Apple Reportedly Open to Restoring MobileMe Features Lost in iCloud Transition

[YoGramMamma]

hmm

I hear several people saying how they use iDisk and it's invaluable to them. I get that its a great service, as I once used it heavily myself. But what I want to know, is what makes dropbox not a better (and free up to 2 gigs) alternative? Its drop dead easy to install and use. Its a helluva lot faster than iDisk was for me and everyone else I've talked to (although it could stand to be faster, still). It's sync service its very intuitive. You can access your files remotely, password protect them, share them. Setting up shared folders for others on collaborative projects its super easy They've got a great iOS app that makes sharing a cinch. What's not to like?.

Notes sync, is also another one. I know Google seems to be the popular kid to all hate on, but one can't really argue with their gmail service being 1) free 2) good 3) able to sync notes well. I just checked the box for notes sync on my iPhone, Mac, and iPad, and all my notes sync from my note app to my mac's mail app... just like MobileMe did. Only I don't pay for it. What's the deal?

 

[BornAgainMac]

I already accepted that those features will not come back. iTools had features that were dropped and nobody remembers those features anymore.

 

[bommai]

I would love for gallery to be retained. I still don't have as good a replacement. Photo Stream is a joke.

 

[NAG]

I'm a big iDisk user. I'm able to access my stuff from any computer anywhere in the world, and able to share stuff with anyone I want. Loosing iDisk was my only concern when Steve made his iCloud presentation. Life would be very complicated without it.

Hence my use of the word "mostly". I've switched over to CloudApp for sharing as it really looks like Apple is getting out of that game or at the very least it is a "hobby". iDisk was never particularly good at the sharing functionality and I doubt they'll fix that any time soon.

 

[jc1350]

However, the MobileMe feature I use on almost a weekly basis (sometimes more) is the Gallery. Gallery is the easiest way to share photos and movies with family and friends, and it's well worth the $99 a year I pay.

Now, I know they're going to have some photo-syncing thing, but I prefer to have the Gallery, where I can place edited photos up. I don't really care about sharing raw iPhone pics.

If Gallery is all you want out of MM, then you should look at smugmug.com. For the $60/year plan (middle-tier plan) you get the same basic features as MM's Gallery plus your own domain name if you want (ex: photos.yoursite.com), far more customization with the "skin," layout, etc., more control with file sizes offered, and more. There are plug-ins that work with iPhoto, Lightroom (2 and 3), and others for easy file uploads. I only checked out the iPhoto and Lightroom plug-ins.

 

[macnisse]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; sv-se) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

I don't get it, why would they even prioritize to call him?! That seems so unlikely for a busy company...

 

[steveh]

I think you'll find [Bill Gates] too busy donating his time and enormous amounts of money via the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the 3rd World. Funnily enough don't see Steve or anyone else in Apple doing so....

That's right. You don't *see* them doing it.

This is not the same thing as they are not doing anything.

Anonymous acts of charity are, at worst, as good as public actions.

 

[bcortens]

I love iDisk, it may be somewhat slow but given that I usually don't need it to be fast I don't mind.
Its great if you are going to university and have more than one computer and need access to your school files not only across computers but on your iDevices as well.
I 'could' use dropbox, but since I want to also use everything else mobileMe offers why would I use a 2Gb free dropbox account when I have ~20 with MobileMe?
Keychain sync saved me when I forgot to backup my keychains before upgrading to Lion...

These are just a few things that are super handy about MobileMe.

That said, I am looking forward to syncing documents via iCloud, so I don't think the entirety of the upgrade is unwarranted, but it should be just that, an upgrade...

 

[Abacab]

I-web

I liked the ease of creating a site in I-web , then the ease of posting.
I hope this is brought back.

 

[Krevnik]

GMail is free because you are their product.

This, this, this. While Google has a desire to create services that end-users like, the goal is to get as many people under their umbrella as possible so they can sell to advertisers. That includes e-mail habits, browsing habits, social habits, day-to-day habits/schedules.

Is it any wonder that Google is jumping into every market where user data would shape and create targeted advertising that is extremely valuable to advertisers? Android, Google Search/E-Mail/Calendar/Plus/etc, Chrome, YouTube... it's all there to feed into a giant advertising engine user data to make the ads 'more relevant'.

Honestly, I don't like the idea of giving Google access to my e-mail/calendar for the purposes of advertising better to me. Do I really need to start seeing ads all over the web based on e-mail my doctor sent me (supposedly) privately?

With MobileMe, Apple's customer would be me. I pay their bills, so their interests are entirely in keeping me happy. It feels like a subtle difference to people who "just use it", but in so many ways it is a huge difference.

 

[PRIMECHUCK]

Please bring iDisk back

 

[kurosov]

gmail is free
personal websites are 1990's
file sync is done better and cheaper by the competition

what is the draw?

Integrated calendar, mail+rules, keychain, widgets, notes, bookmarks, preferences and back to my mac for me here.

Also, i'd rather keep away from using google services.

 

[fiatlux]

Great, there is some hope for Gallery then!

I haven't really used iDisk much, finding Dropbox much faster and cross-platform, but I don't see how I could easily replace Gallery to share albums on friends & relatives' AppleTV. Flickr is fine but not the right place to share family pictures IMO.

 

[Westacular]

Specifically, I bemoaned the loss of sync services (syncing application preferences, keychain, etc.) and the loss of iDisk

Odd that he should reference some of the exact things that iCloud is replacing in a different manner, rather than dropping outright:

One can argue that the whole point of iCloud is the syncing of application preferences along with the sort of documents and data you might keep on your iDisk. It's just offloading management of that on to individual applications, rather than doing it blindly for the whole system. Apple's made the APIs very simple for developers, such that it requires relatively little coding effort to have settings and documents fed through iCloud.

With MobileMe's preference syncing one runs some risks of corruption, or syncing machine-specific preferences that really should not be synced (though developers can avoid that, they don't always think to do so), and you can only sync between Macs. iCloud's more piecemeal approach lets developers choose which of their preferences and data are appropriate for syncing, and which aren't; also, these things can be shared between different apps from the same developer, allowing a whole family of iOS and Mac apps to use common preferences and shared documents where it makes sense. I'd call that a net win.

Meanwhile: I'd say Dropbox more than replaces any of the other features of iDisk that are being lost in this transition.

Keychain syncing, on the other hand... I'm curious to see what happens there. It could also conceivably make that same type of transition, but Apple is probably being extremely cautious with how they approach that because of the inevitable concerns about security and transparency to users.


In general: I think that anything where MobileMe's syncing was truly helpful and time-saving will be replicated, in some form, in iCloud. Not everything right from the start, but give it some time -- after a year I suspect there won't be much left to complain about. I suspect Apple has some very big plans for how iCloud is going to evolve into something huge.

 

[ckinyc]

Copyrights

gmail is free
personal websites are 1990's
file sync is done better and cheaper by the competition

what is the draw?

How about do not have to give those free services the rights to use/own every email and photo you send through their systems?

 

[SVegard]

I like MoBileMe the way it is too. Not saying they should not do new things. That is just great. But keeping the things they have isnt that hard. Why the F did expose and spaces go away in Lion (to mention another example). Same thing. Make something new and remove old functions lots of users love and need. I wonder if words such as keep and both exists at Apple. I hope Apple change atitudes now. It looks like they do. Selling FC7 again, promise to not shred up Logic Pro...and this(?)

I use sync and iDisk. IDisk is good for sharing projects and files. Yes! There is other services that are cheaper, better and so on. But I like mobileme anyways. Used it for two years and ok with it.

 

[MacsRgr8]

MobileMe gallery will be missed. I know many people who use MobileMe and apart from the iCal and Address Book sync, the Gallery is the most used feature.
Photo Stream is nice for having your newly made pics available on your big screen Mac without the need to sync via USB. But there is no replacement out there that handles online sharing of your favourite pics better than MobileMe Gallery.
I hope that for some ca$h T. Cook keeps that feature available along with iDisk.

 

[rotlex]

I would love for gallery to be retained. I still don't have as good a replacement. Photo Stream is a joke.

I can live with all the changes except losing Gallery. While there are other options out there, I really like gallery. The way it looks, the way it integrates with Aperture iPhoto etc. If nothing else, I'd really, really like to see this retained.

 

[DESNOS]

That's right. You don't *see* them doing it.

This is not the same thing as they are not doing anything.

Anonymous acts of charity are, at worst, as good as public actions.

The old saying holds true: If you give charity, and everyone knows about it, chances are you gave it for the wrong reasons. For the mentally impaired, this means that people who give charity for charity's sake are less interested in everyone knowing who they are, and more interested in the money actually getting to where it needs to go, or whatever else you're donating. If you start a whole campaign and announce to the world "LOOK AT THIS $100 I'M GIVING TO THIS HOMELESS GUY OVER HERE ON THE CORNER OF SMITH & 9th!", then it's likely your intent was less than charitable. Not always, but often.

 

[*LTD*]

So is this the Apple you know or don't know. If they cave to people (like you claim FCP/FCPX and giving to Charity) - isn't this just one more way they are disappointing you?

Ask me 4-6 quarters from now, if not more.

Then we'll all have a more definite answer.

For now, it's an open question.

 

[jw12345678]

I find iDisk very useful. I can upload large files to it that I need to distribute when away from the laptop and a reliable internet connection, and share them from my iPhone or iPad. It may not be something that everyone needs or uses very often, but when I need it it's invaluable to me. I am reassured by the fact that the service is all there built in to the Apple server and I am happy to pay for it. The last thing I want to do, as someone earlier said, is give away any rights to my files because I've used a third party service. I also like knowing my picture galleries are stored in the same place, and again its all built-in with no rights grabbing.

But won't the file sharing facility be available with iCloud computing?

 

[Westacular]

.... and PLEASE make sure iCal and AddressBook are CalDAV and CardDAV compliant!!! so one can use them with other devices and Software too!

??

iCal has been CalDAV since Leopard, and Address Book syncs via CardDAV since (iirc) Snow Leopard. Those are, in fact, the protocols used to sync with their respective components in OS X Server.


... Oh, unless you mean: you hope that the iCloud servers allow you to sync your calendar and contacts data with non-Apple, non-iCloud software, using those sync protocols? That's a good question. Somehow I'm not optimistic.

 

[MRU]

Mobile me gallery please.....

 

[markeknows]

Gallery is great. And sites for iWeb will be really annoying to lose...don't do it Apple

 

[Eric S.]

So besides emailing Tim Cook (which I'm dubious will have any effect), where should one leave "feedback on the subject"?

I think we'll see some of these services return later on, a year or so from now. They want to be a bit more sure when it comes to iCloud, they want to approach it in typical Apple way.

Well a year from now is no good. If iDisk is axed next June, I'll have to look for another service to store my online data. And once that happens I won't be back, given how tenuous and changeable MobileMe services have been.

I'm a big iDisk user. I'm able to access my stuff from any computer anywhere in the world, and able to share stuff with anyone I want. Loosing iDisk was my only concern when Steve made his iCloud presentation. Life would be very complicated without it.

Same here. iDisk and personal web page hosting (which I do through the Sites folder on iDisk) are the only things I use MobileMe for now, aside from using my mac.com address for Apple purchases. I have no interest in the giant sync service that is iCloud. If iDisk goes, so do I.