Apple extends MobileMe subscriptions by 30 days

Apple has extended every MobileMe subscription by a month, due to the exceptionally ornery transition this past week.

"The .Mac to MobileMe transition was a lot rockier than we had hoped," Apple spokesman Bill Evans told Macworld. "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."

An email sent to subscribers noted that "we have worked through those problems, and the web apps are now up and running," but several pages of comments from our readers suggest otherwise. TUAW staff with MobileMe accounts agreed yesterday that the service is mostly working, but still quirky.

Also in the email, the MobileMe team has promised to stop using the word "push" to describe some aspects of MobileMe's functionality "until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too." This might suggest they're closing the loop on MobileMe's push technology for all connected devices.

Hopefully this goes a long way to assuage the burning, burning rage that MobileMe users have been feeling recently.

(You can read the full letter, after the jump.)

Thanks, Rick, Frank, Mark, Chuck and James for the tip!

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

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Source: http://www.macworld.com/article/134530/2008/07/mobileme.html

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Apple has extended every MobileMe subscription by a month, due to the exceptionally ornery transition this past week. "The .Mac to...

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doug

It's been three days with no email from Apple. Mail, MobileMe, and iPhone email provide me with nada! This is the most furious I've been with Apple. As a long-time Mac user, I expect better than this. Forget for a moment that the name MobileMe is plain silly, who let this service out of the box before more testing was done? I sincerely hope that the bozo who flicked the "Go" switch is working for Microsoft by now.

July 20 2008 at 4:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Leon Jacobs

A humble idea to make MobileMe better (not less buggy):
http://www.leonjacobs.com/?p=69

By the way, I had loads of problems initially with sync to my iPod touch. Push was working fine on both my Macs and the cloud, but the iPod wasn't playing. So I restored that sucker and now Robert is your father's brother. Pushin' for the cushin'!

July 18 2008 at 10:15 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jordan Weinstein

Well this didn't take long! A petition to Apple against MobileMeek:

http://mobilemeek.com/index.html

July 17 2008 at 6:02 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Zach Everson

Well, I did get the letter about two hours after this post. Unfortunately MobileMe is shaping up to be worse than .Mac. Today alone I've experienced these problems:
-deleted a bookmark from my iPhone, but three hours later it still appears on my iMac (even though a bookmark I added at the same time to my iPhone does appear on my iMac)
-added a job title to a contact in Address Book on my iMac 10 hours ago; it still does not appear on the MobileMe website or my iPhone
-for about two hours Calendar on the MobileMe website only showed one of my 13 calendars
-some contacts appear on the MobileMe website, but without any data other than the first and last names

Not happy!

July 16 2008 at 10:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

DaddyO

Yahoo email gives me an option to go to updated version or classic version. Why hasn't apple learned that giving users options is ideal. Let us decide whether we want to switch, today, tomorrow, or later on.
I've been a paying costumer for 3 years, and I am seriously thinking of dropping the mail. It's been 2 days and I have yet to hop on my account. Its not life or death, but really frustrating. C'mon apple get your sh^t together or your loosing a costumer.

July 16 2008 at 9:53 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to DaddyO's comment

That is an excellent point. If Yahoo (and Google and others...) can give the option of trying out the new Beta version... why can't Apple?

Really -- why can others do it, but Apple can't? (or won't)

Why?

Thanks to their dropping of subscribed calendars my whole appointments schedule and business schedule has had to be moved to another service. A totally unnecessary waste of my time, causing headaches and disruption.

I should have never decided to rely on Apple for this. A BIG mistake.

Google wouldn't mess up like this.

July 17 2008 at 6:29 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Slartibartfast

Apology accepted, Apple.

Now, I hope they've learned their lesson. Staggered launches next time! Don't be releasing a bunch of network heavy products all within days of each other.

MobileMe, FW 2.0 for Gen 1 iPhones and the 3G launch all should have had a 1 week gap between each of them, minimum!

July 16 2008 at 6:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

airmanchairman

Good work here, Big John, you're actually doing what the so-called journalists here have shamefully failed to do - take a bad situation and make it better, leading by example.

It is better to light a candle than to sit cursing the darkness...

July 16 2008 at 2:44 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jash Sayani

Is this only for US or worldwide? I signed up n July 11th and am using it since a week now. I have several connection problems with it and hoped for an extension.... So, will I get it if I am non-US user and got it on 11th July ?

However, no E-Mail from Apple....

July 16 2008 at 1:35 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Zews

I have also received NO email from Apple with the statement about the 30 day extension.

I do get almost daily emails from Apple trying to sell me all kinds of crap I do not want or need.

July 16 2008 at 1:30 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Zews

Well, it's still not working for me. I get nothing but errors, and when I am successful logging in to my account, no 30 days have been added to the expiration day of the account.

Great job Apple!

July 16 2008 at 1:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply