I have had my iMac for approaching 3 years and have not bothered with MobileMe as I rely on Time Machine and an External Hard Drive. But now I have a 32GB iPhone 4 (wow!) and I wonder the extra Sync facility would be better with MM ? Another question please - I am on a limited (500MB) Data Plan and would MobileMe soak up my uploads and downloads especially photo backups and email. Any advice and opinions much appreciated - Thanks.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Is a MobileMe account worth it?
- Thread starter Buff401
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
MobileMe wouldn't dent that at all (unless you have heavy email attachments). I find it useful because if I meet someone or a friend gives me their new number outside my home, I change it on my iPhone and I know my contacts back at home are updated on the go.
Plus, add to that the fact that you get Find my iPhone feature.
I like the syncing, email and gallery features. I bought a MobileMe account with my MBP because it was discounted, and because I was curious. So far, it seems to be worth it, and I'll probably renew next year.
Yes, I have EXTREMELY important files on my computer and external hard drive and I need EXTRA security incase my house sets on fire. I like the email too - I don't know what else you can do with it...
Thanks Guys for your rapid and positive replies. I think you have convinced me that a MobileMe account is a good idea
Whatever you do, do not try the MM calendar beta.
I would stay away from MM altogether, but you seem pretty set on it.
The email isn't that great. Gmail is better imo as gmail does not end up in spam as often as MM does. Do a search for MM mail ending up in spam. It's a problem.
I think MM is one of Apple's worst products.
I would stay away from MM altogether, but you seem pretty set on it.
The email isn't that great. Gmail is better imo as gmail does not end up in spam as often as MM does. Do a search for MM mail ending up in spam. It's a problem.
I think MM is one of Apple's worst products.
I'm going to give you the opposing answer.
Definitely not at $99.
MobileMe is horribly inconsistent in synching.
I have 4 devices: iMac, Macbook Pro, iPhone 4 and iPad
Can only keep mail synched. Sometimes calendars
as well. Bookmarks will not synch across device nor
contacts.
It used to work perfectly, now it's a mess.
Definitely not at $99.
MobileMe is horribly inconsistent in synching.
I have 4 devices: iMac, Macbook Pro, iPhone 4 and iPad
Can only keep mail synched. Sometimes calendars
as well. Bookmarks will not synch across device nor
contacts.
It used to work perfectly, now it's a mess.
I personally don't think MM is worth it. I would love to have such a feature (email, calendar and contact sync. et al), but MM is too expensive and I don't like the experience of the product. The most obvious alternative would be GMail, but I don't trust Google with nothing except porn. So I guess I'll just do the manual sync thing until MM gets its act together. 
See ? That's what's great about these Forums in general and Apple Users in particular - you get the whole gamut of opinions. Yes, I was seriously thinking of MM but now I'm not so convinced. It pays to weigh up all the opinions and I'm really grateful for you guys for taking the trouble. I am now considering using the built-in 60-Day Free Trial from The Apple Website. Does anyone know if, at the end of the trial, it is as easy to duck out of MM gracefully without screwing up all the Syncs, Security etc?
See ? That's what's great about these Forums in general and Apple Users in particular - you get the whole gamut of opinions. Yes, I was seriously thinking of MM but now I'm not so convinced. It pays to weigh up all the opinions and I'm really grateful for you guys for taking the trouble. I am now considering using the built-in 60-Day Free Trial from The Apple Website. Does anyone know if, at the end of the trial, it is as easy to duck out of MM gracefully without screwing up all the Syncs, Security etc?
You can just terminate the account on day 59 or so, it'll be no problem. After that I believe you're automatically charged. As Apple gives you a trial option, I'd recommend you give that a go and experience for yourself how you feel about MM.
[edit]
Make sure that you disable all your MobileMe sync stuff on your mac before terminating the trial period, just to make sure your data doesn't go 'poof' in the big cloud
I just got MobileMe yesterday and all i can say is i love it. got my first mac 2 months ago MBP i7 17" and i myself was curious about mobileMe , but after using for a while now , its truly amazing and syncs well with all my imacs without docking my ipad or iphone so yea great feature from apple if you own a whole lotta apple products to keep them updated automatically on the go
So yea A+ from apple oh i forgot the email is pretty sweeeet too
and syncs well with all my imacs without docking my ipad or iphone so yea great feature from apple if you own a whole lotta apple products to keep them updated automatically on the go So yea A+ from apple
oh i forgot the email is pretty sweeeet too Sam,
Not trying to bring you down from your
new subscription high.
MobileMe works only if the servers work.
You'll possibly find that things will stop
synching correctly either briefly or for long
periods of time.
It's not a perfect service, but I hope it serves
you well.
Not trying to bring you down from your
new subscription high.
MobileMe works only if the servers work.
You'll possibly find that things will stop
synching correctly either briefly or for long
periods of time.
It's not a perfect service, but I hope it serves
you well.
I definitely think MobileMe is worth it.
Email: All in one place. Everything is in the cloud and it's pushed across to all of your devices. In my case, my iPhone & Mac
Contacts: I love knowing that when I put a contact in on my Mac, it's on my iPhone instantly, and vice versa.
Calendar: Again, all in one place. It's a great way to stay organized and I use it every day. What ever I put in on my iPhone is on my Mac in a second.
iDisk: Another great feature, I keep school files on there so I don't have to bring a flash drive to and from school to transfer files.
Gallery: I use it to share pictures with family, it's pretty nice.
Find my iPhone: I think this is one of the best features; if you lose your iPhone, or even misplace it in your house, you can locate it, display a message and/or play a sound for 2 minutes (even if on vibrate), remote wipe it if you've lost it for good, or remote lock it with a new passcode.
All in all, I'm glad I shelled out the $100.00 for it. It's a great service that I use subconsciously every day.
Email: All in one place. Everything is in the cloud and it's pushed across to all of your devices. In my case, my iPhone & Mac
Contacts: I love knowing that when I put a contact in on my Mac, it's on my iPhone instantly, and vice versa.
Calendar: Again, all in one place. It's a great way to stay organized and I use it every day. What ever I put in on my iPhone is on my Mac in a second.
iDisk: Another great feature, I keep school files on there so I don't have to bring a flash drive to and from school to transfer files.
Gallery: I use it to share pictures with family, it's pretty nice.
Find my iPhone: I think this is one of the best features; if you lose your iPhone, or even misplace it in your house, you can locate it, display a message and/or play a sound for 2 minutes (even if on vibrate), remote wipe it if you've lost it for good, or remote lock it with a new passcode.
All in all, I'm glad I shelled out the $100.00 for it. It's a great service that I use subconsciously every day.
I just wonder why people think it's 'so expensive'.
Here in Australia, its A$120.00 per year. That's $10 per month. About 3 coffees, or 2 return train tickets.
It's barely anything at all.
Even for you people in the US, it's only $99 a YEAR. That's $8.25 a month for you. That is very reasonable pricing.
Whilst I agree that the service can be unreliable at times, and being something that you are paying for, it should always work regardless, I just can't get behind the constant whining of "it's sooooooo expensive!"
My 2 cents..
Here in Australia, its A$120.00 per year. That's $10 per month. About 3 coffees, or 2 return train tickets.
It's barely anything at all.
Even for you people in the US, it's only $99 a YEAR. That's $8.25 a month for you. That is very reasonable pricing.
Whilst I agree that the service can be unreliable at times, and being something that you are paying for, it should always work regardless, I just can't get behind the constant whining of "it's sooooooo expensive!"
My 2 cents..
I think part of the problem is that it is expected that it should actually work if you pay for it. I expect it to work. It doesn't.
Also, there are often better alternatives that are free.
When you pay for a product and it doesn't work as well as something that is free, then yes, it is expensive.
I bought MobileMe when i bought my iPhone as part of a package deal I negotiated. I never would have paid the full $100 for it or even the standard discounted $70. That said, I definitely have been using it.
Email: I will never use my @me.com email address for anything serious. Maybe for things where I don't want the recipient to have my main email address. Everything on the internet configures with your email address and I will not be locked into continuing to pay Apple $100 a year for an email address. So imo this is useless. Before I had mobileme I was using gmail, and I continue to use gmail instead of MobileMe.
Contact syncing: One of the more useful features in that it does it over the air and I'll have everything backed up in case I haven't synced my phone with my computer for a while. But there are other free ways to back up your contacts, they just require that you attach your phone to your computer. Which you were probably going to do regularly anyway.
Calendar: Calendar is actually pretty nice. I like using Apple's iPhone calendar app and I like being able to check it and input things through the browser GUI. MobileMe calendar has actually replaced my use of Google Calendar.
Find My iPhone: The niftiest part of this feature is for when you know that your phone is somewhere in your house but its on silent and you can't find it. Through mobileme, you can have your phone make a max volume ring even when on silent. However, if your phone gets stolen, MobileMe is not going to help you at all. If you're extremely lucky you might get the chance to remotely wipe the iPhone. But don't fool yourself into thinking that MobileMe is some sort of insurance policy where if someone nabs your iphone, you'll be able to track them down.
Online storage: Meh its pretty good. I've definitely been able to send friends some files that were too big to be email attachments. There are free alternatives that would probably suffice and there are cheaper alternatives that are actually better services, although they might not interface with all your Apple gear as easily.
Conclusion: its OK.
Email: I will never use my @me.com email address for anything serious. Maybe for things where I don't want the recipient to have my main email address. Everything on the internet configures with your email address and I will not be locked into continuing to pay Apple $100 a year for an email address. So imo this is useless. Before I had mobileme I was using gmail, and I continue to use gmail instead of MobileMe.
Contact syncing: One of the more useful features in that it does it over the air and I'll have everything backed up in case I haven't synced my phone with my computer for a while. But there are other free ways to back up your contacts, they just require that you attach your phone to your computer. Which you were probably going to do regularly anyway.
Calendar: Calendar is actually pretty nice. I like using Apple's iPhone calendar app and I like being able to check it and input things through the browser GUI. MobileMe calendar has actually replaced my use of Google Calendar.
Find My iPhone: The niftiest part of this feature is for when you know that your phone is somewhere in your house but its on silent and you can't find it. Through mobileme, you can have your phone make a max volume ring even when on silent. However, if your phone gets stolen, MobileMe is not going to help you at all. If you're extremely lucky you might get the chance to remotely wipe the iPhone. But don't fool yourself into thinking that MobileMe is some sort of insurance policy where if someone nabs your iphone, you'll be able to track them down.
Online storage: Meh its pretty good. I've definitely been able to send friends some files that were too big to be email attachments. There are free alternatives that would probably suffice and there are cheaper alternatives that are actually better services, although they might not interface with all your Apple gear as easily.
Conclusion: its OK.
I am a mobileme user, and on the whole, I like it and will renew again. But the above is the most frustrating part especially since many of the free alternatives are not only more reliable but also faster.
Calendar/Contact sync:
I use it for calendar syncing between all of our devices (Macbook, 2 iPhones). It's the most integrated and easiest solution I could find and at $8+ a month it's cheap. Unfortunately, you have to use the same account to share the calendar so I don't use the contact sync since my wife would get my contacts as well as me getting hers.
Find My iPhone:
It's also nice to know that if I lose or someone steals one of our iPhones we can track it until they figure out how to turn that functionality off. Also, I use iDisk occasionally to share files but that's it.
Email:
Gmail is so good that I don't use my MobileMe email and I don't want to sync contacts as my wife would get those synced as well.
I use it for calendar syncing between all of our devices (Macbook, 2 iPhones). It's the most integrated and easiest solution I could find and at $8+ a month it's cheap. Unfortunately, you have to use the same account to share the calendar so I don't use the contact sync since my wife would get my contacts as well as me getting hers.
Find My iPhone:
It's also nice to know that if I lose or someone steals one of our iPhones we can track it until they figure out how to turn that functionality off. Also, I use iDisk occasionally to share files but that's it.
Email:
Gmail is so good that I don't use my MobileMe email and I don't want to sync contacts as my wife would get those synced as well.
I trialed and then bought MobileMe off of amazon a few weeks ago for $45 (via a reputable 'other seller') for all of our family iPhones and ipod touch devices (on an individual plan) and love it. No battery impact and incredibly precise. The other MoMe functions are a bonus. The integration (gallery, idisk, contact synching, sending videos directly to the gallery off of the iphone) between my MBP and our iPhones is far more useful than I thought it would be.
If you don't sync your iPhone often MobileMe is definitely worth it.
Why?
1) You can play mp3s straight from iDisk... just drag and drop your favorite tunes on your mac and play them back from the iDisk app.
2) Have a backup copy of your contacts at all times... if you need to restore, just set up mobileme again and you'll have all your up-to-date contacts back.
3) Find my iPhone... not too useful but good for finding a family member
4) MobileMe gallery is worth it if you like sharing pics to non-iphone ppl.
There's probably a lot more, but that's just a few to make use of your $99/year on.
Why?
1) You can play mp3s straight from iDisk... just drag and drop your favorite tunes on your mac and play them back from the iDisk app.
2) Have a backup copy of your contacts at all times... if you need to restore, just set up mobileme again and you'll have all your up-to-date contacts back.
3) Find my iPhone... not too useful but good for finding a family member
4) MobileMe gallery is worth it if you like sharing pics to non-iphone ppl.
There's probably a lot more, but that's just a few to make use of your $99/year on.
Personally, I've been a subscriber since 2004 and I think it's very much worth it. I do use DropBox, but they don't guarantee the data to the same extent. I use DropBox for applications that do filesystem-based sync'ing, but my iDisk for storing copies of important documents, etc. The file sharing function is surprisingly useful.
I have several computers, an iPad, and an iPhone 4; keeping things synchronised between them is much easier thanks to MobileMe.
I have several computers, an iPad, and an iPhone 4; keeping things synchronised between them is much easier thanks to MobileMe.
I have Dropbox. Love it. Never come
close to exceeding the 2GB I get for free.
I put all my personal documents in there
and share it across computers.
Amazingly, after having MobileMe for
about 3 years now, I have never tried
iDisk.
Is it the same thing as Dropbox essentially?
How much storage space is included with
your MobileMe subscription?
Thanks
close to exceeding the 2GB I get for free.
I put all my personal documents in there
and share it across computers.
Amazingly, after having MobileMe for
about 3 years now, I have never tried
iDisk.
Is it the same thing as Dropbox essentially?
How much storage space is included with
your MobileMe subscription?
Thanks