Setting aside MobileMe’s launch problems, I have to say I’m very disappointed with MobileMe.
Sure, it is push email to the iPhone. But only for me.com email addresses. As a business owner with my own domain(s), I want to use my own email address. There are several ways to do this with MobileMe, such as forwarding all my email to my me.com email address, but none of them allow me to easily reply to an email from my business address. This makes MobileMe email essentially useless to me.
Once email is out of the picture, the other features fall flat. Push calendar and contacts are nice, but they don’t really get me anything that syncing my iPhone doesn’t. iDisk is essentially the same as before, which makes it marginally useful to me. But since I produce media when making the fun games at GameScene.com and other sites, 20gb is not enough for a backup solution.
The most useful feature for me is the photo gallery, which is the same as the old .Mac. The ability to publish photos from iPhoto quickly and easily makes the $100/year cost worth it. But the photo gallery is still not all it could be. I’d love the ability to publish to a gallery directly from my iPhone camera roll. Right now I either have to email a photo, or sync with my Mac and use iPhoto to move an image to the gallery.
So, ways that .Mac could be great:
1. Allow me.com to automatically get email from another account, and also reply to emails using a reply-to of our choice.
2. Increase storage enough to back up a standard drive with system, applications and documents.
3. Allow us to access documents on the iDisk via our iPhone. You can already read Word, Excel, PowerPoint, iWork and PDF files in emails on your iPhone. Why not have a iPhone Documents directory on your iDisk where you can see these documents as well.
4. Instead of emailing photos to a photo gallery, allow iPhone camera roll photos to go directly there.
5. Add a Web-based blogging system, similar to Blogger.com or WordPress.com. Right now, the only option is to use iWeb and it isn’t easy or very functional.
I could go on. I can think of dozens of ways that MobileMe could be better, and none of them should really increase the fixed costs on Apple’s side. In fact, if I was in charge I’d position MobileMe to compete as a social network as well.
MobileMe Not For Me
Comments: 6 Responses to “MobileMe Not For Me”
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I agree Mobile Me could and should have "more" features, very much so in the "social area," but I consider you Gary as a pro or power user. For the average family john or jane Doe new to the web or Mac, no HTML skills or office skills, I think it fits the needs of that market.
I'm a cop that works of his MacPro Laptop trying to keep court dates, meetings and reports together between my laptop and iMac at home, from graveyard to day shift. Its easy to lose track of days and time. But with Mobile Me, all this info is pushed from my laptop to my iPhone and iMac in real time. Same info no matter where I'm working. For me, I can't live with out this simple feature.
Plus I just made a temp page of family pix of a Music Hall Concert that any family member can visit, download the photos they like or order prints and Not bug my for copies. Now thats a blessing come the holidays!
I am kind of surprised by this reaction to MobileMe but I know just what you mean. I have an account too but only really use it for iDisk and I only use that for backing up, which I also do for free to Mozy. I've set my account to non-recurring as I see little point in keeping it.
Sending and receiving with multiple email accounts, shouldn't be that complicated. Gmail can do it, and it's mostly a matter of modifying a single email header. However, the fact that it doesn't work in internet explorer is a really big problem. Not that I enjoy using IE, but the number one reason to have a web interface is so you have your email everywhere you go and most times that means using someone's PC. Calendar and contact syncing is nice, only that it also syncs to the web, but the lack of being able to share publicly, like photos, is regretful.
Hi ~
My question has nothing to do with this blog, but I don't know where to ask it! I am a 63 year old g-ma and just purchased a new (to me) Mac OSX 10.4.11 and really am a bit lost and can't find a lot of info for a none geek with simpler language.
At any rate, I found your site AFTER I downloaded Firefox 3.0 and I don't like it at all. Tried to download an older version and couldn't get it to work. Can you help me get back something older. I don't like the way it shows history or bookmarks and it just seems a bit slower.
Also, thinking I may try mac.com e-mail, but also having a bit of trouble figuring it out. Is there some place that has a tutorial for that. Is is worth the trouble or should I stay with Yahoo?
Thanks a lot,
Gina
Intelligent point-of-wiev! Did anything happen?
Hans-Erik: Not sure what you mean. Do you mean did Apple add any of this? No. But MobileMe has gotten more stable.