MobileMe: 60 More Days

I was out of the office, when I got the notice from Apple on my iPhone:

"We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. To recognize our users' patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber as of today a free 60 day extension. This is in addition to the one month extension most subscribers have already received. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe's launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around."

GOT A TIP OR RUMOR?

I tweeted in response: "Apple's 60-day MobileMe extension was right thing to do. Customers now have three months free for their troubles."

This is the second extension. The first 30-day extension came following MobileMe launch woes, and the extra 60 days to problems that followed. In a year's time, most people will have forgotten MobileMe launch problems, but they won't forgot that extra 90 days of service for free when it kicks in.

I wondered if the extension applied to me, as I have a family account. Checking my MobileMe account, I see the 30-day extension applied. Surely the extra 60 days is coming.

John Gruber (aka Daring Fireball) captures my sentiments: "This is in addition to the previous 30-day extension. At this rate, they're either going to fix it or we'll never have to pay again."

MobileMe isn't the only Apple news today. This afternoon, the company released iPhone 2.02 for "bug fixes." Whoa, that's quite the short list. Perhaps 2.02 fixes problems with 2.01. While yesterday I blogged about digital gunk buildup, my leading theory for all these "Call Failed" problems is still the 2.01 update.

I installed the update, but can't yet say if the 3G telephony or data performance is any better. By tomorrow morning, I'm sure there will be plenty of blogs or forum posts, if 3G problems persist.

Gotta say: Apple's had uncharacteristic new product launch problems with iPhone 3G and MobileMe. Will they ever end? John might be right about MobileMe. But who is going to compensate iPhone 3G customers for calling problems? AT&T? Perhaps only if space aliens invade AT&T headquarters overnight and demand compensation.

[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com].

Posted by Joe Wilcox on August 18, 2008 11:14 PM