| Wednesday, July 16, 2008 |
10:00 - La Donna MobileMe
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Apple just sent out a rather contrite public message:
MobileMe services are now available.
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
At least they're being up-front about it. And in any case, it's not like what they were attempting wasn't fairly monumental: a major new iPhone infrastructure launch, simultaneous with the blitz for the 3G and a series of iTunes and OS X software updates to support it all, along with the inevitable flood of new App Store users hitting the new network and web store. I'm surprised it went as well as it did.
I mean, hey:
And I love that they're obsessing over the connotations of a single bit of terminology. Hell, I remember when "Push" was the Next Big Thing, back in the Active Desktop/Castanet Marimba/Netscape 4.0 days. It was supposed to change the world. In the end all it did was change how we thought of the word "push". Apple judged that the time was right for it to make a comeback, and... turns out that history repeats itself. Ah well. Some things are just not meant to be...
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Brian Tiemann
