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Is Apple's MobileMe worth the money?
- Thread starter uneek78
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when you factor in all the services, not just email as a lot of people do, then yes, I think it's worth it.
I've had no real problems with any feature of MobileMe. Sure, the web interface and get borked once in a while, but that's the life of modern "web apps." I'm amazed they do what they do these days.
I've had no real problems with any feature of MobileMe. Sure, the web interface and get borked once in a while, but that's the life of modern "web apps." I'm amazed they do what they do these days.
The features other than email make it worth it but i still only really use it for email.
ical on the go (with iphone or uni pc etc) can be useful tho and when you want to send someone a file but its too big for email public idisk is useful i've used it a for times for that purpose.
Lets face it if you own a mac you already understand paying more for something than its seems worth on face value, you have to find what you like about it
ical on the go (with iphone or uni pc etc) can be useful tho and when you want to send someone a file but its too big for email public idisk is useful i've used it a for times for that purpose.
Lets face it if you own a mac you already understand paying more for something than its seems worth on face value, you have to find what you like about it
For me, $100 a year is nothing, and it makes things very convenient. It's not perfect, and I get why people bash it, but just like all Apple things, you can find other stuff that does the same thing cheaper, but it won't all work together as good.
MobileMe is the same, slightly over priced but it integrates beautifully. It allows me to share my photos, movies, web sites, etc with my family with zero effort. So it's great!
MobileMe is the same, slightly over priced but it integrates beautifully. It allows me to share my photos, movies, web sites, etc with my family with zero effort. So it's great!
I pay for it and really like it.
I just wish I could have myusername@mac.com instead of @me.com but it's still good.
I just wish I could have myusername@mac.com instead of @me.com but it's still good.
If you had the .mac service before MobileMe took over, you still get to keep your (username@mac.com), and you also get a second email address thats (username@me.com). I had the .mac service, and I don't even use the old @mac.com address anymore. Everytime I told people my email address they keep spelling mac "mack.com" I had to specify M A C.com
did anyone try to send themself an email to "username@mac.com" and see if they get the email? This is suppost to go for the people that got MobileMe when it became available. This question is not for the people that grandfathered from .mac service.
I think this is the best response so far. The worthiness of a suite like MobileMe depends entirely on the user and what they plan to do with it. If your only use for it is email then it is a complete waste of money.
If, however, you are like me and use the iDisk to transfer large files to others, need the contact/calendar sync between multiple iPhone/iPod touch/Macs and want to host a website, then it is probably worth it. The fact that email comes with it is just icing for people that need all the other stuff.
The second MobileMe allows you to host personal files for others to access is when I'll get it. It seems like a good service for people who need data portability, but with so many alleged problems and a lack of a hosting service really turns me off from it.
I think it's generally worth it. However, if you're willing to put up with possibly fewer features, more limitations, and pain, I wrote up a blog post listing some possible alternatives (note, however, that I don't have any alternative hosting solutions):
I'm getting it once finals week is over. It integrates all of the iLife stuff together. You can upload stuff to iDisk to share files, iWeb for websites, photo galleries, etc. There are small hiccups from time to time, such as the push email notification stuff.
Despite what people say ... mobileme seems (at least from the research i've done) comparable in price to hosted exchange
I also use MM for hosting my website ... which is really nice and simple since its done in iWeb and hooks straight in to my custom domain.
The email service is fine ... be nice if i could also use a custom domain for email but meh ... i know what i was getting when i signed up
Will i renew in 9 months time? All i know i my gut says Maybe
I would love it if they added a service like Orb/SimplifyMedia to MobileMe (remote streaming of home itunes to iphone/ipod touch)
I also use MM for hosting my website ... which is really nice and simple since its done in iWeb and hooks straight in to my custom domain.
The email service is fine ... be nice if i could also use a custom domain for email but meh ... i know what i was getting when i signed up
Will i renew in 9 months time? All i know i my gut says Maybe
I would love it if they added a service like Orb/SimplifyMedia to MobileMe (remote streaming of home itunes to iphone/ipod touch)
There are two solutions for this:
- Put the file in your Public folder and password protect it. Only give out the password to those you want to have access to said file.
- Zip it up and put the file in your iDisk at Web > Sites > "Subfolder" (name that folder whatever you want) and post a link to it on a "web page" so they can download it with the direct link.
I think it's worth it, I really mostly use it for E-mail and I still love it, It's always stable and Works really well, Plus I got 90 Days free. I came from .Mac and The upgrade was fine I never had an issue.
If you use the storage and other features then it's great and integrates well with your mac.
If you use the storage and other features then it's great and integrates well with your mac.
Finally yes...
I first signed up when I still had a credit card and was single and liked to burn money. Next, I was kind of stuck with it and depended on it for email and syncing between Macs.
Now though, I think it is worth the money. I've just gotten WordPress hacked onto it and use the iDisk for quick backups of stuff I'm too lazy to burn to CD.
There are free things which will do the same, but I guess I'm happy to at least pay Apple that much per year in exchange for me running a couple of Hackintoshes
I first signed up when I still had a credit card and was single and liked to burn money. Next, I was kind of stuck with it and depended on it for email and syncing between Macs.
Now though, I think it is worth the money. I've just gotten WordPress hacked onto it and use the iDisk for quick backups of stuff I'm too lazy to burn to CD.
There are free things which will do the same, but I guess I'm happy to at least pay Apple that much per year in exchange for me running a couple of Hackintoshes
It's not worth the cost for me. I view the cost as the cost of aggregating a bunch of free services in one place. I understand why folks pay for it, it's almost a convenience fee. For me, not worth it.
there's a 60 free trial so you can test drive it to see if it's worth it to you.
i have it, and i bought my sub via amazon for only $35. wherever you choose to purchase your sub, with it you not only get the IMAP+idle email which everyone seems to focus on, but you get 20GB of idisk space that can be split up with your email storage however you choose. you also get 200GB of bandwidth per month. compared to other online storage, realize that even at full price, it's about the same price or cheaper than most other popular equivalent solutions.
you also get an online photo album, email synced across all devices and webmail access, ical syncing, notes, to-do list syncing, address book sync, safari bookmark syncing, and data backups (with software). lastly, for those who work from multiple macs, you also get "back to my mac".
i use my mobileme account to sync my contacts, calendar, and email specifically for my iphone but also use the idisk backup, public folder sharing for iphone videos, host online photo albums that i manage with iphoto and upload from my iphone camera, mirror my macbook's download and documents folders in idisk. all of this is also accessible on my windows home server/desktop with mail and calendar accessed with outlook and idisk mounted as a netshare drive. i also use mobilefiles on my iphone to access my idisk from my iphone. the killer feature is being able to "print to pdf" any documents directly to my mirrored idisk documents folder then having them accessible thru the mobilefiles app on my iphone... receipts, purchase orders, etc.
in the end, if you managed to read all of that, i have found mobileme to be worth the $35 i paid for it, and if unable to find a similar deal, i would easily pay $100 a year for renewal. it suits my needs and even solved a few issues i had no idea it would be able to.
the ONLY problem i had with it was setting up ical sync to my new macbook... which was promptly handled within 8 hours by the mobileme support team by rebuilding my ical sync data.
i have it, and i bought my sub via amazon for only $35. wherever you choose to purchase your sub, with it you not only get the IMAP+idle email which everyone seems to focus on, but you get 20GB of idisk space that can be split up with your email storage however you choose. you also get 200GB of bandwidth per month. compared to other online storage, realize that even at full price, it's about the same price or cheaper than most other popular equivalent solutions.
you also get an online photo album, email synced across all devices and webmail access, ical syncing, notes, to-do list syncing, address book sync, safari bookmark syncing, and data backups (with software). lastly, for those who work from multiple macs, you also get "back to my mac".
i use my mobileme account to sync my contacts, calendar, and email specifically for my iphone but also use the idisk backup, public folder sharing for iphone videos, host online photo albums that i manage with iphoto and upload from my iphone camera, mirror my macbook's download and documents folders in idisk. all of this is also accessible on my windows home server/desktop with mail and calendar accessed with outlook and idisk mounted as a netshare drive. i also use mobilefiles on my iphone to access my idisk from my iphone. the killer feature is being able to "print to pdf" any documents directly to my mirrored idisk documents folder then having them accessible thru the mobilefiles app on my iphone... receipts, purchase orders, etc.
in the end, if you managed to read all of that, i have found mobileme to be worth the $35 i paid for it, and if unable to find a similar deal, i would easily pay $100 a year for renewal. it suits my needs and even solved a few issues i had no idea it would be able to.
the ONLY problem i had with it was setting up ical sync to my new macbook... which was promptly handled within 8 hours by the mobileme support team by rebuilding my ical sync data.
Yes it does. If you create your To Do's on the MobileMe server, it syncs just fine.
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Just be wary that MobileMe email is still fairly unreliable for some users (myself included) and their customer service (if you can call it that) is a online only and pretty much a joke.
I'm currently having an issue with my mail not pushing to my iPhone RELIABLY; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've chatted with support online, they told me they would forward the issue to the engineering team. They tell me a week later that there is nothing wrong with my account and that I must be experiencing a network issue (despite the fact that I'm on WiFi at home, with solid 3G coverage, and my exchange account emails come through fine).
I replied and told them that the answer provided was unacceptable and that I wanted to know that my account was fixed. No response in two days.
I just picked up a BlackBerry Storm that I'm evaluating (I was a long-time BlackBerry user before getting my iPhone) to see if I like it enough to replace my iPhone. I love my iPhone and think MobileMe is a good service CONCEPT. But the unreliability, lack of customer service, and Apple's blaming AT&T for something that is clearly THEIR issue isn't acceptable for a paid service.
I'm currently having an issue with my mail not pushing to my iPhone RELIABLY; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've chatted with support online, they told me they would forward the issue to the engineering team. They tell me a week later that there is nothing wrong with my account and that I must be experiencing a network issue (despite the fact that I'm on WiFi at home, with solid 3G coverage, and my exchange account emails come through fine).
I replied and told them that the answer provided was unacceptable and that I wanted to know that my account was fixed. No response in two days.
I just picked up a BlackBerry Storm that I'm evaluating (I was a long-time BlackBerry user before getting my iPhone) to see if I like it enough to replace my iPhone. I love my iPhone and think MobileMe is a good service CONCEPT. But the unreliability, lack of customer service, and Apple's blaming AT&T for something that is clearly THEIR issue isn't acceptable for a paid service.
That must be some Mac-only feature. It doesn't exist on the MobileMe website, and it certainly doesn't exist on accursed windows boxes.
Well, bad experiences with MM aren't really reasons to switch phones -- there are non-Apple alternatives to MM. Now, there may other valid reasons to switch, but MM really shouldn't be one.