It’s now been 24 hours since the start of the six-hour downtown window Apple gave for the .Mac to MobileMe migration. I’m frustrated. A lot of people are frustrated. But a lot of other people, in forums around the Internet, are saying, “Oh, get over it. You’ve waited this long for MobileMe, you can wait another day or two.” Those people are missing the point. I pay for .Mac, and I rely upon its services (notably Sync, Back to My Mac, and iDisk). I’m not upset that MobileMe isn’t ready yet; I’m upset that Apple has taken away my .Mac services. MobileMe can take six months for all I care, but I need my syncing and iDisk.
Apple has another problem at play, too: a lot of the hype surrounding the new iPhone 3G is directly related to its integration with MobileMe. The iPhone went on sale hours ago on the other side of the world, and will go on sale in less than 10 hours here in America. If the push e-mail, contact, and calendar functionality Apple has been hyping for the past couple months isn’t available when these people get their iPhones home, the media is going to have a fucking field day — and RIM’s stock is going to look pretty darn good.
Update: Media frenzy has begun. AP article on .Mac/MobileMe transition woes. And a new article on ComputerWord.
001 // Brian Ford // 07.10.2008 // 8:32 PM
Well, it’s working now, at least.
With that said, I think you’re overestimating the potential for crisis. Were there articles about how kick ass MobileMe was going to be, and how it was THE feature that was selling an iPhone 3G to potential customers that I missed?
If it hadn’t been up by tomorrow night, maybe then. But, frankly, I didn’t even know it was being released today until after it wasn’t.
002 // Jeff Croft // 07.10.2008 // 8:55 PM
No, it’s not working now. It came up for 15 minutes, then died again. And even that was only the web apps. You haven’t yet been able to log in via System Prefs, which means you can’t use the push technology, syncing, iDisk, or Back to My Mac.
Absolutely. Most of the reviews and previews cited push technology as one of the main things (along with Exchange support) that was going to finally make iPhone 2.0 a Blackberry killer.
Again, you are missing the point. The problem isn’t that MobileMe is not up, it’s that .Mac is down.
003 // Kenny Meyers // 07.10.2008 // 9:44 PM
While I can understand how you’re pissed, I don’t think you’re reaction with doomsday stock falls and such is valid. Clearly, Apple will fix the problems.
While I don’t agree that “you’ve waited this long” and I too pay for the service, I really don’t think it’ll affect sales of the iPhone 3G. The appstore is working, after all.
004 // Jeff Croft // 07.10.2008 // 10:16 PM
I don’t think it’ll affect sales of the iPhone 3G one bit. Rather, I think that if MobileMe is still unavailable when the masses start getting their new iPhones, the media will start to have a heyday with stories about how Apple’s new service is a failure and such. As I pointed out above, it’s already started (both cNet and the AP have run these kinds of stories already).
It won’t stop anyone from buying the phones — it’ll just hurt Apple from a mindshare perspective, particularly where it relates to the sort of enterprise customers who are interested to see whether Apple is serious about business now that its doing push services.
005 // Kenny Meyers // 07.11.2008 // 12:03 AM
Honestly, I think that the only thing that would affect Apple’s mindshare for the next few years is Steve Jobs leaving.
Otherwise, I don’t think MobileMe is a huge part of anyone’s plans for the iPhone except geeks like us. I guaruntee you if MobileMe broke-down this weekend, the launch of the 3G iPhone would completely overshadow it. The only reason those stories were relevant today, was because the Phone hadn’t launched yet. The amount of stories about the App Store vs. MobileMe downtine is astronomical in difference.
Besides, the push service for businesses is used with Exchange servers. MobileMe and Exchange are completely unrelated in target audience. MobileMe is for consumers and has such a stepping stone of entry, only geeks like you and I care. Exchange and ActiveSync is for Enterprise Users.
MobileMe is now working & syncing.
006 // Jeff Croft // 07.11.2008 // 6:21 AM
‘Fraid not. Maybe it was for a while, but as of 8:20am CST Friday, it’s down.
007 // Brian Ford // 07.11.2008 // 6:33 AM
I still agree with Kenny.
If push for Exchange weren’t working? Then you’d have something. I think that’s the thing that the pundits would love to pounce on, and I think THAT is what is supposed to help Apple make business inroads. Perhaps that is an issue too, I don’t know as I don’t really know how the Exchange stuff works.
If anything, I think he’s right, tomorrow’s launch (I just passed a massive line at the AT&T store) is going to overshadow the glitches, when it comes to MobileMe and .Mac. For what it’s worth, I can log-in to .Mac today. I’m certain Steve Jobs is pissed but that’s not saying much, really.
Question, though — it still shows my old details. (5GB of storage, etc.) When is System Preferences supposed to update to show MobileMe instead of .Mac?
008 // Kenny Meyers // 07.11.2008 // 7:59 AM
Maybe it only works in PST & EST. :)
009 // Jeff Croft // 07.11.2008 // 8 AM
You guys are crazy. Me.com is down, hasn’t been up for more than 10 minutes yet (and it was supposed to be available about 36 hours ago), doesn’t sync for shit, etc. So far, it’s worse than .Mac — and that’s really saying something.
And you’re still missing my point: I’m not upset that MobileMe isn’t available yet. I’m upset that I can’t still use .Mac until it is. I rely on iDisk, syncing, and Back to My Mac. I pay $100 a year for those services, and they’ve been down for almost two days. That’s bulshit, anyway you look at it. If your cable company told you there would be a six hour outage, and 36 hours later, you still didn’t have service, what would you do? I know you wouldn’t be an apologist and say, “no big deal.” You’d be pissed, and you’d have a right to be.
Dude, the pundits have already pounced on MobileMe’s epic fail. The AP story ran in virtually every newspaper across the country today. Would Exchange not working be worse? Probably. But to suggest the media won’t nail Apple for this when they already have is just…dumb.
The launch will overshadow any problems for a couple days (that is, unless the reports that Apple’s in-store activation servers are down, and the launch is going horribly are true). I agree with that. Doesn’t change the fact that business customers (the ones who currently use Blackberry, not Exchange) are looking to Apple to see if MobileMe is a suitable push replacement for Blackberry are going to be disappointed if this isn’t corrected very soon.
You can? When I go to mac.com or me.com, I just get a page saying “This service is temporarily unavailable. We are currently performing scheduled maintenance.”
I can log in via System Preferences today, but it doesn’t matter: syncing and iDisk are still not working.
That update was made available Wednesday night, when the service was supposed to go live. I downloaded it from Software Update on one of my computers (but not the other). Shortly thereafter, when the problems started happening, it was pulled. Presumably, they’ll put it back when they are confident these issues have been resolved.
010 // Kenny Meyers // 07.11.2008 // 8:14 AM
It’s working for me right now, and I’ve checked it several times over the past few hours.
011 // Jeff Croft // 07.11.2008 // 8:37 AM
Kenny: it’s definitely not working for me, and based on forum reports, it’s not working for a lost of people.
012 // Kenny // 07.11.2008 // 8:44 AM
I reassess my assessment. With the activation servers down, MobileMe will now become a part of the story. If that hadn’t happened, then it would barely be a speck.
I’d really hate to be working under Steve Jobs today, or at your house while you’re trying to sync.
013 // Brian Ford // 07.11.2008 // 9:05 AM
Well, that’s an interesting evaluation, as we use .Mac and we’re saying it about this. I simply think you rely on it more than I do, and therefore you’re more upset than I am. You can’t force other people to be pissed about something, and you think more people will be pissed about it than I do. Not that big a deal that we disagree, but the fact that you’re pissed doesn’t mean you’re necessarily right about it being a huge deal.
I say again: me.com is working fine, for me. Push is pushing. Perhaps it’s not for you. I overhauled my contacts on my MacBook, logged into the .Mac tab of system preferences, and told it to sync. My contacts then updated on me.com and on my iPhone.
It’s not a pretty launch, for sure. With that said, activation was a problem on the first launch too — and the outcries died down pretty quickly, once things were smoothed out.
014 // Jeff Croft // 07.11.2008 // 9:29 AM
Bottom line: I have an iPhone with no contacts in it. That sucks, anyway you look at it.