Filed under: MobileMe
The wrong kind of 1%
MobileMe account holders trying to contact Apple's email outage chat support service have been promptly and brutally cut off if they're not on Apple's list of the "1%" of users affected -- and in one case, even if they are.Some TUAW readers have been in touch to tell us that when they tried to get chat support for MobileMe email, they were quickly given this automated (or hastily pasted-in) response:
"I'm sorry, according to our records, you were not one of the members affected by the email outage that began on July 18th. MobileMe Mail 24-hour chat support is a temporary measure designed specifically for users whose accounts were affected by that outage. For help, please visit http://www.apple.com/support/mobileme/ww for access to all of our support resources. I apologize for any inconvenience."
But one of our correspondents was doubly displeased, because he insisted he had been one of the 1%. But here was Apple telling him he hadn't -- and not giving him any chance to argue the matter.
It's that "according to our records" bit that seems to be the problem. What if Apple's records are wrong?
Thanks to Bill and Dom for the tip.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Scott H. said 9:40AM on 7-31-2008
Ditto here. Same thing happened to me this morning!
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pjt said 2:08PM on 7-31-2008
This happened to me yesterday too!
Joel said 9:54AM on 7-31-2008
perhaps the same issue that is deleting e-mails is also deleting their records :-P
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William Savona said 9:54AM on 7-31-2008
It's starting to feel like Apple hired some third party web development company to handle MobileMe for them... either way they MUST realize very soon that you cannot charge a customer for a service based product and not provide real support for it (sorry guys web pages/forum doesn't cut it when your service is so inconsistent).
This doesn't just help those paying customers. It helps Apple improve their product faster by getting efficient feedback on the problems their customers are facing with their product.
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d said 9:54AM on 7-31-2008
Apple is handling this ALL WRONG! I am going to get Mobile Me, in 6 months when it doesn't suck! I wish Apple had IM tech support for everything, much faster than an email.
RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT! RANT!
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John said 10:01AM on 7-31-2008
I'm starting to wonder if the affected number of users is in fact greater than 1%.
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atuck said 12:39PM on 8-01-2008
Sounds closer to 100%. Does anyone have Mobile Me WITHOUT problems?
Allan said 10:12AM on 7-31-2008
My mobileme mail is currently out of service.
A new twist, however, is that my Mail app is saying that my "IMAP server appears to be temporarily out of service" so I can't access my emails at all, even on Apple Mail...!
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Eckofish said 10:01AM on 7-31-2008
Their first draft of that message probably went something like this:
"Look pal, we're busy as hell right now and realise that our service went 'pete tong' from the get go, but because the post-it notes on my desk don't show you as one of the 1% unlucky sods to suffer loss of love letters, then you're not getting any joy out of us today.
So put up and shut up.
Or alternatively, if you can still read through you're flaming red, anger filled eyes then feel free to head on over to one of our helpful FAQ's, we get all our best interns to write them!
Got to dash,
The MobileMe Team."
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Jones said 10:02AM on 7-31-2008
Just.Brilliant.
ars_workerbee said 10:02AM on 7-31-2008
le sigh. another day, another screwup form mobileme.
failmeismorelikeit.com
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Kyrra said 10:02AM on 7-31-2008
My guess? Steve set a deadline for the release of Mobile Me and engineering wasn't ready for the migration but was still forced to do it because of some crazy expectations. The team wasn't ready and still pushed it out, and it blew up in their face. Now they'll be spending 6 months cleaning the mess up.
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Darrin said 10:02AM on 7-31-2008
I have lost any mail on Mobile Me twice in the last 3 days. Good thing my important mail is forwarded to mobile me and kept in another place just incase. Apple's Cloud is really getting on my nerves with all the problems and such. I lose calendar events as well. They are on the cloud and no amount of forcing through advanced tab works to get them back onto my computer.
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Tony said 11:02AM on 7-31-2008
I've lost calendar entries too... they just vanish.
I'm keeping an eye on it now and if any more disappear it's of to google calendar for me (I already switched to google apps for mail).
OWRC said 10:16AM on 7-31-2008
MobileMe is up and down like a whores' drawers for me.
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James Donevan said 10:12AM on 7-31-2008
Glad I'm among the other 99%. Aside from a rocky first 48 hours, no problems at all.
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Jeff said 12:00PM on 7-31-2008
same here.
Timothy Post said 10:12AM on 7-31-2008
My experience with Apple, on the other hand, has been very positive. I live in Russia so I sent Apple an email detailing some of the issues I was having with MobileMe on Monday.
Imagine my surprise when on Wednesday, while eating lunch, I got a telephone call from an Apple representative in Ireland who said he was calling to follow-up on my email.
I explained to him my issues. He said he'd look into it and email me. The next day I got an email with some answers. Then again, today, he followed-up with another call to confirm that I received his email and to check on how I was doing with MobileMe?
Pleasantly surprised would be an understatement to describe my reaction. I hope there's more folks out there who have had the same experience with Apple that I've had this week.
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Tracy said 10:12AM on 7-31-2008
Maybe they had to take developers away from MobileMe to work on the iPhone ;)
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dacostad said 10:21AM on 7-31-2008
Well this certainly was not my experience. I spoke to Apple via Chat 3 days in a row with a ave wait time of about 15 mins.
Initially I thought I was one of the 1% but it turned out although I had no email for a week I was not on the failed server. However Apple spent plenty of time with me trying to resolve the issue which was eventually resolved by changing the storage allocation under account settings which instantly started my emails flowing.
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