mobileme windows outlook sync - Steve should fire someone

[3141]

OK. Here's the set up.
Personal - all on Mac
Work - in outlook 2010 on windows 7 (on fusion)

Mail - more or less works but haven't found out how to get aliases to work without creating lots of the same inbox in outlook (even when using scheduler). So just go with work email alias in Outlook. Not too much of a problem.

Calendar - what a mess
If handle meeting request in Outlook (which is great in this respect) and I create appointment there then it goes to the Outlook default calendar. This doesn't sync with MM so no reminders or visibility in mac environment or more importantly on iphone. If I change default calendar in Outlook, I lose ability to manage tasks etc in Outlook. One solution is to share outlook calendar and receive as a shared calendar in Mac (but does not sync to iphone)
If I accept under Mac Mail then more or less OK with @me.com mail but does not sync to Outlook. If has been sent to a pop3 account, then can not use MM calendars so does not sync to iphone - not acceptable.
Finally can not control which calendars are synced (at either end) or what gets written where when syncing so lose data and get stuff I don't want.

Contacts - given up
Contacts seem to be held in different formats. Information like emails does not get across properly and by the time the second sync happens the emails get deleted from Mac contacts as well. Deleted contacts reappear, current contacts get updated without out of date information ... Just need to do changes in both systems - a pain but more or less OK as don't change that often.

then to add insult to injury, the mobileme sync in windows is running at 100% of cpu so I've had to disable that as well.

By the way - I don't have exchange server.

This is definitely not something that "just works".

Thoughts?

 

[eawmp1]

You are asking Apple to sync with a non-Apple product. There may be glitches, but that is hardly Apple's fault alone. This is why the "walled garden" approach works well, within the garden, of course.

Did you follow all of the steps in this support page? http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2483

 

[3141]

I agree that a major advantage of Apple is that it controls the operating system and how it is used which tends to minimise conflicts etc. Although that being said there are still bugs that get through even in a Mac environment with Mac programs (like mailboxes getting corrupted).

The point here though is that mobileme is meant to be a cross platform cloud based service. And it is competing with other services. For example Dropbox delivers an identical user experience across platforms - all your data is just sitting there. Microsoft now has 365 in Beta. Apple by providing such a poorly thought out offering is loosing ground. The majority of iphone users sync through Google.

It is not that difficult to fix. There are industry standards for email, calendars and contacts. It is also not that challenging to strengthen the options for syncing. e.g. how to map fields (or at least the ability to review/change default mapping), selection of which calendars or address books you want to sync, more user options for the management of conflicts (accept, take data from Mobileme, don't sync this record).

Apple is famous for it's meticulous attention to detail, going that extra mile and giving us something magical. This services is not up to current offerings and is behind how the market is moving. If I were Steve Jobs I would not want to put my name on this service.