The future of Mobile Me - New features and improvements

[loveapple89776]

Since the mobile me was launched I have been using the service. Though there were the original issues affecting its launch, these have now mostly all been resolved I am extremely happy with the services that mobile me currently provides.

I was wondering though where mobile me will go to from here, what new features can be added and improvements that can be made.

Here are a few of my ideas.

1. Notes, iCal has notes, the ipod/iphone and microsoft outlook all have the notes feature, so it seems logical to me that they should all sync on mobile me and be viewable using the web apps.

2. to-dos, don't appear to currently sync. I have them on Outlook, mobile me calander and iCal. Can these be made to sync with each other and a to-do list on ipod/iphone calander or as seperate app to keep them all in sync as-well.

3. Bookmarks, bring back the old feature of being able to view your bookmarks on the web.

4. Calander. Subscribe to other peoples calanders using mobile me and syncing them would be another great feature.

5. Family pack meaning just that. If the family pack could interact with each others accounts. Email kept seperate. Central shared contacts list aswell as own individual list. Same with calanders, photo albums. iDisk space, each have individual space as well as a shared disk.


What do you all think about these ideas, or are there other future improvements you would like to see?

 

[robbieduncan]

0. Server-side rules.

I have lots of folders and rules on my Mac to filter mail into the folders. This works fine on the mac but I can't see any of it on the web or my iPhone. I can add folders on the server and then see the folders on all 3, but the rules are only on the Mac so the filtering only works when my Mac is switched on, not asleep and connected to the internet. Server-side rules would fix all of that.

Couple this with an archiving feature in Mail.app to grab messages from the server-side folders to on-my-Mac folders once they reach a certain age to prevent all the server space getting used up and we are getting somewhere...

 

[kolax]

Mac OS X 10.5.5 looks like it could provide push support for iCal and Address Book. That will be a massive boost.

Steve said he wants this to be a service they are proud of by the end of this year, so I'm sure we'll see more features added and consistency too.

 

[robbieduncan]

Mac OS X 10.5.5 looks like it could provide push support for iCal and Address Book. That will be a massive boost.

I'm 99% certain that already works. It certainly seems to work for me. It can take a little while for changes on my Mac to get pushed to the Mobile Me servers, but once there it gets pushed to my iPhone pretty much instantly...

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

I'm 99% certain that already works. It certainly seems to work for me. It can take a little while for changes on my Mac to get pushed to the Mobile Me servers, but once there it gets pushed to my iPhone pretty much instantly...

That's not push...

 

[robbieduncan]

That's not push...

Why? Push does not mean instant. Push means that the changes are pushed out as they happen, rather than pulled down via a regular polling.

It is very unlikely that the Mobile Me servers are polling every Mac connected to the service: they would have to track the Macs IP addresses as they changed. More likely the Macs are pushing the data to Mobile Me: the IP never changes and this is more efficient. The delay is most likely at the Mobile Me server end: each pushed change will be in a queue and the server(s) may not be able to keep up with the volume of changes hence the delay.

Of course if 10.5.5 reduces or eliminates the delay that would be great, but it seems unlikely to me...

 

[loveapple89776]

Back to the original point of the thread, what features and improvements would you like to see in the future?

 

[kolax]

Why? Push does not mean instant. Push means that the changes are pushed out as they happen, rather than pulled down via a regular polling.

It is very unlikely that the Mobile Me servers are polling every Mac connected to the service: they would have to track the Macs IP addresses as they changed. More likely the Macs are pushing the data to Mobile Me: the IP never changes and this is more efficient. The delay is most likely at the Mobile Me server end: each pushed change will be in a queue and the server(s) may not be able to keep up with the volume of changes hence the delay.

Of course if 10.5.5 reduces or eliminates the delay that would be great, but it seems unlikely to me...

Push means that as soon as they do something, such as creating a new event in iCal, it is instantly sent to the server. That happens with the iPhone and MobileMe.com, not currently not with our Macs. Data is pushed to the Mac, but not pushed from the Mac to MobileMe.

Currently, your Mac will sync with MobileMe every 15 minutes, and any newly changed data on your Mac will be sent to MobileMe. This is not pushing at all. However, any data updated on MobileMe or your iPhone will be pushed to your Mac instantly.

It looks like 10.5.5 will provide full push support for iCal and Address Book.

 

[robbieduncan]

Back to the original point of the thread, what features and improvements would you like to see in the future?

Well I'd still like a web Back To My Mac viewer. So any computer I am on I can log into Mobile Me and control the screen of my Back To My Mac computers.

Back To My Mac is cool and all but you need a Leopard based Mac (that you can change the settings in the Mobile Me preferences pane on) to use it. Most Internet cafes etc run Windows. A Java based web client for Back To My Mac would get round this...

Edit to add:

Push means that as soon as they do something, it is instantly sent to the server.

This is getting off topic but I would disagree. There are two methods of synchronisation possible: push and pull. Push means that the device that knows of the change pushes the change to another device. Pull means that the other device polls and pulls down changes when it finds some. Time does not come into this. Push can be instant, or after some time: it's still being pushed to Mobile Me, not Mobile Me pulling it.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

This is getting off topic but I would disagree. There are two methods of synchronisation possible: push and pull. Push means that the device that knows of the change pushes the change to another device. Pull means that the other device polls and pulls down changes when it finds some. Time does not come into this. Push can be instant, or after some time: it's still being pushed to Mobile Me, not Mobile Me pulling it.

Push is instantaneous. Syncing is how it's been since Leopard came out. Apple says they intend to have the Macs Push to MobileMe, but it has yet to be implemented.

 

[paulsalter]

Similar to the thread starter

1. To Do Syncing
2. Notes Syncing

Next ones wont happen, its just wishful thinking

3. Compatibility with all browsers (even if its a very basic service)
4. The option to keep .Mac address for apps (iPhoto/iWeb insist on using .Me)
5. Change the name, I hate MobileMe

 

[kolax]

This is getting off topic but I would disagree. There are two methods of synchronisation possible: push and pull. Push means that the device that knows of the change pushes the change to another device. Pull means that the other device polls and pulls down changes when it finds some. Time does not come into this. Push can be instant, or after some time: it's still being pushed to Mobile Me, not Mobile Me pulling it.

It isn't off topic - this whole push fiasco has been in discussion ever since MobileMe got released. It was one of the original advertised features and Apple admitted in an email to MobileMe customers that they shouldn't have used the word push so much when advertising it and demoing it.

I think you need to do some research on Push and Syncing.

 

[Daveoc64]

It isn't off topic - this whole push fiasco has been in discussion ever since MobileMe got released. It was one of the original advertised features and Apple admitted in an email to MobileMe customers that they shouldn't have used the word push so much when advertising it and demoing it.

I think you need to do some research on Push and Syncing.

Yes.

Apple admitted that it had incorrectly marketed the service and that it would be changing all of its marketing to reflect this (specifically mentioning that they'd change marketing until the service performed as previously advertised).

As such, iCal and Address book do not meet the widely accepted definition of "Push" and this was one of a few reasons Apple gave for the free extension.

As for all of the other suggestions in this thread, they look good so far.

 

[Virgil-TB2]

fix it *before* you "improve" it

... what new features can be added and improvements that can be made.
...

IMO the biggest thing they could do to improve MobileMe, is simply to make it work.

Yesterday my email was out for two hours when the MobileMe website said that everything was "working fine." When they finally put up a notice about how "some" people had "some" email difficulty, they claimed it was already fixed. Needless to say it wasn't for me.

Over an hour later, regular email service was restored (an hour *after* they said it was already fixed), making the outage three hours in total.

Today, I have been testing the service by sending emails to myself with attachments of various sizes. Three of the five emails I have sent disappeared without a trace. Completely gone form all servers and computers with no record at all. No error messages, just gone. One of the three emails showed up (paradoxically), only in the (second of two) "sent" mailboxes on my iPod, but *not* in the sent box of any other client or of MobileMe. WTF?!

The two emails that successfully recorded themselves as "sent" on my Mail.app client arrived both at MobileMe, and on my iPod and showed up as both sent and received in both cases. However, the attachments (1 @ 1.8MB, 1 @ 5MB), were not in evidence.

On the iPod, using WiFi, in my own living room, it took exactly 36 minutes to download and show the 1.8MB attachment and the larger one refused to download at all.

So yeah, the email outage is "fixed" as long as you don't need attachments!

 

[loveapple89776]

New features to improve mobile me in the future

I have now been using mobile me since it was released. I have, like everyone else suffered from the various problems that have affected its release. Now most of these problems have sorted out. I find that the services provided already are great.

There are many new features which could be included in the service. This thread is a discussion about what features we would like to see and whether we think they are good and possible. Please don't talk about the current problems with the service and features that are not working properly, this is for the new things that could be added, not for complaining.

Here are a few ideas for the future that have been brought up by people:

1. To do notes syncing. iCal, outlook and mobile me web can all handle to-dos so why wont they sync. Also they should create an app or section in the calander for the ipod/iphone to allow them to sync with it aswell.

2. Notes syncing, available on iCal, outlook and iphone/touch, should be able to sync and be available online.

3. Bookmarks being available to view from mobile me website.

4. Mail, option to have server-side filtering rules. On my mac i have rules to send email to different inboxes, these should be synced with mobile me, iphone and outlook, etc.

5. Family pack meaning just that. If the family pack could interact with each others accounts. Email kept seperate. Central shared contacts list aswell as own individual list. Same with calanders, photo albums. iDisk space, each have individual space as well as a shared disk.

6. Calander subscriptions being synced.

7. Updates to desktops so that any changes are also pushed to mac or pc.

8. A back to my mac viewer available throught the mobile me web, using a java web based client allowing you to view mac from internet cafe, etc.


What do you think? Are they possible or do you have any other ideas?

 

[robbieduncan]

Do you really need to start another thread. What's wrong with the other thread you started.

Apart from, obviously, you can take the ideas other people posted in that thread, add them to your list and claim them as "a few of my ideas for the future".

I've reported this thread to the Moderators to get merged to the existing one.

 

[loveapple89776]

edited

 

[loveapple89776]

idisk for ipod touch/iphone

I am currently a university student by the way. A lot of the information that I need for my university courses is given to us in microsoft word docs or pdfs. I have all these stored on my laptop and on iDisk. I currently use the app 'files' to send these files to my ipod to view when I need them.

If they could create an app for the iphone, that connected to your idisk and allowed you to download/open your documents would be a great addition I think. The ipod can cope with the files as I already 'files' for opening pdfs, word docs but a native idisk application would be better.

 

[Doctor Q]

We've merged the two threads.

 

[TLewis]

IMO the biggest thing they could do to improve MobileMe, is simply to make it work.

Agreed. Apple first needs to address reliability, security, and speed.