Closing on 2 years later...is MobileMe Stable, Fast and Worth the Money?

[Paratel]

I have enjoyed MobileMe ever since I got my phone. Everything runs so smooth with the syncing of the calendar and my contacts. I also love having my gallery page so that my out of town peeps and see my pics. What I did is got the family pack (149.99) which you can have up to 5 users and the I just went to my friends and sold them ($30.00 to $40.00 each) accounts for cheaper than they could buy it as a single user.

 

[chriswitt]

So I've had MobileMe for a few years now, and agree it's pretty hassle-free and very reliable for syncing calendars, email, contacts to my iphone and across my mac's.

But since there's so many people here who are liking it and using it, I'm interested to know if any of you have considered going with google, which is free. It just seems like there are so many different subscription services out there, before too long you're paying a little something to practically everyone.

Like some others here, I found the idisk to be too slow compared to the free Dropbox.com offering. Also, I had a problem where most of my data was erased on it (user error? maybe), and the erasure was synchronized across all my accounts. Calling Apple to get the data restored (my masters thesis was on there) ended up a failure after 5 days. I was disappointed to find out that TimeMachine didn't back up the idisk data. (For anyone who cares, I eventually figured out to use TimeMachine to find a previous version of the sparseimage and got my data back, no thanks to Apple support).

As for sharing photo's, I can email any photo's I take to picasa and they show up there.

I'm not slamming the service; just curious if anyone else has considered changing to google, and if they did and came back to mobileme, why - what was missing for you?

 

[dwd3885]

So I've had MobileMe for a few years now, and agree it's pretty hassle-free and very reliable for syncing calendars, email, contacts to my iphone and across my mac's.

But since there's so many people here who are liking it and using it, I'm interested to know if any of you have considered going with google, which is free. It just seems like there are so many different subscription services out there, before too long you're paying a little something to practically everyone.

Like some others here, I found the idisk to be too slow compared to the free Dropbox.com offering. Also, I had a problem where most of my data was erased on it (user error? maybe), and the erasure was synchronized across all my accounts. Calling Apple to get the data restored (my masters thesis was on there) ended up a failure after 5 days. I was disappointed to find out that TimeMachine didn't back up the idisk data. (For anyone who cares, I eventually figured out to use TimeMachine to find a previous version of the sparseimage and got my data back, no thanks to Apple support).

As for sharing photo's, I can email any photo's I take to picasa and they show up there.

I'm not slamming the service; just curious if anyone else has considered changing to google, and if they did and came back to mobileme, why - what was missing for you?

Well I am using Google and find it much superior. Gmail is so much better than Mobile Me mail it really isn't a contest. The Me mail interface is just slow and bad, it might be nicer to look at, but that is it. And I find the Google Calendar much more feature rich than the simple Mobile Me Calendar on the web. Also, Gmail pushes just nicely to the iPhone, Android or any other mobile device. You get PicasaWeb for your mobile galleries. They have a good webapp for it on the iPhone as well. So your photos are always with you.

As for storage, Google doesn't offer storage solution like iDisk, but that's where Dropbox comes into play. Use that for free for 2GB and there's an iPhone app for that as well.

I tried MobileMe last year because I wanted to see what the experience was like. It was average. Something that I might use for free if Apple gave it away, but something that is inferior to Google's services at the same time. Google just knows how to get the web services thing right more than Apple does. Apple knows how to make great products, but Google knows how to make great web services.

 

[bigjnyc]

I have enjoyed MobileMe ever since I got my phone. Everything runs so smooth with the syncing of the calendar and my contacts. I also love having my gallery page so that my out of town peeps and see my pics. What I did is got the family pack (149.99) which you can have up to 5 users and the I just went to my friends and sold them ($30.00 to $40.00 each) accounts for cheaper than they could buy it as a single user.

lol I think the extra licenses only cover people living with you. Not that Apple has any way of finding out but I think the EULA states that the 5 licenses are for a single household.

 

[Vandam500]

I just picked it up ...first thing I tried was to see how fast the email pushed and it was nearly instant! Then I tried all the find my iPhone features and they all worked flawlessly!! I am pretty happy about getting it

I have one question though, since I was using Google Contacts (Push), how can I transfer over all those contacts to MobileMe Contacts? It would be a pain to have to do 1 by 1. Any ideas?

And thanks everybody for sharing their thoughts/experiences on MobileMe

 

[dwd3885]

I just picked it up ...first thing I tried was to see how fast the email pushed and it was nearly instant! Then I tried all the find my iPhone features and they all worked flawlessly!! I am pretty happy about getting it

I have one question though, since I was using Google Contacts (Push), how can I transfer over all those contacts to MobileMe Contacts? It would be a pain to have to do 1 by 1. Any ideas?

And thanks everybody for sharing their thoughts/experiences on MobileMe

Congrats on the purchase I suppose. What was it that got you to do it? I'm thinking this because you already have Google Contacts, so it seems like syncing those along with gmail and google calendar for free would've been better for you. But maybe you heard something here? Just curious what you think you might like about it.

 

[Vandam500]

Congrats on the purchase I suppose. What was it that got you to do it? I'm thinking this because you already have Google Contacts, so it seems like syncing those along with gmail and google calendar for free would've been better for you. But maybe you heard something here? Just curious what you think you might like about it.

Well to be honest nearly everything that MobileMe is offering I had for free with Google which is push contacts and calendar; I had push email with Mail Notifier (iPhone App, $5)

Anyways, I got MobileMe mainly because of the Find My iPhone feature but I have to say, the push email from MobileMe is loads faster then what the Mail Notifier app gives me which is a plus! I am uploading pictures to the Gallery which looks pretty cool too and I'll probably use iDisk a couple of times!

I think for $62 is not a bad deal now paying $100 is questionable

 

[gauchogolfer]

I use MobileMe and not Google, mainly because I don't like the idea of ad placement in my emails and contacts. I know that in theory they aren't recording the contents of email, but I guess I'm not as trusting as I once was. AdSense will evidently even spider the attachments to an email, which means they exist in a cache somewhere.

Also, I recognize that Google is not free to me, in that I am paying by being advertised at. For me, getting away from that with MobileMe is worth the investment.

 

[renewed]

I just picked it up ...first thing I tried was to see how fast the email pushed and it was nearly instant! Then I tried all the find my iPhone features and they all worked flawlessly!! I am pretty happy about getting it

I have one question though, since I was using Google Contacts (Push), how can I transfer over all those contacts to MobileMe Contacts? It would be a pain to have to do 1 by 1. Any ideas?

And thanks everybody for sharing their thoughts/experiences on MobileMe

Is there a way you can export your google contacts to your computer as a file? If so you can import them into your address book (assuming you have a mac) then sync your address book to mobile me.

Also check out the gallery feature. I have tons of photos on mine for friends and family to look at. Something really neat is that you can send a picture or video from your iPhone straight to your gallery and even pick which album to include it into plus put a caption with it.

Edit: I posted this before seeing you were already tinkering with the gallery.

 

[Vandam500]

I use MobileMe and not Google, mainly because I don't like the idea of ad placement in my emails and contacts. I know that in theory they aren't recording the contents of email, but I guess I'm not as trusting as I once was. AdSense will evidently even spider the attachments to an email, which means they exist in a cache somewhere.

Also, I recognize that Google is not free to me, in that I am paying by being advertised at. For me, getting away from that with MobileMe is worth the investment.

I never thought about it that way to be honest! Google is most likely making loads more money by making it free but with ads then if they made subscription based with no ads.

 

[str1f3]

Well to be honest nearly everything that MobileMe is offering I had for free with Google which is push contacts and calendar; I had push email with Mail Notifier (iPhone App, $5)

Anyways, I got MobileMe mainly because of the Find My iPhone feature but I have to say, the push email from MobileMe is loads faster then what the Mail Notifier app gives me which is a plus! I am uploading pictures to the Gallery which looks pretty cool too and I'll probably use iDisk a couple of times!

I think for $62 is not a bad deal now paying $100 is questionable

For your address book sync I'd say to use something like Spanning Sync's 15 day trial period to sync your contacts for just one time. As a future reminder, though, it is best to have contacts always stored locally. Calendars, since they always change, are a different story.

As for iDisk, it is not as bad as people as people say if you're living in the US. The iPhone app used to be horrible but now it is on par with the Dropbox app because of a recent update. I can now stream audio as well as video.

 

[Vandam500]

For your address book sync I'd say to use something like Spanning Sync's 15 day tria. Period to sync your contacts. As a future reminder, though, it is best to have contacts always stored locally. Calendars, since they always change, are a different story.

As for iDisk, it is not as bad as people as people say if you're living in the US. The iPhone app used to be horrible but now it is on par with the Dropbox app because of a recent update. I can now stream audio as well as video.

Yeah I have to get my contacts onto my computer and not only relying on the cloud I will try Spanning Sync now! Thanks

Edit: Aww damn..it's only available for Macs! I will have to try it another way

 

[str1f3]

Yeah I have to get my contacts onto my computer and not only relying on the cloud I will try Spanning Sync now! Thanks

Edit: Aww damn..it's only available for Macs! I will have to try it another way

No problem. If you're using Windows just do a search for bi-directional syncing between Outlook and Google Contacts. I'm sure there are many (more than the Mac) that will offer a trial period for you to use it just once. If you're using Linux, well you're on your own.

 

[bmms8]

vandam, i didnt read the rest of this thread, but the only thing i truly hate about mobileme is the sluggishness within a browser. when i am away from my mbp it literally takes 3-4 seconds to delete an email.. and clicking from inbox to sent or vice versa takes a few seconds as well... i find myself reading and deleting emails to be a lot faster on my iphone since there is no wait time. i cannot wait til apple improves this aspect of MM.

 

[Vandam500]

No problem. If you're using Windows just do a search for bi-directional syncing between Outlook and Google Contacts. I'm sure there are many (more than the Mac) that will offer a trial period for you to use it just once. If you're using Linux, well you're on your own.

Awesome! Your the best...I will get my contacts transfered from Google onto Outlook then from Outlook to MobileMe and I'm all set

vandam, i didnt read the rest of this thread, but the only thing i truly hate about mobileme is the sluggishness within a browser. when i am away from my mbp it literally takes 3-4 seconds to delete an email.. and clicking from inbox to sent or vice versa takes a few seconds as well... i find myself reading and deleting emails to be a lot faster on my iphone since there is no wait time. i cannot wait til apple improves this aspect of MM.

Yeah this is what everybody has been saying. I actually spend more time using my iPhone then my computer so it's all good

 

[Mlrollin91]

I've had it from day one because I had a .Mac account. I love it, it makes things a lot more simple. I've only played around with find my phone, never had to use it and hopefully will not, but its a great feature to have.

I've also never had to pay $99 for you. I've always managed to get it for $69.

 

[Vandam500]

I've had it from day one because I had a .Mac account. I love it, it makes things a lot more simple. I've only played around with find my phone, never had to use it and hopefully will not, but its a great feature to have.

I've also never had to pay $99 for you. I've always managed to get it for $69.

Yeah it doesn't make sense to pay that much more when you can get the same thing for nearly 40 bucks less

 

[davidlw]

I love Mobile Me, that is one of the reasons that I use a iPhone. I take care of my 1300 customers, calendar, etc. with Mobile Me. I am hoping that I can use iPad with iPhone on Mobile Me so all of my devices will be synced.

 

[Vandam500]

I love Mobile Me, that is one of the reasons that I use a iPhone. I take care of my 1300 customers, calendar, etc. with Mobile Me. I am hoping that I can use iPad with iPhone on Mobile Me so all of my devices will be synced.

1300 Customers!!! That's crazy but shows how powerful it is. About the iPad, if it doesn't have MobileMe then it would be a big fail in my books especially the 3G enabled one. Anyways I don't see a reason to why it won't have it.

 

[iSlate Fanboy]

A very informative thread, I have also been thinking about a MobileMe subscription.