MobileMe, WALL-E and (St)Eve

There is little to praise in Apple's response because of its tardiness. I reserve any praise for Apple's actions ahead, which as of this afternoon are encouraging change. Fingers crossed.

In a 1:43 a.m. EDT posting, Apple acknowledged that MobileMe's launch had been a "rocky road." That about sums up MobileMe's first 14 days. The service was up and down the first couple of days, and on July 16 MobileMe had a fatal server failure that affected by, my estimates, at least 20,000 customers.

One of those customers, Doug Gebhard, from Laurinburg, N.C., sent me an e-mail on Thursday about being part of the "Apple 1 Percent Club." He lamented that "apart from not having access to my [MobileMe] e-mail from any source—Web, iPhone, Mac—I am astounded at how Apple has not responded to this fiasco. Transparency is so overused in business to be trite, but this blunder screams for some kind of public mea culpa. For God sakes, we're Mac users and we're fanatics. Remember us?"

What I found most interesting: Doug's willingness to stick it out, which says something about the loyalty of the "fanatics." Because of Apple's other many product successes, some customers can even overlook its mishaps. "No way am I going to abandon the Mothership," Doug wrote. "But I feel like WALL-E right now ... alone, wandering amidst junk, left to my own devices, abandoned. Where's (St)Eve?"

(St)Eve has come to WALL-E's rescue, Doug. Earth will be repopulated. Apple has set up a MobileMe Status page, with promises regular updates. Transparency—at least by Apple's standards of secrecy—is here.

GOT A TIP OR RUMOR?

The first status post begins: "Steve Jobs has asked me to write a posting every other day or so to let everyone know what's happening with MobileMe, and I'm working directly with the MobileMe group to ensure that we keep you really up to date." The "me" would mean more if he or she were identified. "Me" is anonymous.

Restoration is under way: "As of today a team was able to restore limited web access to those accounts so the affected members can use their browsers to read mail that has arrived since last Friday (though not before) as well as send and receive new mail."

I e-mailed Doug this afternoon to see how it's going with his membership in the "Apple 1 Percent Club." He graciously responded, even while on vacation. "I now have Web access to e-mail; nothing yet on my iPhone or via [Apple] Mail. Here's a kicker: If I log on to me.com via iPhone I get a message touting MobileMe but cannot access the site!"

More from the status post: "The team has already begun rolling out restoration of full access for all the accounts and expect to finish by the end of next week. We particularly regret to report the loss in the affected accounts of approximately 10 percent of the messages received between July 16 and July 18."

What about Doug? "I did not lose anything, having saved stuff as usual."

MobileMe troubles show just how difficult it is delivering Web services. Cloud computing requires hefty investment in data center capacity, which maybe Apple didn't have enough of.

"We had a lot more traffic to our servers than we anticipated, with the result that access to the Web versions of the MobileMe applications—Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Gallery, iDisk—was temporarily unavailable," according to the status post. "We've since added server capacity and tuned our software to scale better—i.e. behave more gracefully when traffic spikes."

MobileMe's launch troubles didn't go unnoticed by reviewers. Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg wrote on Wednesday, "I can't recommend it, at least not in its current state. It's a great idea, but, as of now, MobileMe has too many flaws to keep its promises."

Walt's review wasn't the only MobileMe pan, but it's the most notable because of his stature and a recent string of favorable Apple reviews.

On a personal note, I really like MobileMe. I've had absolutely no problems with the service, nor have my wife and daughter. I have MobileMe turned on for my iPhone 3G, so that contacts, calendars and e-mail stay updated with my Mac. The synchronization has flawlessly worked so far. One of my biggest gripes about mobile computing is adding new contacts. Now, when I add or update (usually a photo) on the phone, it appears in the Mac Address Book. The syncing is extremely convenient.

My experience so far is good, so my personal criticisms are limited to MobileMe's shaky couple of days and to Apple's slow public response to people experiencing service problems.

What's your MobileMe status? Please share in comments or by e-mail.

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

Related Posts:

• How Immobile Is MobileMe?, Apple Watch, July 23, 2008
• Should You Mesh or Me?, Microsoft Watch, July 16, 2008
• MobileMe Enters the Info Highway, Apple Watch, July 10, 2008
• iPhone in Sync, Apple Watch, June 27, 2008
• Microsoft-Apple: Friendly Exchange, Microsoft Watch, June 10, 2008
• Will MobileMe Mesh?, Microsoft Watch, June 10, 2008
• It's Time for a .Mac Makeover, Apple Watch, May 30, 2008
• Content, Context and Compromise, Apple Watch, April 28, 2008
• Live Mesh: Windows Becomes the Web, Microsoft Watch, April 23, 2008
• Do IT Simply with Sync, Microsoft Watch, March 11, 2008

Posted by Joe Wilcox on July 26, 2008 5:58 PM