MobileMe renewal: Yes or no?

Earlier this week, I noticed that the calendars on my Mac and my iPhone weren't in sync. "More MobileMe nonsense," I thought. However, I soon found the culprit, and it wasn't MobileMe acting wonky. My account had expired, and I was within the 15 day grace period.

I saw the "Renew" button and reached for my wallet like a well-trained Pavlov iDog. Then something stopped me. "Do I really want to do this?" There are so many alternatives that offer nearly the same services. Calling upon my days as a used car salesman (true story), I pulled out a piece of paper and drew a vertical line down the center, labeling one side "Pros" and the other "Cons." Then, I got to work.

Pros

First of all, I should outline what I use MobileMe for. An email account, address book, calendar sync between my Mac and iPhone and iDisk storage. I don't use the photo galleries, though my kids' grandparents wish I did, or the web apps. With that in mind, here are the pros.

Everything is built in. There's nothing to download, install or configure. iCal, Address Book, Mail (OK, I have to set up an account. Nit-pickers) and iDisk are ready to go from the start.

My iDisk is accessible from the Finder, and things like MobileMe Galleries just work. Sounds like an easy choice, eh? Keep reading.

Cons

Honestly, it doesn't always "just work." The synchronization has been flaky in the past, and push notifications have been pokey. Granted, it's light-years beyond where it was after launch, but I don't really trust it 100%.

It's a bit pricey. The standard fee is $99US/year. I've got one additional email address for my wife, so tack on another ten bucks. Before you fly into an iRage, know that I realize that one hundred bucks for push email, contacts and calendar, 10GB online storage, web hosting and so on is not a bad deal. It's just that there are less expensive alternatives.

With Gmail, I can have email, address book and calendar for free. With Spanning Sync, [TUAW Spanning Sync posts here] I can sync Google Calendar and iCal in both directions for $25 per year or $65 as a one-time fee. And I can easily set up my iPhone to send and receive Gmail.

Let's look at the available-anywhere online storage. Here at the TUAW offices, we're big fans of Dropbox [TUAW Dropbox posts here]. Once installed, it's super easy to use. A menu bar item and a Finder window item make access a snap. Additionally, sharing files and folders is just as simple.

The first 2GB of storage are free. After that, you'll pay $9.99US/month or $99US/year for 50GB of storage.

So why not just switch? It's not that easy. My MobileMe email address is in heavy use. Not only among my contacts, but across many places online. Switching would be a hassle. I'm also held back by the "What If Factor."

There's a part of me, deep inside my cynical, self-deprecating heart that's convinced that the very day I cancel my subscription, Apple will release the MobileMe update of my dreams. It's the same certainty that prevents me from buying a DVD player or a Blu-ray player as I watch my VHS tapes.

For now, I've got 14 days to decide. I'll let you know what I chose in a future post.

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Earlier this week, I noticed that the calendars on my Mac and my iPhone weren't in sync. "More MobileMe nonsense," I thought. However, I...

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hofstetterp

Good grief, LOL, if I had a family of five, seven macs, and four iPhones, I would use it too. It would be a necessity. I dig it that they can do it.

The only feature I adore is my appointments transferring. I can live without it, for now. It's just not worth $100 yearly, and I never got my mail account to work, but I'm not a Mac owner, but next puter I will be.

Peace.

April 17 2009 at 9:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

lastmanonearth1976

I emailed Mobileme "Chat support" about how much mobileme fails in firefox, throwing away emails in the middle of writing them and constant inbox reloading (they also don't give you "draft autosave" which you get in Apple forums for free and in myspace). Here's what they said:
YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. APPLE AND ITS AFFILIATES, SUBSIDIARIES, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, PARTNERS AND LICENSORS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN PARTICULAR, APPLE AND ITS AFFILIATES, SUBSIDIARIES, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, PARTNERS AND LICENSORS MAKE NO WARRANTY THAT (I) THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS; (II) YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE WILL BE TIMELY, UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE OR ERROR-FREE; (III) ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED BY YOU AS A RESULT OF THE SERVICE WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE; AND (IV) ANY DEFECTS OR ERRORS IN THE SOFTWARE PROVIDED TO YOU AS PART OF THE SERVICE WILL BE CORRECTED.

In other words, I'm screwed, with no acknowledgment from Apple about the problem, and no idea when or if Mobileme will actually be Firefox compatible. What a terrible product - I'm not renewing, and don't recommend anyone else get involved in that "service" either.

March 06 2009 at 1:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

rvinny

I am renewing. You can't duplicate the ease of use and all under one roof features. Bugs or not. I am tired of patchwork services. If you have the time for all that, more power to you. MobileMe does it all without having to tweak or fuddle with anything. @$79 if you look, it can't be duplicated.

February 27 2009 at 6:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Bob

Renew!
#1. You can renew via Amazon for $69.
#2. You get 20G storage, not 10G.
#3. The Galleries features are great.

February 13 2009 at 1:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

watchie

for push email i started using lavabit.com, and not being able to open the mobile me site on internet explorer is just horrible. Sometimes in a web cafes or university computers that's all they run. My subscription runs out in August and I've been getting ready for the past month, switching off will hopefully be painless.

February 03 2009 at 3:20 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Gary

I'm seriously reconsidering my allegiance to mobile me! Having real issues with my address book on imac syncing with it and I have tried a million and one fixes but nothing has worked! If anyone can point me in the right direction to as why everything bar address book is syncing I'd be grateful!

February 02 2009 at 4:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

dianebrat

As a PC only user, I thought it was a nice idea, and they kept saying "and it can sync your bookmarks!" which I thought was fantastic. Even seeing the notices "use Safari or Firefox to access MobileMe, IE isn't preferred" felt like they got it.

So when it comes down to the fact that only Safari and IE bookmark sync is supported, yeah, waste of my money for my primary reason to want it.

February 01 2009 at 1:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

John

Full groupware (exchange sharing) functionality, push sync, and excellent support with a hosted Kerio Account and much cheaper than a hosted exchange service.

http://www.inftekhosting.com

January 31 2009 at 11:47 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

I found a service called fruux a few weeks ago.
fruux works very much like MobileMe (syncs addressbook, ical and safari). Definitly worth a look and currently free of charge

January 30 2009 at 1:30 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Eric

I appreciated the easy-to-upload photo and video hosting, but rarely used it.

I never used my Me e-mail, because I knew I wasn't likely to renew. I managed to get six months for free, from the initial trial with my MacBook Pro to the various extensions Apple gave out after the transition.

January 29 2009 at 11:07 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply