I give up on MobileMe - Can you recommend alternative?

[kingfish-spl]

I have wrestled with MobileMe for more than a year now, and I give up. Upon logging in at work today my Mail - Reminder - To Do List - is gone. I backed up the list last week, but the list cannot be easily put back. Not that big a deal but I have just hit the wall with monkeying with this service. I would like to sync my work, home and iPhone computers with mail, calendars and contacts from either device and have it update all three reliably. MobileMe cannot do it in my opinion. There are continuing duplicates, errors or disappearing information. MobileMe support is only available now thru chat, which is very limited I have found.

So I am wondering if my fellow Mac users can recommend another software service or alternate. Thanks!

 

[sigamy]

I just cancelled too. Not really due to issues, I'm just not getting the value out of mobileme for the cost.

It seems that most folks are using google for Calendar and Contact sync. Then Flickr or Picassa for photo sharing; Youtube or Vimeo for movies, and Dropbox for disk.

Most of these are free or very close to free and with a bit of tuning you can mimic MobileMe functionality. At least that's my plan...

 

[Aatos.1]

I'd like to see Apple put some focus on MobileMe and bring it up to par. Then reduce the price or make it free. It's basically a good service if they would debug it and improve the quality to match that of other Apple software.

 

[Matthew9559]

I used to use google before MobileMe. It works fine, it has pro's and con's just like MobileMe. I had all the problems you had with MobileMe but with google instead. That drove me to jump ship, contacts and calendar weren't syncing correctly, etc. I will recommend using the web interface for google calendar, email and contacts. They will work in iCal, imail, and address book but doesn't work without a few hitches from my experience. Which annoyed me. Also you can use chrome to keep your bookmarks synced, but will not sync across iOS devices. Another reason I stick with MobileMe. I hope it works better for you on google!

I really hope MobileMe gets a facelift soon. It needs more killer features. You basically can use google for a lot of the same services. I feel like they could do so much more with MobileMe. Everything does seem to be leading to the cloud nowadays...

 

[Macsterguy]

I sync 3 Macs, a iPhone and a iPad. MobileMe has never worked better for me as it has in the last 30-60 days (and I go all the way back to iTools). Especially since the new iCal came out... I wouldn't jump ship too soon.

 

[ingricky]

I sync 3 Macs, a iPhone and a iPad. MobileMe has never worked better for me as it has in the last 30-60 days (and I go all the way back to iTools). Especially since the new iCal came out... I wouldn't jump ship too soon.

I totally agree. I've been a member since 2004 and I've seen huge improvements after last December maintenance downtime.

Also, there are not real alternatives out there if you're looking for an integrated solution at a decent price. Google gives you everything for free but somehow many of the solutions are half-baked and don't play well with Apple ecosystem. Also, a free solution doesn't really appeal to me. Beside the privacy implications (you only think it's free...), if something happens to my Google account I wouldn't know who to contact to get assistance.

MobileMe support is far from being perfect but for EUR 79.00 a year you can't honestly expect more (in enterprise business you don't get a senior engineer working on your case for nothing less than $ 100k a year...) but every time I've had a problem, the agent escalated the issue to engineering and the problem was eventually solved.

 

[317342]

It's not perfect but I like it.

 

[matthewolf]

It's not perfect but I like it.

I feel the same way!

 

[mckvakk]

After Apple made find my iPhone free i switched to google for my syncing needs. If set up correctly it works without a hitch.
Only thing missing is the ability to sync with contacts on my mac.

 

[Weaselboy]

Only thing missing is the ability to sync with contacts on my mac.

The OS X Address Book has built in sync with Google. I have read it does support all the fields in Address Book, but it should work for the most common entries.

 

[mofunk]

It's not perfect but I like it.

Same Here! When I got my MBP last year, I was so glad I have MobileMe. Usually it would take about 5hrs to move everything to my Mac. This time it took less than 30min to put everything back.



I've been using it since 2003 and it is a lot easier to navigate then before.

With the todo list you have to make sure everything is sync. Including if you are using an iPod/iPhone. I think that makes it work better. Most of the stuff I manually backup with MobileMe. ie Bookmarks and Address Book.

@OP you probably have to check your sync. If its not set to sync automatically, you may not see the changes when you log in at work.

 

[Matthew9559]

After Apple made find my iPhone free i switched to google for my syncing needs. If set up correctly it works without a hitch.
Only thing missing is the ability to sync with contacts on my mac.

I can easily say without a doubt that you are incorrect. It's not hard to follow directions.

http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138740

You must have missed this in address book.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_N76yGvbMPVw/SD3BHSh4__I/AAAAAAAAACI/9K_GHbU1XtM/s1600-h/sync.png

 

[ugahairydawgs]

It gets a bit tricky the more moving parts you add to the mix. If you are just syncing a Mac, iPhone, iPad....then Google is very easy to setup and get running. If you need to add a Windows PC with Outlook it is a little more hairy. Google Calendar Sync for Outlook is very limiting. You can't do multiple calendars through it and it can cause some issues with Outlook. There is no way, at least that I am aware of, to do contact syncing through Outlook.

 

[Vice92]

There is no way, at least that I am aware of, to do contact syncing through Outlook.

Maybe I don't understand the context of your post, but I am able to sync my contacts from Outlook '11 to my Address Book on my MBP.

If what in a above post is true, and you can sync Address Book with Google, if you can then sync Google with your iPhone, in theory you can therefore sync address book.

 

[ScottNWDW]

I've been using Mobileme since it was introduced in 2008 with the release, and purchase, of my iPhone 3G. Since then it worked pretty well. when I picked up my iPhone 4 last June on release day all my contacts and calendars were in place before I even left the Apple store.

since I use a Windows PC and Outlook, MobileMe works great with syncing with Outlook. I've tried Google and really didn't care for it all.

MobileMe may not be the most perfect at times, but it's well worth the $100 a year. I do however, wish the desktop web interface was better. It seems that since they updated the calendar on the web interface that they went a step or two backwards, but I do like that they now allow other apps on the iPad and iPhone to access the native calendar data.

 

[tod]

I use SquirrelMail. It's free software. It came with my web server. It's not as fancy as MobileMe but does everything I need. If you have a hosting account somewhere, you probably have access to one or more of the common free webmail/contact manangers like SquirrelMail, RoundCube, or Horde.

 

[317342]

For iDisk, I use and enjoy Dropbox. If you'd like a referral bonus, feel free to PM me.

Yahoo for everything else. I know some use Gmail and Hotmail, either is a good alternative. (I just like the goodies the Plus account has.)

Firefox has free bookmark syncing and an app for the iPhone. Chrome does syncing as well but nothing with iPhone.

 

[Hrududu]

For syncing calendars, contacts, bookmarks etc. I had been using fruux until I got a complimentary year of MobileMe. Its really quite nice and works great.

 

[ugahairydawgs]

Maybe I don't understand the context of your post, but I am able to sync my contacts from Outlook '11 to my Address Book on my MBP.

If what in a above post is true, and you can sync Address Book with Google, if you can then sync Google with your iPhone, in theory you can therefore sync address book.

There is no way to sync contacts from Outlook on Windows to Google (be it GMail or Google Apps), unless you have Google Apps Premier and use that sync tool.

 

[mikebeato]

Syncing contacts and calendars

I never really liked MobileMe and decided to drop it back in October. My low(er)-cost solution for syncing calendars and contacts works well for me. Here are all the details: http://bit.ly/dm2UbO

 

[bluap84]

The OS X Address Book has built in sync with Google. I have read it does support all the fields in Address Book, but it should work for the most common entries.

Yes this is correct, but unlike sycning contacts with the google webmail (as exchange). The sync takes awhile, which is annoying. But it works.

I really wish the mobile me was free. Or at least you could select what you wanted. I would only need the mail / calender and contacts. All the rest i use other free applications like dropbox etc.

But setting up Google as an exchange with your mobile devices works perfectly. i have it set up across all devices, and mail, ical, address book all have the google sync feature built in.

 

[cwynn46]

Also looking for alternative

For the last 2 months, I have been communicating with Apple over the annoying problem that I cannot log into my account page from within the MobileMe site. I can get there from System Preferences, but this means I have NOT be able to access my account from another Mac, or from some other pc/mac/location. Should I ask Apple to simply let me create a NEW account? Has anyone else had this problem? Everything else works fine.

 

[DieWacht]

Mobileme

I would say stick with it. I have been using the service since 2008 and although it has its issues, the reliability of the service has improved quite alot since the maintenance in December. I sync two macbooks, 2 iphones and an ipad with it, and for the most part it works. I look on the service as a work in progress, and once they improve it further it really will be brilliant.

I suppose for all the devices I am syncing, I am willing to put up with the odd glitch, since it works most of the time. Also I recently purchased a macbook air and mobileme made setting that baby up and keeping it updated really easy.

I say hang in there.

 

[cwynn46]

New MobileMe?

I guess as Apple is revamping the service, I will hang in there for now.

 

[ajvizzgamer101]

I just cancelled too. Not really due to issues, I'm just not getting the value out of mobileme for the cost.

It seems that most folks are using google for Calendar and Contact sync. Then Flickr or Picassa for photo sharing; Youtube or Vimeo for movies, and Dropbox for disk.

Most of these are free or very close to free and with a bit of tuning you can mimic MobileMe functionality. At least that's my plan...

But that is like 4 different websites you have to manage.