MobileMe on iPhone browser?

[Mr Skills]

Is there any way of getting MobileMe to work on Safari on the iPhone or iPod touch? At the moment, it comes up with a page telling you to use the built-in apps.

The problem is, I can't check my email on a friend's iPhone if I'm out and about.

 

[mrtune]

I don't believe there is a way to do that. Apple just assumes that if you are using MobileMe that you already have a iPhone or iPod Touch.

 

[msmith2112]

I just found out today that you CAN view your me.com gallery on an iPhone.

Just go to http://gallery.me.com/yourusername from your iPhone. It looks just like the Photos app on your iPhone.

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

I can't check my email on a friend's iPhone if I'm out and about.

I don't think your situation is common (or lucrative) enough for Apple to expend resources to make a mobile version of the entire MobileMe site. They would rather you just bought your own iPhone.

 

[Manzana]

Actually I think of many situations where you might want access to me.com on an iphone. It should work, I mean it is a full web browser right? There is no valid reason as to why it doesn't work.

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

Actually I think of many situations where you might want access to me.com on an iphone. It should work, I mean it is a full web browser right? There is no valid reason as to why it doesn't work.

Other than to view a gallery, what would you want to do on me.com that you can't do on your iPhone?

 

[arkitect]

Other than to view a gallery, what would you want to do on me.com that you can't do on your iPhone?

Well, you cannot access any of your account details or settings.
Admittedly not an every day use, but still…

 

[Mr Skills]

Other than to view a gallery, what would you want to do on me.com that you can't do on your iPhone?

I don't have an iPhone, but I have friends who do. I just want to check my email on their phones.

I don't think your situation is common (or lucrative) enough for Apple to expend resources to make a mobile version of the entire MobileMe site.

I don't want a special mobile version. I just want to be able to access the site at all.

 

[jc1350]

Actually I think of many situations where you might want access to me.com on an iphone. It should work, I mean it is a full web browser right? There is no valid reason as to why it doesn't work.

yes, it is a full web browser. but, not everything on the web IS html. Garbage like Flash requires a third party program like Adobe Flash Player. Flash Player has absolutely nothing to do with a web browser; it's just that there are plug-ins for a lot of browsers to so that the browser can hand-off the flash file to the flash player program, but display it within the web browser window.

Despite what the UK government seems to think, Apple did NOT misrepresent the iPhone's web browser. It IS a fully compliant browser. Remove Adobe flash from your system or simply remove the plug-in and see how well Firefox, IE, et al won't handle flash pages.

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

I don't have an iPhone, but I have friends who do. I just want to check my email on their phones.

Again, I doubt Apple cares much about people who want to use others' iPhones to access their accounts. They'd rather have you buy an iPhone yourself than make it easier for you to access your information at their expense.

I don't want a special mobile version. I just want to be able to access the site at all.

It would have to be a special version because the current one won't work on the iPhone.

 

[Manzana]

Other than to view a gallery, what would you want to do on me.com that you can't do on your iPhone?

the problem here is if you're using someone else's phone. My wife does not have one and she has a me.com address and it would be nice if she could just log on using the browser. Yes, I could add a mail account for her but would be easier to just log in using safari.

I think this is pretty basic stuff right?

yes, it is a full web browser. but, not everything on the web IS html. Garbage like Flash requires a third party program like Adobe Flash Player. Flash Player has absolutely nothing to do with a web browser; it's just that there are plug-ins for a lot of browsers to so that the browser can hand-off the flash file to the flash player program, but display it within the web browser window.

so me.com is flash?

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

the problem here is if you're using someone else's phone. My wife does not have one and she has a me.com address and it would be nice if she could just log on using the browser. Yes, I could add a mail account for her but would be easier to just log in using safari.

I think this is pretty basic stuff right?

Something tells me Apple doesn't care if your wife can't access her email from a phone they don't make (and that isn't even hers).

so me.com is flash?

Javascript.

 

[Mr Skills]

Again, I doubt Apple cares much about people who want to use others' iPhones to access their accounts. They'd rather have you buy an iPhone yourself than make it easier for you to access your information at their expense.

Well if they're advertising that you can use the whole of the web but you can't access their own site...

It would have to be a special version because the current one won't work on the iPhone.

Why not? It's done in JavaScript isn't it? The iPhone works with Javascript.

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

Why not? It's done in JavaScript isn't it? The iPhone works with Javascript.

Sorry, I meant Java (not Javascript).

 

[Mr Skills]

Sorry, I meant Java (not Javascript).

I think you were right first time - MobileMe uses SproutCore which is based on Javascript. So it should display on an iPhone...

 

[Mr Skills]

I've found a partial solution - you can access MobileMe email through Mail2Web.

 

[danny_w]

I've found a partial solution - you can access MobileMe email through Mail2Web.

To me that is not a valid solution b/c you must give them you email and password - I don't want to give my information to random third parties. I haven't heard anything bad about them yet, but how do I know they are trustworthy?

 

[kolax]

Apple should allow an optional way of checking our emails on a web browser - a light option, that doesn't have all the Web 2.0 beauty, but just a basic way of checking your email.

That way you can check your email where ever you go, let it be older web browsers or an iPhone.

 

[danny_w]

Apple should allow an optional way of checking our emails on a web browser - a light option, that doesn't have all the Web 2.0 beauty, but just a basic way of checking your email.

That way you can check your email where ever you go, let it be older web browsers or an iPhone.

Amen to that! In the rush to add all of the "Web 2.0 beauty" they left behind a very large number of users that must at least occasionally check their email from a non-supported browser. Many people can't change their computer configurations at work, and nobody can make changes to computers at hotels and internet cafes what are these people supposed to do? It makes MobileMe look mighty dumb when all of their free competitors can do this but the fancy paid service is not smart enough to figure it out. Nevermind the technical reasons for it, they won't matter to the average user who is just trying to access their email on while on a trip overseas.

 

[Mr Skills]

Amen to that! In the rush to add all of the "Web 2.0 beauty" they left behind a very large number of users that must at least occasionally check their email from a non-supported browser.

Tell me about it. My parents went on holiday to Spain and only had access to a company PC laptop with IE6. They are not good with computers. I had to talk my stressed-out father through the process of downloading and installing Firefox, and all the time he was asking why he was paying for this service when "Gmail worked fine".

The average punter does not understand that there is some deeper reason for dropping support for older browsers. They just understand that they CAN access their hotmail or GMail, but CAN'T access their (expensive) MobileMe.

It would really make sense to have a simple HTML-only option.



(On a side-note, I still don't understand why the full site won't work on an iPhone, if it's just javascript?)

 

[Saladinos]

SproutCore (the platform MobileMe is created with) does work on MobileSafari on the iPhone. See here (slide 29)

I don't know why Apple stop people using it. There's no technical reason for that decision.

As far as a basic version of MobileMe goes, there really is no point:
- If on Linux, most systems have Firefox or a Webkit-based browser, and will work.
- If on Windows, you can download portableFirefox, which doesn't require installation and can be run from a USB key. Internet Explorer is better supported with the latest versions of SproutCore, so Windows users should see support once Apple upgrade.
- If on a Mac, just use Safari.

SproutCore works with low-bandwidth connections much better than a web 1.0 interface would do (see the above slides), so that's also not a reason for downgrading the experience.

 

[tallyho]

Despite what the UK government seems to think, Apple did NOT misrepresent the iPhone's web browser. It IS a fully compliant browser. Remove Adobe flash from your system or simply remove the plug-in and see how well Firefox, IE, et al won't handle flash pages.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. 1) The Advertising Standards Agency ruling you're referring to has nothing to do with the UK government
2) The advert was about the iPhone, not "the iPhone's web browser". Like it or not (and I don't, particularly), Flash is effectively a de facto standard for delivery of embedded web video etc. Yes it would be better if web sites used other methods, but the fact is most of them don't, and so with no Flash support, iPhone browsing usually leads to many pages where you cannot access embedded video clips.

Of course you are right that mobile Safari is standards compliant. The problem is that the advert was phrased in layperson's language ("the whole of the internet"), and once you make statements like that, you can't weasel your way out of them on technicalities.

 

[klmckenzie03]

I am not sure if this is just a fluke or not but I was able to access the MobileMe web interface via Safari on my iPhone just now. I have a first gen iPhone running the latest (crap) software version. I was never able to access this via Safari until now. It was kind of by mistake that I noticed this as well. While attempting to tap another bookmark the thing froze up and I accidentally clicked the MM link instead.

So, I'm not sure if this works for everyone now but I can confirm it worked for me today...

 

[milani]

Actually I think of many situations where you might want access to me.com on an iphone. It should work, I mean it is a full web browser right? There is no valid reason as to why it doesn't work.

Well one valid reason would be that the Ajax is likely WAY too complicated for the phone's browser to handle in any quick fashion (it'll probably be horribly slow to load from 3G or God forbid Edge), and another would be that it would be way too difficult (in its current form) to effectively navigate on a small screen. Making a mobile version of Me would require a top down redesign, and at this point I think everyone would rather Apple focus on getting the desktop version ironed out.