
so you did! Why didn't this make front page news?!
Also, Why the hell hasn't iphone 4 got week view? The one feature i miss from my psion...
They have been doing some decent updates to MobileMe over the last while. I think this is all in preparation for iTunes cloud and all that to go down. It may still be a little while, but it is obviously in the works!
I also think it is very interesting that they are going with the iPad style UIs that are very touch friendly! This reveals a lot about their strategy for the cloud I think. I love it!
I think we will soon see some major additions to MobileMe in the near future. This all seems to be in preparation of iTune cloud etc. as I stated above. I also would not be surprised to see iAds work into MobileMe. If nothing else, they might have a free version with iAds and a pro version without and some other features or something. I would love if they went that way! Pretty exciting I think.
P.S. Google may be free but come one, their respect for privacy is pathetic, and I would be willing to pay almost anything not to be stuck in Google pathetic UIs and software designs! Google is what Google is, they whore your data and ads to provide free poorly designed products, period! No thanks!
Being that EVERY CALENDAR IN THE WORLD is formatted that way, I would just get over it lol!
Wireless syncing is there.
I've seen several comments about wireless syncing, people it works fine with dot Mac, IPhone and a Mac laptop.
For example I can enter a contact into my iPhone and know that it will propagate to dot Mac and then my laptop without much effort at all. The same goes for Safari Bookmarks, notes and other stuff.
The Bookmark syncing is extremely useful. As it allows you to study a site in depth when it might not be practical on the iPhone.
Over the air syncing does happen and it really isn't a mystery. Do they sync everything, nope but you can count on your contacts and calendars. These plus a few others make for one very nice facility. The really important things are always ready to go.
Dave
I've seen several comments about wireless syncing, people it works fine with dot Mac, IPhone and a Mac laptop.
For example I can enter a contact into my iPhone and know that it will propagate to dot Mac and then my laptop without much effort at all. The same goes for Safari Bookmarks, notes and other stuff.
The Bookmark syncing is extremely useful. As it allows you to study a site in depth when it might not be practical on the iPhone.
Over the air syncing does happen and it really isn't a mystery. Do they sync everything, nope but you can count on your contacts and calendars. These plus a few others make for one very nice facility. The really important things are always ready to go.
Dave
It's terrible seeing how outdated some OSX apps (iCal, Address Book, Mail,...) look in comparison to the shiny new iPad, iOS4 and MobileMe apps.
I really dislike the thought of having to wait another 12-18 months for some desktop app love. Sigh. Let's just hope we'll see some app updates before OSX 10.7, these apps really should be updated before 2012.
I really dislike the thought of having to wait another 12-18 months for some desktop app love. Sigh. Let's just hope we'll see some app updates before OSX 10.7, these apps really should be updated before 2012.
I want birthday/anniversary/other date reminders that work! I currently have them set up in a Yahoo! email account because I haven't been able to get them to work reliably from my iCal.
Would also be nice if the above types of dates that I have in my Contacts sync'd up with iCal and (reliably) notified me with a reminder via my @me.com account or other method of choice.
Would also be nice if the above types of dates that I have in my Contacts sync'd up with iCal and (reliably) notified me with a reminder via my @me.com account or other method of choice.
It's a mediocore service. I would bite if it let me use my own email (be it gmail, yahoo, live, aol or me). Besides yourname@me.com sounds like I have a big ego and not the image I'd like to project on people. Plus $99 is what I pay for an OS, not an email calendar service.
Dropbox + Google performs MUCH better and is all a man needs. And it's free.
Dropbox + Google performs MUCH better and is all a man needs. And it's free.
From MobileME to MobileWe
This is the first step MobileMe has taken towards being more than a personal information manager. But are the sharing options only limited to the MobileMe webapp? Do the changes mean that users can use MobileMe to maintain and sync shared calendars on their iPhone like with Hyper Sync?
This is the first step MobileMe has taken towards being more than a personal information manager. But are the sharing options only limited to the MobileMe webapp? Do the changes mean that users can use MobileMe to maintain and sync shared calendars on their iPhone like with Hyper Sync?
I'm sorry, but that's rubbish. I'm using Yahoo Mail for years now and never had any trouble with spam. It depends on your use of the e-mail address and if it gets into the hands of others. You can use disposable e-mail addresses if you're not sure that your address will not be abused. In addition, I think Yahoo has a pretty decent spam filter, because all spam is properly recognised on my disposable addresses.
I really enjoy the latest MobileMe additions (just set up another trial account). The sync works seamlessly – you hardly notice that it is done but you see the results almost instantly. Find my iPhone is a feature I'm craving for, because it happened several times to me that I forgot my iPhone at a friend's place. However, I won't subscribe for the very same reason I didn't two years ago: 79 euro a year sounds just not reasonable, Apple Tax or not. There are a lot of (free) alternatives available and I find it very hard to justify this price. Perhaps if Apple would offer different subscriptions at a more reasonable price, for example without iDisk or without e-mail (just the sync would be enough), I surely would think thrice.
It looks like they are moving the calendar to a new format so for mobile me you will no longer get invites in .ics format but in the caldav format.
I think this means that invites from iphone and ipad will work. This will be a huge step in the right direction, and will be great for me. I am on the road alot, and find it hard to manage my invites while i'm away.
Now I just have to hope I can find an apple store in london next week with iphone4 stock!
I think this means that invites from iphone and ipad will work. This will be a huge step in the right direction, and will be great for me. I am on the road alot, and find it hard to manage my invites while i'm away.
Now I just have to hope I can find an apple store in london next week with iphone4 stock!
caldav useing .ics
CalDAV still using .ics (caldav uses the iCalendar standard)
CalDAV really is just a better protocol for devices to connect to the server to have better sync and hopefully better push.
CalDAV still using .ics (caldav uses the iCalendar standard)
CalDAV really is just a better protocol for devices to connect to the server to have better sync and hopefully better push.