Hey slapshot!
MobileMe has always been a bit of a controversial service from apple, essentially & in my experience at-least its a bit like Marmite, you either luve it or hate it (...on a side note, i hate marmite!).
I was in your position at the start of the year, i have my MacBook Pro, iPhone and my iPad and used gmail to sync everything, but my curiously got the better of me and i wanted to know what MobileMe (paid) offered over Gmail (free).
Essentially i boiled it down to a few points:
- The MobileMe Interface (as with most things apple) is far more refined than its competitors
- Having my data un-indexed and pruned for adverts (or whatever else google wants) is a comfort
- Having my Bookamrks seemingly Sync'd between my devices is a nice touch
- Back-To-My-Mac is a bonus for when you need it
- The PIM Features (Mail, Calander and Contacts) are tightly integrated with the iDevices & OSX Apps (Syncing of mail-rules for example). I had a few issues with Google Calendar not wanting to play-ball with iCal on a fair few occasions for example.
- Gmail does have some interesting IMAP "Issues" which can get some getting used to
At the end of the day, i like the fact that google offers a free alternative, just as they do with services such as Android. Yes gmail and the such offer a good chunk of mobileme's functionality (but not all) at a tempting price point (cant beat free) but it does come at a moral cost where you are allowing them to index and prune your email and data, thats the trade-off you make with google when you make use of such services. If you are okay with that then no worries, if your the kind of guy who puts tin-foil around your head to stop "the ones above" reading your thoughts then your probably best seeking professional advice and medication...
Saying the above, i do think mobileme has a few flaws that apple either are or should be working on pronto:
- MobileMe has been known for its random outages at times, limited but they do happen.
- It can be a little sluggish at times, but i havent noticed any issues since their last update a few months back.
- I wish they would introduce threaded conversations into MobileMe's Web Mail.
MobileMe does offer a free trial for a 2 month period, nothing beats giving a service a spin than to try it yourself. If you like it and feel it offers greater functionality or usability over gmail then you can always buy it, if its not for you then stick with what you know works.
Hope that helps, its just my view on the service, on a personal view mobileme works for my needs, i pay for it and use it daily with little issues. It performs as i would expect but as i said earlier, it could do with a few tweaks
Just as Weaselboy pointed out, if you are going to make a switch, then make sure you pick up a copy off amazon, ebay or the likes as it will be far cheaper.
Cheers!
Maxus
