Apple Revamps .Mac: Mobile Me Announced

[southerndoc]

the real question is, when do i get to reserve email addresses for @me.com?

Probably after .Mac users are upgraded. I imagine those with a username on .Mac will keep the same username(s) and hopefully mail aliases.

Good news to hear that we can keep the mac.com email addresses.

 

[southerndoc]

Cool, now we have a list of people who can't read websites.

I'm sure we'll find a use for that someday.

In the meantime, I'm glad they're letting us change them if we want to. I always hated the .Mac name. People think I work for Apple or something. It would be neat if I did, but I don't, so giving that impression is stupid. I'm a .Mac subscriber and I've never used the e-mail before. I might start, now.

Thanks for your polite reply.

FYI, I am guilty of jumping to conclusions before reading a website instead of not being able to read one. This post was made prior to the websites becoming available.

I look forward to more courteous discussions from you. You're a beacon of light exemplifying proper etiquette and interpersonal skills.

 

[HD303]

Apple got ripped off if they paid some consultant to come up with this name. My daughters 5th grade class could have come up with a better marketing image than Mobile Me.

The concept is great, but the name branding is awful.

 

[nutmac]

I would switch from my existing hosting provider to Mobile Me in a heartbeat if it has PHP, MySQL, and custom domain name (.Mac supports custom domain, but Apple should provide direct sales and support).

 

[iheartapple]

It is a good thing for Apple’s sake they they have “allowed us” to keep our .mac email address. If this was not the case, I would have all my clients (as well as myself) that I have set-up with .mac accounts immediately cancel membership and I would investigate other options elsewhere. I think Mobile Me is the absolute stupidest sounding name on the face of this planet. What’s’ even more amazing is that at Apple Execs get paid big $$ to come up with pathetic names like this Mobile Me! Hello Apple anybody home?

Stupidest huh? Good grammar.

But I do agree, the name is most stupid.
Very childish, along with the logo too..

Totally dropped the ball on that one apple.

 

[Potus]

Wiowio!

Why are they dropping iCards? The one feature of mac.com I use every day.

 

[MrCrowbar]

iPhone to support mutliple calendars now?

Here's a screenshot from the MobileMe video:

See the multiple colors? It makes sense to have the different calendars separated. As it is now, the iPhone displays everything in the same color and all new entries made on the iPhone go into the same calendar (set in iTunes).
Is this multiple calendar suppord exclusive to MobileMe users or do you think it will be in the iPhone 2.0 update?

EDIT: The List/Day/Month bar moved to the bottom. In my opinion, it should have been there from the start. The added top bar is the calendar selector on this screenshot.

 

[bankshot]

This is the only thing about Mac in the WHOLE of that keynote. Waste of my two hours if you ask me...

Yup. And this wasn't even really about Mac stuff since it is fairly accessible from any platform over the web. 🙁

whats the big deal with push? is it really only relevant to mobile devices like the iphone?

I use gmail with IMAP and when I had two computers it was perfect as everything was on the server just like exchange. The only difference I can see (and please educate me as I'm not great at this) is that IMAP requires polling from the computer whereas push signals the computer that there is a mail.

So probably useful for an iphone but not such a big deal for a mac/macbook which can poll every 5 minutes anyway.


I use exchange on my N95 and set it to sync my mail every 15 minutes during work time, but it can also be on all the time. So its polling, but I get the speed of push and it doesn't use much data either. I often get mails before my work computer on the LAN does 🙂

I think you're exactly right. I watched the keynote last night (waste of time, as mentioned above), and during this whole segment I kept wondering what the heck was new? Phil Schiller kept going on and on about how great this new push email technology was, as if Apple invented something groundbreaking (yeah, right! 🙄 ) and I'm thinking, I can do all of this with IMAP and a short poll interval. So with push email, it might get to you 30 seconds faster, and there's less network activity overall, but what consumer even notices that? It's a nice, minor improvement at best. Hardly anything to spend more than 2 seconds talking about in a keynote. Especially a keynote for developers when this is a consumer service.

As for calendar and contact push, again this is a very minor update to the way .Mac does it now. I have my two Macs set to sync with .Mac "Automatically" and I always get the latest updates within minutes. Changing that from a few minutes (sync) to 10-15 seconds (push) is worthy of keynote time? I don't think so! 🙄🙄🙄

Honestly, I can't understand why anyone would be excited about this after seeing the presentation, especially if they weren't already using or interested in .Mac. Are Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller really that spellbinding? Basically, this minor update includes:

• Name change
• Push instead of poll for some sync services - ~30 second average improvement
• Improved AJAX/Web-2.0/buzzword-compliant web interface with degraded browser compatibility
• More storage space
• No new features
• A whole lot of undeserved hype

 

[Kabeyun]

I have a dotmac family pack that i haven't opened or activated yet. I'm planning to wait and just use it with MobileMe.

Good plan? or are there some concerns I should have?

Why wait? If you sign up now, the functions will automatically transition and you won't be stuck with possibly the most ridiculous domain name this side of Hades (echoing all the above).

I just can't picture myself saying "MobileMe" in a conversation without feeing embarrassed. Most people you say "me dot com" to will not know a thing about Apple's inspiration, and think you're just a narcissistic idiot. My 2 pennies.

-K

 

[fronheiser]

I've been wanting push email for quite some time now, but of course, it's implemented badly.

I have two addresses currently I use with my iPhone: me@work.com and me@home.net, both IMAP. It appears there will be no way to use these with "push" unless I forward messages to my .mac account and then I'll have to file/delete/etc. the original messages later.

Great idea, horrible implementation. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[AppleIntelRock]

if our email addresses change to @me.com, I'll no longer be a .mac/mobile-me member...

 

[diamond.g]

Here's a screenshot from the MobileMe video:

See the multiple colors? It makes sense to have the different calendars separated. As it is now, the iPhone displays everything in the same color and all new entries made on the iPhone go into the same calendar (set in iTunes).
Is this multiple calendar suppord exclusive to MobileMe users or do you think it will be in the iPhone 2.0 update?

EDIT: The List/Day/Month bar moved to the bottom. In my opinion, it should have been there from the start. The added top bar is the calendar selector on this screenshot.

Wait, I thought it supports multiple calendars now? 😕

 

[babyj]

I would switch from my existing hosting provider to Mobile Me in a heartbeat if it has PHP, MySQL, and custom domain name (.Mac supports custom domain, but Apple should provide direct sales and support).

PHP and MySQL support are never going to happen. Its never been about proper web hosting, just web hosting for iWeb and now photo galleries. I can't see them ever going down that route though I can see them adding loads of new widgets and other features via iWeb.

The lack of full custom domain support is a pain and there is no real excuse for it. Unless there is something about the way they implement it which would make it difficult.

 

[.mark.]

...

• No new features

if you check you'll find that they have added the online calendar as a feature - a pretty big feature I'd say.

 

[brodie]

Web calendar

Does anyone know if you'll be able to 'publish' and then grant passworded access to certain calendars? Without giving out your .me/.mac login?

I've been waiting for this for years and then I thought i would get it with CalDav in Leopard but that's a whole other headache.

 

[gwerhart0800]

Does the family "pack" include cross calendar sync?

I would jump at the new me.com service if it would support the idea of a family calendar as well as individual calendar. My hope would be that we could add calendar entries to a family calendar that would show up on everyone's devices. I would also like it if everyone could see a "public" view of each family member's calendar for planning reasons.

I don't see much detail about the family pack beyond some simple e-mail accounts and storage space.

 

[salimdao]

there's no video support for mobileme? im not a .mac subscriber but wasn't the ability to upload and stream video from .mac there?

 

[MrCrowbar]

Wait, I thought it supports multiple calendars now? 😕

Well, the different calendars all appear as one calendar on the phone. All the same color too. A new entry made on the iPhone will go to the default calendar when syncing to iCal. So it kind of support multiple calendars, but not really.

 

[diamond.g]

Well, the different calendars all appear as one calendar on the phone. All the same color too. A new entry made on the iPhone will go to the default calendar when syncing to iCal. So it kind of support multiple calendars, but not really.

Ah, that makes sense. I was just looking at my iPhone and the single color thing stood out, but for some reason didn't click.


I have a .mac username but it has been deactivated. If I sign up for MobileMe do I get that name back or do I have to choose a different one?

 

[Wiggin]

there's no video support for mobileme? im not a .mac subscriber but wasn't the ability to upload and stream video from .mac there?

I'm pretty sure it's still there. Check out the left-hand source list on this screen shot of the new online Gallery editting application.

 

[jonswan]

It's a good job that we can still use myname@mac.com - that would've been very foolish.

The name Mobile Me is almost vomit-inducingly bad - but I guess it'll bed down and be accepted. The extra storage will be very useful, and better syncing with Push makes sense - I guess they're angling at new iPhone users moving over to Macs - and for this reason this upgrade is a smart move. The name, though, is creepy and self-obsessed. Ugh.

 

[majordude]

It's a good job that we can still use myname@mac.com - that would've been very foolish.

I hope that option doesn't go away in a year or two. Actually, knowing Apple, they will charge $99 for .me and $149 to continue using .mac next year. 😡

And yes, I agree that .mac makes a statement, like putting an Apple decal on the bumper of your car. The new .me sounds like "hotmail" or "gmail" or -- GASP! -- even AOL-ish to me. Real amateurish. Only a dweeb would use .aol or .me if you ask me. 😡

 

[salimdao]

I'm pretty sure it's still there. Check out the left-hand source list on this screen shot of the new online Gallery editting application.

oh ok cool. thanks for pointing that out.

 

[stevearm]

Stupidest huh? Good grammar.

'stupidest' is actually a word.

Arse.

 

[Prof.]

I take back what I said earlier in this thread. I will most def be using this service. I watched the demo and it looks bad ass. 😎😀

'stupidest' is actually a word.

No it's not.

Only stupid ppl use the word "stupidest". The correct thing to say is "most stupid".