I've been paying for MobileMe for a few years - some think I'm daft because I could get it all for free. However, it isn't that expensive; I like the gallery stuff; I like the syncing of bookmarks, contacts etc; I use the iDisk and backup; and I like to think that by paying for the service it will be a bit more resilient and in particular I am less likely to be thrown off the service for a spurious reason than I might be with the free services. Might never happen? Just ask the Kate Middleton who was thrown off Facebook simply for having the same name; or those on Google whose name is judged to be a Pseudonym.
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Apple's Customers Are You, Google's Customers Are Advertisers
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Sorry but the authors viewpoint gives off a "Apple are always right, now shut up" kind of vibe.
I've used Gmail since day 1 - its the most reliable email service I've ever used. I had a Me account and ended up getting a refund. It was slow, buggy and unreliable. Even to this day iDisk and its re-branded iCloud are crap for anyone outside the US. Apple have no idea how to treat online services, you have to load balance across the world, not across one datacenter located in the most useless place (geographical location wise for speed) on the planet.
I'll stick with my Gmail account...I like reliability.
Everything in Me can be found from much more reliable sources:
iDisk: Dropbox, Sugarsync or another Amazon AWS or Rackspace cloud provider.
Mail: Gmail or even Yahoo's new service isnt too bad.
Gallery: Flickr is free, even the pro account is cheaper than Me, or use your Dropbox storage!
you get the point.
You can go even cheaper too. Get a cloud based hosting account (<$20) and host your own email, domain, webspace, etc....simple, cheap and more reliable than Me.com!
I've used Gmail since day 1 - its the most reliable email service I've ever used. I had a Me account and ended up getting a refund. It was slow, buggy and unreliable. Even to this day iDisk and its re-branded iCloud are crap for anyone outside the US. Apple have no idea how to treat online services, you have to load balance across the world, not across one datacenter located in the most useless place (geographical location wise for speed) on the planet.
I'll stick with my Gmail account...I like reliability.
Everything in Me can be found from much more reliable sources:
iDisk: Dropbox, Sugarsync or another Amazon AWS or Rackspace cloud provider.
Mail: Gmail or even Yahoo's new service isnt too bad.
Gallery: Flickr is free, even the pro account is cheaper than Me, or use your Dropbox storage!
you get the point.
You can go even cheaper too. Get a cloud based hosting account (<$20) and host your own email, domain, webspace, etc....simple, cheap and more reliable than Me.com!
Again, Apple collects much the same information as Google, and also uses it to anonymously sell ads. That shouldn't be the deciding factor.
Apple's primary motivation for their services is to lock customers into an online ecosystem which is geared towards their own hardware products.
This is why a lot of people prefer Google for maps, search, mail, calendar, contact, etc, as those are more device agnostic. Besides web/mobile based access, there are Google apps available on iOS, Android, WebOS, and other common devices.
So basically it comes down to whether or not a person prefers being able to access their information from any available device, or only/mostly Apple's. Either decision is fine.
Apple's primary motivation for their services is to lock customers into an online ecosystem which is geared towards their own hardware products.
This is why a lot of people prefer Google for maps, search, mail, calendar, contact, etc, as those are more device agnostic. Besides web/mobile based access, there are Google apps available on iOS, Android, WebOS, and other common devices.
So basically it comes down to whether or not a person prefers being able to access their information from any available device, or only/mostly Apple's. Either decision is fine.
Spot on!
Google is actually the only provider that can do that currently. and lets face it, they do a pretty decent job of it!
A good article, which is why I switched most of my work and personal stuff to MM.
And to those people who say, Hotmail, GMail or Yahoo is better. Create an account, stay logged in and visit that mailers search engine. (Yahoo, MSN/Bing, Google) Do a few searches and in less than a week you'll get spam relevant to what you searched for. I had a Hotmail account just for Forums signups, and surely enough, I get spam for the forums I'm in. Companies like that sell your email, where as with Apple I don't get spam at all.
And to those people who say, Hotmail, GMail or Yahoo is better. Create an account, stay logged in and visit that mailers search engine. (Yahoo, MSN/Bing, Google) Do a few searches and in less than a week you'll get spam relevant to what you searched for. I had a Hotmail account just for Forums signups, and surely enough, I get spam for the forums I'm in. Companies like that sell your email, where as with Apple I don't get spam at all.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; sv-se) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)
That sounds very strange, I just set up my gogme account to synch through exchange, and everything works flawlessly across all of my devices, just the way apple showed off their icloud services (granted google only does this for mail, contacts, calendar and not pictures and other app stuff as apples upcoming service will). And it works with any device, not just idevices
justgeig said:I am a LONG time Google user but fully plan on switching my calendars, my docs, and my contacts over to iCloud. It seems like it will just be so integrated that it won't require much user input. I'm doing all of the same things with Google's calendar and contacts that iCloud will provide but setting it up to sync across devices was a nightmare and when something goes wrong, remembering how to set it up again is never easy. Even just adding a new device to the mix is too involved. Enter iCloud. Just put in my apple id and voila! It's all there. sweeeet.
That sounds very strange, I just set up my gogme account to synch through exchange, and everything works flawlessly across all of my devices, just the way apple showed off their icloud services (granted google only does this for mail, contacts, calendar and not pictures and other app stuff as apples upcoming service will). And it works with any device, not just idevices
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; sv-se) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)
Yes google does indeed cater to the advertisers through directed ads, but the value of those ads still comes from how much you enjoy their services over other companies services, which means that it's essentially no different, with the exception of a middleman with the money.
Granted if there were only a bunch of paid high-quality services with google being the only free ad-based one, they would probably be able to get away with having much worse quality as a lot of people will always go for a free crappy option than a paid one.
nagromme said:Absolutely. Apple makes their money by creating a great user experience for you. Directly. THAT is what they are selling, and YOU are the one they need to please!
With Google, almost 100% of their revenue comes from ads, so you are the thing BEING sold. The advertisers are the ones Google needs to please directly, and pleasing you is needed only indirectly. In fact, they don’t really need to “please” you: they need to scare you off the competition with misleading buzzwords like “open” and “closed,” and they need to give you something that is a) better then you’ve used before, if you never used Apple, and b) “good enough” that you settle for it.
The two ways Google sells YOU as a product:
1. Your time and attention. Every moment you spend reading ads to find the useful content buried in the chaos, that’s your time for sale. Every time you click an ad, that’s your time for sale.
2. Your personal details, correlated with as many other services as possible. Your name, your location, your age, your online habits, all your demographics. Of course, these should be privacy-protected, and sometimes they are (and sometimes they’re shared because you agreed to that in the fine print). But your details ARE still the product being sold: the data is anonymized and aggregated, but it makes Google ads worth a ton more to advertisers.
I’m not sure iTools/.Mac/MobileMe is the most shining example of Apple’s work
It doesn’t matter... until it does!
What DOES matter already (even if you trust that your info isn’t being combined with other sources to add up to much more) is that you are NOT the customer Google needs to please. You are a product that Google needs to maintain in good condition
Yes google does indeed cater to the advertisers through directed ads, but the value of those ads still comes from how much you enjoy their services over other companies services, which means that it's essentially no different, with the exception of a middleman with the money.
Granted if there were only a bunch of paid high-quality services with google being the only free ad-based one, they would probably be able to get away with having much worse quality as a lot of people will always go for a free crappy option than a paid one.
I'm using it since day 1 too and it's mediocre at best. That's the problem here, you can ask 1000 people and get 1000 answers.
I'm using me.com since last Christmas and it's great. And it's all under one roof. Even iDisk is fine for me. I guess i'm lucky then.
So that is my experience.
P.S. I will take GMX.com over Gmail any day.
You’re talking about two different things, and it’s important not to blur the distinction.
Apple collects info, and uses it to sell ads, yes, as a minor side-project. Not as their entire business model the way Google sells ads. That is not a minor distinction; it's key to understanding the strategies and motivations of both companies.
When you say Apple’s primary motivation is to “lock customers in,” that’s an easy buzz phrase, but you can’t pretend they’re “locking people in” who want to escape to something better. They really DO make their money by providing a good user experience. Lock-in is irrelevant without that. How would they “lock people in” if their products weren’t great? You’d have a mass of unhappy customers—and you have to admit: what we actually see is the opposite.
And it’s easy to look at “lock-in” in a simple, emotionally-loaded way, but reality is seldom that simple. Apple has multiple different reasons for linking products together in an ecosystem; forcing customers not to jump ship is a simple, but wrong, explanation.
Apple is often VERY open about letting you out of their ecosystem (they pushed hard to get DRM removed from iTunes music, and they’ve built an awesome, 100% open app platform—Mobile Safari, a web app platform which ironically even Google has not matched). Just as Google works very hard to keep you IN their ecosystem (like cloning Facebook and blocking competitors’ location services from use by handset makes). In other words, both companies do both things.
You’ll notice that Apple “lock in” (like only allowing curated iPhone app installation, officially) often has very real user benefits. It’s not just arbitrary greed—you won’t find a pattern of lock-in for its own sake if you look at the facts honestly. You’ll find a pattern of "lock-in" (which is often not all that locked at all) for the sake of real benefits: things that work well together. You can’t point to ANY competitor who has phone hardware, desktop hardware, tablet hardware OS, apps, music/video store, and cloud all working together as a unified whole in any way CLOSE to the excellence Apple has achieved. Yes, that comes at a price—not by greed alone, but because things that are tied together sometimes WORK better together.
The problems of Apple’s “closed” method are real. Can you deny that the benefits are real, and huge, and not greed alone? Can you deny that this model of Apple’s has worked well for users too? Can you deny that it has led to things (like Android) that would not exist without Apple’s lead to copy?
So nobody should ever hope for Apple’s ecosystem model to fail: it serves most people really well, and the alternatives are even more flawed. It also serves as the basis for many good things that so-called “open” companies then copy. Google’s a great choice for some, and I wish them success with Android. Apple, it is clear, is a better choice for most.
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remember when Microsoft was charging for hotmail? i didnt see people flocking to that pay service
I TRIED to like iDisk but gave up after it kept crapping out (sync issue). And I barely had like 100MB of stuff. Checking apple support forum I learned there were many others having same issue, in fact a 100+ pages in forum posting ( don't quote me on that please ).
Switched to DropBox and works MUCH better.
Switched to DropBox and works MUCH better.
I've been a paying MobileMe customer since .Mac in 2003. I've reluctantly renewed every year because I didn't want to go through the hassle of switching everything, but I always felt like I didn't get my moneys-worth.
Here's to hoping that iCloud doesn't suck (though I might have to get a drop box account or something now since my iDisk is going away)... though ironically the iDisk was, in my opinion, one of the more UNreliable services (and it was always frustrating how FTP clients like CyberDuck could communicate with your iDisk so, so, so much better than the Finder could... even though iDisk was marketed for using with... the Finder).
Here's to hoping that iCloud doesn't suck (though I might have to get a drop box account or something now since my iDisk is going away)... though ironically the iDisk was, in my opinion, one of the more UNreliable services (and it was always frustrating how FTP clients like CyberDuck could communicate with your iDisk so, so, so much better than the Finder could... even though iDisk was marketed for using with... the Finder).
Some of you seriously should stop drinking the kool aid. So what if advertisers are googles customers? Google's ads are as discreet as possible for their business model. They make money off a mouse click, not a $500 device. Neither of these companies have an absolutely perfect business model. It's life; it's COMPETITION. I always imagined what the world would be without one of these companies. I can happily live in a world without apple products. Would it be less enjoyable? Absolutely. I'd be stuck on a windows machine. Can I live in a world without google? I don't think anyone could. Would ANYONE be nearly as productive or knowledgable? Not even close. Hop off the bandwagon and take the blindfolds off already. Both of these companies are successful and I love them both. But please don't criticize one and spite the other just because you're an Apple/Google groupie.
Funny you mention iOS, because the Apple "we must control everything (and profit it)" approach is clearly worse that Google open approach. Delivering a good user experience doesn't depend on it, nor does security, contrary to what Apple would have you believe. Apple controlling what applications I can have on my device is particularly offensive. They have far too much control, but the average consumer has no clue of the long term consequences of this and is akin to lemming handing Apple so much control. I used to be a huge Apple supporter in the 80's and 90's but now they are just plain evil. Google is substantially less so.
Of course I'll still buy their machines if they are the best, but their closed phones have put me off right off for years.
Apple just made this new thing, the iGun. Its interface is so simple. It only has one button so there's no learning curve. First put it to your temple and then pull the iTrigger. Now all you lemmings can go out and buy one.
Its annoying when people turn their computers into a religion.
Use what you want. Who gives a sh$t.
Its annoying when people turn their computers into a religion.
Use what you want. Who gives a sh$t.
Really? How do you know they didn't actually want even more money off you? What about companies that sell hardware at a loss to sell you media or software or razor blades? They definitely haven't got enough from you.
Buy hey, people will believe what they want to believe.
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You are right if you do not take into consideration:
Sales - iPhone and iPad highest selling product in their categories.
Profits - iOS devices top the profits made.
Product return rates - iOS devices have one of the lowest return rates in the industry.
Customer satisfaction - Apple tops this last time I read for iOS devices.
Apps - App Store developers make much more money then the Marketplace developers do.
Business integration - A lot (more then android phones) of businesses are integrating iOS devices into their operating structure.
Evidence for what I say is clearly there in the Apple conference call reports and other articles on this site. Plus I could google up some more articles to prove this if you need.
So what's left? What are the Android phones better at? Product fragmentation? Yes but I don't know of much else. Ummmm I really don't know what Android is so much better then the iOS devices at? Please tell me. I want to know.
I feel jipped by Apple's moving of the cloud goalposts
Like Thomas, I signed up to iTools the second it was announced. When I signed up, I bought into a vision of a future where the internet was ultimately going to be the OS and iTools was just the first step on a long journey. Had I known that the bus was going to park-up half way into that journey and I was going to have to get off and change my travel plans, I would never have started that particular journey in the first place. You can say "that was never the deal" or "you are expecting too much" but, I am far from the only person who thinks this way. I feel as though we the paying customers have been de-prioritized to accommodate developmental politics within Apple itself. In the face of the Social Media revolution, personal web-development tools are "so yesterday". The developers can no longer see the point in iWeb, therefor any other opinion is irrelevant. Guess what, iWeb was one of the most brilliantly empowering products Apple ever made and it deserves a future in HTML5. I know so many small businesses that wouldn't exist today were it not for iWeb, it's incredible. I just hope that iWeb gets the same sort of kick-up-the-backside Aperture got when its development floundered. WE DESERVE IT!
Like Thomas, I signed up to iTools the second it was announced. When I signed up, I bought into a vision of a future where the internet was ultimately going to be the OS and iTools was just the first step on a long journey. Had I known that the bus was going to park-up half way into that journey and I was going to have to get off and change my travel plans, I would never have started that particular journey in the first place. You can say "that was never the deal" or "you are expecting too much" but, I am far from the only person who thinks this way. I feel as though we the paying customers have been de-prioritized to accommodate developmental politics within Apple itself. In the face of the Social Media revolution, personal web-development tools are "so yesterday". The developers can no longer see the point in iWeb, therefor any other opinion is irrelevant. Guess what, iWeb was one of the most brilliantly empowering products Apple ever made and it deserves a future in HTML5. I know so many small businesses that wouldn't exist today were it not for iWeb, it's incredible. I just hope that iWeb gets the same sort of kick-up-the-backside Aperture got when its development floundered. WE DESERVE IT!
Apples needs to keep users happy to make money via direct sales. Google needs to keep users happy to make money via ad sales. I don't see how Apple's primary business model is inherently more customer focused. I agree that Apple currently makes some of the best gadgets and has the best all around product ecosystem but I think that is a result of their corporate culture and Steve Jobs and not anything intrinsically tied to their direct sales business model.
An interesting stat would be to see how much profit Apple makes off of a typical customer and how much profit Google makes off of a typical customer.
How did IE become the dominant web browser? How is TimeWarner the only option for cable in my area? Why did 'Ma Bell' have to get broken up? How might have things been different for AT&T if Apple launched the iPhone on all cell networks in the US in '07? There's more than one way to skin a cat and there's more than one way to round up a customer base.
Lethal
Trolling again
... The largest amount of profit of any google project is indeed produced by the ad-sense project, but there're literary thousands of projects Google is working on. Google tries out hundreds of projects publicly because they want to change there current (maybe even former, with Android producing considerable amounts of money) one profit source business model, to a more diverse business. Apple designs maybe hundred different products, but it's one big secret. Google is in my opinion way more productive then Apple. They've had already a way larger influence in everyones live then Apple ever will have.
As a developer I can say the horror stories of Apple's "strict app store curation" are way overblown. They're very reasonable. The only times I've had apps rejected are for bugs that I've missed (some of them crazy like "if you spin the date picker and exit the screen while its spinning, the app will crash") Contrast that with Google's marketplace where you can get a fake bank app that will phish your info. No thanks.And as far as Apple profiting from the app store, Google takes the same 30% cut from their marketplace.
I hope they collect this information about me. It's all about advertising, it's not like someone is collecting info about be like a peeping Tom. They are targeting ads that I may click on.
Result, no ads about day care or tampons, more ads about jeep stuff and golf clubs.... I agree with you, I fail to see the problem.