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It's rare for Apple to so publicly face issues such as those experienced since the launch of MobileMe. Whilst drawing criticism for the quality of the service since its launch last Friday, it has also be criticised as users realise that the concept of "push" technologies for MobileMe aren't what computer users are used to. The concept of push technology is effectively like text messaging...the moment you get sent a message it is "pushed" out to you. The same applies for email technologies such those on exchange servers, however it has become clear that only certain aspects of MobileMe are truly push-enabled and immediate. Today Apple has sent out a email to MobileMe customers apologising, explaining how push works for MobileMe and extending all accounts by an extra 30 days by way of an apology.

The email reads....

We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.

Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.

Another snag we have run into is our use of the word "push" in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe "cloud," changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word "push" until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.

We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.

We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.

Thank you,

The MobileMe Team

Comments (8)

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Philip Roy said: July 19, 2008   Votes: +0

	More apologies for some people
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stevemwuk said: July 21, 2008   Votes: +0

Many Apple mobileme customers have have been without any form of access to their emails for 3 days now, with no meaningful communication from Apple. It's a complete disaster but Apple are trying to deny it, claiming that only 1% of customers are affected and deleting critical posts from their discussion forums. Mobileme has no telephone support, emails to support go unanswered, waits for chat support extend for hours and when people do manage to speak to a human being they are fobbed off. This is turning into a disaster for Apple, which they are making a thousand times worse by not communicating and explaining to their customers. It hasn't yet been picked up by the media, but Microsoft will be laughing their socks off when it is (and no doubt commissioning some sarcastic ads in the Apple style)

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lowededwookie said: July 22, 2008   Votes: -1

Be careful of the use of the word "many". While "some" are having problems it's most likely the majority are not. Complainers will always have a louder voice than those who are actually happy so more often than not you get an incomplete picture. I have had many problems over the last week but as of Saturday all the problems I had have gone. My ability to publish with iWeb and iWeb Buddy seems to have been fixed, I've been using .Mac Gallery and online Mail with no problems for the last week, and iDisk has been working fine for me even though a number of people were having problems. What the complainers haven't said is whether or not they have any extra software, what browsers they are using, or other information that can shed some light on the matter. As a result once again we're not getting the full picture. I challenge anyone to do what Apple has done without any problems. The amount of projects I've been involved in where more often than not those organising haven't thought of everything has lead to things going wrong is just too much to bear. That being said it's all about how quickly things can get sorted and considering Apple's project has had to be troubleshot before it could be fixed I think that they've done pretty well. I can't even begin to imagine how much code has gone into what they have done and more often than not internal testing doesn't reveal problems until it goes live. I'm not being an Apple apologist here, I'm speaking from firsthand experience how there's a huge discrepancy from testing to actual rollout.

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stevemwuk said: July 22, 2008   Votes: +1

Well the problems still haven't been fixed, and Apple have recently increased their estimate to 2% of users without mail. That is a lot of people. I personally have had no email access since Friday night (BTW completely standard Apple config: Safari, Mail etc, nothing changed, it just stopped working). I'm sure you are right that there are bound to be problems with a rollout but I would like to think that if you screwed up you would communicate with your users and give them some idea of what was happening. This is where Apple are really falling down. I would transition all my email to gmail like many others, but quite frankly, after years of evangelising for Apple, I am embarrassed to tell people that my Apple service has let me down.

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Philip Roy said: July 26, 2008   Votes: +0

	Well they are now posting about the issue on a regular basis and are now saying some people have lost up to 10% of their mail over a small period... http://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/26/apple-starting-to-restore-mobileme-email-access-some-email-lost/ http://www.apple.com/mobileme/status/?sr=hotnews.rss
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stevemwuk said: July 26, 2008   Votes: +0

I'm not sure a sudden flurry of updates now that they've (partly) fixed the problem makes up for a whole week of stonewalling. I guess we 20,000 sufferers will never know what was in that 10% of emails. This partial fix comes just after me setting up a Google Apps account, with an uptime guarantee, telephone support and the ability to use my own domain name. I really haven't decided yet whether to ditch my .Mac account when it comes due for renewal, or keep it on and see how it develops. This whole episode has left a sour taste in my mouth and it will be some time before I do any more evangelising for Apple.

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Philip Roy said: July 26, 2008   Votes: +0

Well for the sake of others reading, telephone support for Google apps comes at the cost of a corporate account of $50 USD per user per domain, so those using (or wanting) a free NZMac.com account don't get telephone support If all you're wanting is email and reliability, I'm not sure why you would pay...and I'd love to know whther the supposed telephone support is a free call for those in New Zealand?

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stevemwuk said: July 26, 2008   Votes: +0

Yes, I should have mentioned that Google Apps Premier costs USD50.00, (which is less than the cost of MobileMe). If Apple had been a bit more communicative I probably wouldn't have switched. It's a lot more powerful in some ways, but obviously less integrated with my Macs. Also a lot more techy to set up. I suspect I'll end up using it for my business and critical personal email, maybe in parallel with MM for other email and contact/calendar synchronisation. No I don't think it is a free call in NZ, but that shouldn't be a problem - if it's urgent I probably won't care too much about the cost, or I'll use skypeout

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