MobileMe: A Review of Apple's .Mac Descendant

It's been a rocky commencement for Apple's MobileMe, just things await like they're settling downwards at present and the service is, for the most office, chugging along. If y'all're an optimist, the botched launch wasn't such a bad thing after all, with Apple issuing free trial periods of upwardly to four months before the subscription fee kicks in for affected users.

I've been lucky—I haven't had to put up with any of the teething problems since I signed upwardly for my business relationship a few days ago. Though I suppose you could call that unlucky, since information technology ways I've only got a sixty twenty-four hours trial period.

The main complaint about MobileMe has been that Apple tree billed it equally a perfect push solution for all platforms, which turned out to be untrue and Apple tree quickly changed its tune. If you didn't hear already, the original merits was that MobileMe would button to and from your Mac, PC, iPhone and the deject. Unfortunately, Macs and PC can't practise push button with MobileMe, whether it's to push information out or to receive pushed data.

This is really bad form, and seems to me like a example of Apple tree saying "if you don't explicitly say anything, it's non lying," but they've since retracted their claims and despite my disappointment it's not going to affect the outcome of this review.

Registration

Registration was quick and easy. Enter some personal details and billing data, and you're washed. Go to me.com and log in.

Unfortunately for some, information technology wasn't such a simple process when Apple charged the full service fee to credit and debit cards rather than merely charging the $1 needed to verify the carte du jour. This issue has since (nosotros hope!) been stock-still.

Mail

The MobileMe Post offering looks good. That's probably the best thing I can say virtually it.

At a basic level, information technology does the job. Y'all can send and receive electronic mail, (manually) sort it into folders, flag letters, and contribute to the mass of people who ship ten m frontwards a day. It's so avant-garde information technology has a forward feature, simply that's where the technological wonder actually stops.

Does it surprise anyone but me that a $99 offering that uses button engineering, of all things, doesn't even have a filtering system? It doesn't even have the basic Rules functionality of Apple Post on the desktop. This is ridiculous. Information technology pretty much makes MobileMe's mail service component unusable for anyone interested in productivity.

But the interface is well-designed. Information technology'southward intuitive and easy to use despite its utter minimalism, and everything is at most two or iii clicks away. If there were filters and rules, I could see myself using this app. I'm a fan of the Quick Respond feature. If you lot don't want a popular-up window with the full-featured composer you tin click the Quick Respond push button in the list view and have a unproblematic overlay appear with a text box, and three options: Reply All, Cancel and Save. Very cool.

Like many, I'm not too impressed with the lack of built-in Send Equally capability. Peculiarly with x GB of storage, which trumps Gmail'south 6 GB, I want to take a primal, consolidated email control eye.

Contacts

I like Contacts. Information technology's much like Accost Book on the Mac, and it's pleasantly simple without sacrificing the functionality you need.

Dustin asked me which system I use to manage contacts a few weeks ago. At the time I wasn't happy with anything I'd tried, so I basically let my contacts rot in disorganization. Granted, this had never presented a problem, hence the continued disorganization, just at present I've institute a solution I'thou enjoying that keeps my contacts synced across the board.

That was the master trouble before: how could I have my contacts synced on my Macs, on PCs and on my Windows Mobile telephone? I don't have a Win Mobile telephone anymore—I was going to trade information technology in for an iPhone, but it must have seen information technology coming considering the screen cracked suddenly and inexplicably. Regardless, yous could still sync MobileMe contacts with Windows Mobile through Outlook and ActiveSync.

Unlike Mail, Contacts has one feature that actually surpasses the desktop version'southward equivalent: you tin can get an overlay Google Maps view of the address in any contact entry (as long as information technology has an address entered, of course). The closest y'all go in the desktop Accost Book is a Google Map that opens up in your browser. No in-app overlays to be found.

Push on the contacts between the iPhone and the cloud is flawless. That goes for Mail and Agenda too, I should add. I did some tests with various contact details, including grabbing a photograph from MobileSafari, adding it as a contact'southward display picture on the iPhone and then checking the cloud direct afterwards. It was pretty damn instant.

Of form, the big let downward for push button lovers is that it doesn't work with the PC or Mac at this point, and contacts is the only app where I really would dearest complete, multi-directional push button to occur. That said, the desktop synchronization had no problems.

Calendar

I don't really use iCal a whole lot. I once did, for a task list I managed through Anxiety anyhow. Now I use paper for my task list and I never enter appointments into a calendar, and then this isn't something that was a big bargain for me either way, except for one matter I'll talk about in a moment. My usage of the agenda may change now that I've got an iPhone, though.

All that said, the MobileMe app is good—it'south probably the most similar of the three master apps compared to their desktop siblings. The fashion you enter events is the aforementioned every bit in iCal—dragging a selection on the calendar itself—though it could be a little smoother. The animation and cosmos of the event is slow and sluggish, at least for me.

The killer is that I use iCal for one thing and i thing lone, and information technology'southward non included in Calendar: calendar subscriptions.

Everything else is well-nigh identical. Simply if you want subscriptions you've got no options other than to export your subscription from iCal as a hard, static calendar. What's the point?

Of course, this as well ways you can't share your agenda; no subscription option, and no web-based "sharing" option has been made available either. And in that vein, you can't ship email invitations. If you lot want any kind of collaborative calendar, stick to Google's. If yous but desire to pile your own appointments in, yous'll be fine.

Gallery

Gallery is a nice photo storage and sharing option. Information technology's probably the to the lowest degree used of the apps for me, since I'thou not much into photography nor into the idea of sharing those I practise accept. But for the purposes of product testing I did give it a conditioning.

Using my iPhone and iPhoto, sending photos upwardly to the deject was like shooting fish in a barrel and uncomplicated. It'due south likewise a pretty simple matter to upload photos from the web interface, just I call back the uploading attribute of this app is really congenital around your use of an iPhone or iPhoto and it's much more pleasant to upload files that fashion.

The URL for sharing an album or a photograph with others is located in the dashboard or "dock" that occupies the elevation of the MobileMe suite. This is really a matter of re-create, paste and send: showing your photos to others in a semi-individual surroundings is easy. If you lot want a public and social photo-sharing environment, get to Flickr. I personally love this because I (personally) remember Flickr is evil and privacy-shattering, and shouldn't be used by anyone but actual photographers or people who take photos of themselves and nobody else. ;)

This app certainly had fewer disappointing let-downs than the others.

iDisk

iDisk is nice and snappy on my Mac, and the web interface is non much different to the Finder interface. I can't compare iDisk with MobileMe to the .Mac version because I never used it, only I think I'm going to showtime using information technology a lot in the months to come up.

The preset folder construction is pretty handy because a) it mirrors the folders commonly used on your Mac and b) if there wasn't a preset folder structure I'm certain most people would just dump a mess of files in at that place and never clean them upwards. Perhaps they withal exercise.

Correct-clicking a file allows you to rename information technology—that's a nice touch, since renaming files through a web interface is usually a hurting. Like the Gallery, iDisk offers some pretty good sharing features which include integration with Contacts.

Bargain-breakers

1. Lack of filtering – for the average reader of a blog like Lifehack, the lack of filtering adequacy is going to be a total deal-breaker. It'south incredibly irritating not to take this most basic of capabilities in a US$99 package, when that capability can be found in pretty much every single free postal service account on the spider web.

2. International prices – what has annoyed me and many Australians is that this product is existence sold to Aussies well higher up the substitution charge per unit. At that place'southward practically no difference between our currencies and nosotros're expected to pay $xx more. I'k certain many of you in countries other than the United states of america can sympathise.

I know it's a not a huge amount of money (for almost people, anyway), simply it's a matter of principle.

Hey, guess what Apple tree? At that place is a world outside of America. And since MobileMe is a solely digital offering there's really no excuse.

Not that there's whatever style to excuse a $700 premium similar the one on the MacBook Air. If you're someone who makes decisions based on principle, this may be enough to turn y'all off.  Merely enough ranting—back to MobileMe.

3. It's not a "digital command center" – for a $99 parcel that bills itself as your life on the cloud, with apps for mail, contacts and calendar, I think the postal service offering needs to be much more flexible (I'one thousand talking way beyond mere filters) and it needs to offer plenty more than options for information consolidation. I honey Gmail considering I tin run every unmarried one of my email accounts from one webmail interface without appearing liek I apply one free electronic mail address.

At that place are cases where information technology'due south totally inappropriate and unprofessional to use an address like jfalconer@me.com (not the existent address, and so don't bother trying information technology), and MobileMe offers no culling. I tin't consolidate accounts and send-equally with them as smoothly as I tin with Gmail.

4. Calendar can't do subscriptions – the just way I e'er remember anyone'due south birthday is thanks to my iCal subscription. It's tough to admit, merely truthful. Geni.com, which I reviewed many months ago, would do the fox if it didn't happen to tell me the solar day later because of time zone bug. So I depend on an iCal subscription that generates a agenda from the birthdays I've listed in my Address Book contacts.

I could always take the route of not giving a damn, but I'one thousand not sure my son would be too happy with the sudden lack of wallet-elimination birthday gifts.

If the product were free, none of these would really exist deal breakers considering there'd be no risk in using the service. You could use the calendar and contact syncing and nothing else, and withal be happy with the purchase. But the mail, while very aesthetically pleasing, is totally useless without even basic filtering and built-in Send Every bit features.

Best Outcomes for Productivity

I wish I could say that somehow, having push functionality is productivity-enhancing. But actually, it's just something absurd to show geeky friends, who won't care because it'south old tech anyhow, and it's a pocket-size convenience. Button isn't a magic bullet, and chances are it'll actually decrease your productivity in the case of email. There's nothing productivity-detracting about agenda or contact push button, but if your main electronic mail business relationship is interrupting you every single fourth dimension you get a message, odds are yous'll never get work done.

At the end of the 24-hour interval, the optimal result is the convenience of non having to worry about how up-to-engagement your iPhone'south contacts are.

I have to say the best thing productivity-wise that came out of setting upwards MobileMe is that it forced me to make clean upwardly and organize my contacts. Well, it was also considering for the showtime time always I have a telephone that synchronizes with Accost Book.

Verdict

If having smooth sync between all your computers for calendar and contact data is important to yous, then MobileMe may be worth the money.

Likewise, if having a push email account sounds like a good idea even without filtering, then go for it. Peculiarly if yous don't take access to an Substitution server (like most of the states), and don't fifty-fifty suggest Yahoo! Mail. That'due south not real e-mail. ;)

I can see how this very limited electronic mail account's push capabilities could exist useful for me—give the address to a select few people who I tin can trust to follow "the rules" about e-mail usage so they can contact me when something actually does need my firsthand attending.

But equally we all know, most people don't know how to tell the difference between items that crave firsthand attention and items that don't. Every "emergency" or "important telephone telephone call" is just an excuse to wag chins and become a expert natural language workout.

My verdict is that the service is functional and useful in nigh departments, except for email which needs a lot of piece of work earlier ability users can get whatsoever use at all from it. Heck, even intermediate users won't be happy, assuming that a beginner is someone who reads spam with keen involvement.

I'll stick with the two-month trial for now. The contact sync is convenient enough that if even one of the deal-breakers listed in a higher place is stock-still and the service and uptime is practiced during the trial, I'll pay the greenbacks.

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/mobileme-a-review-of-apples-mac-descendant.html

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