who's using mobile.me, is it worth it?

[flyboybiker]

So I'm hoping to get my first Iphone tomorrow, and I'm wondering about mobile me, is it worth the 100 bucks a year? and if so, why?
I'm just trying to learn more about it. I understand that it will keep my mbp and phone in sync, but if I plug it in every once in a while it will too. Is there a significant advantage to the email use?

Thanks for your help.
Newbie

 

[Zincous]

The auto syncing of contacts over the air is awesome for me, never have to worry about losing them. (Restores, stolen, etc..)

The email is nice to get them pushed to the iphone, but I think you can get other accounts pushed as well. So I don't know if it's an advantage, but it sure is nice to have it all bundled together with everything else.

Find my iPhone is why I got the service. For that 'Just in Case' situation, I want to be able to know where it is I guess.

I also used it to try out creating a website with the extra GB's I had from iDisk, that was a fun thing to try out.

I really like mobileme, I wouldn't go back to not using it, definitely worth it for me. Also for that feeling of knowing I'm not missing out on anything that the iPhone has to offer that I'm not taking advantage of.

 

[Dxs016]

Yes

I love mobileme. Having the ability to sync all my contacts book marks between my apple hardware and Microsoft based machines is unreal. I couldnt live without it. I also use the idisk a lot for business. and sometimes like this morning i loose the iphone down the back of the sofa and need the find my iphone to locate it. comes in handy.

What i done was purchase a serial code from ebay which was £20 cheaper than purchasing directly from apple. Look into it.

Dean

 

[macduke]

BUY ON AMAZON. It's like 70 bucks, the same thing, you just type in the code they send you in a box. I actually need to do that soon to renew. I was holding out to see if any of the features of MM became free at this event, but I guess not.

MM is great. It started off pretty crappy, but It's been fairly solid since then. Keeps me all square between my Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Pushes mail, calendars, contacts. Hosts my website (even using a top-level domain). Only downside to website hosting is it can't run server-side scripts, so I might move on from that soon as I'm currently redesigning my site to something a bit more complex. Email aliases are really great too, as you can make up to five extra account names, and all the mail comes to your main inbox. But it's great for when you don't trust sites, or want to post something on Craigslist temporarily, and don't want to get SPAM. You can delete the alias, and poof, SPAM gone!

Find my iPhone is nice, even for when you just lose it in your house. You can set off an alarm that will help you find it, even if the phone is muted. Gallery is nice for throwing together some quick photo galleries for family. Bookmark syncing is nice too, especially in class when the prof mentions a site, I can quickly add it to my iPhone and it shows up later on my Mac. The MM website has saved my butt a few times, especially for when I backup important files to my iDisk and need to access them remotely. I've also used my iDisk to host large files, which I can set a password on and give to clients to download the zipped design packages I've done for them. Nice and surprisingly professional.

Bottom line: Totally worth $70/yr, or $5.83/mo. That's nothing. Like a coffee. Only far more useful, even with a kind of stupid name. Love it!

 

[iggypod]

Yes! I just bought it recently from amazon for $50.

 

[maflynn]

I'm wondering about mobile me, is it worth the 100 bucks a year? and if so, why?

Worth is a subjective quality. Some people feel that spending 100 dollars a year is a good value for you what you get, others don't.

I've been a mobileme user, since it was called iTools and it was free. Given my email address has remained unchanged since that day makes it something I'd rather not give up. So while there are other features of mobileme that is nice. I end up paying the amount because I'd rather not change my email address.

 

[OllyW]

I've had it for nearly 6 years and think it's well worth the money I've paid for it*, especially with the tight integration with my Macs and my iPhone.

*I've never paid more than 50% of the list price. My last one cost only £15.

 

[wirelessmacuser]

I use MobileMe and I do rely on it. The convenience of having all my computers & data in sync is nice. I have a very dynamic contact list. MobileMe updates pretty quickly, thus after i add a new contact its automatically populated in every computer i have in my system. While it's not the only way to accomplish that, I've been using it for so long it's just part of my setup.

I find it rather overpriced, however it's a price I'm willing to pay.

 

[barachus]

I love mobileme. Having the ability to sync all my contacts book marks between my apple hardware and Microsoft based machines is unreal. I couldnt live without it. I also use the idisk a lot for business. and sometimes like this morning i loose the iphone down the back of the sofa and need the find my iphone to locate it. comes in handy.

What i done was purchase a serial code from ebay which was £20 cheaper than purchasing directly from apple. Look into it.

Dean

what? it actually told you the phone was down the back of the sofa??
this beats simply calling it and listening out for the ring!

if thats the case i need to get myself a subscription immediately!

 

[ghostlyorb]

I only got it because I wanted the "find my iPhone" feature... but I found out after I got a new iPhone that having MM and how it will upload all of your contacts right to your phone, right after you get it... made it amazing. If you get a new iPhone, get MM today and set your contacts for sync. It's well worth the money.

 

[samcraig]

can you still buy the older version box and use it - I see Amazon has the old version of mobileme for $56 and the next price jump is 65 for a new version. I remember reading that it didn't matter - but wanted to confirm if this was still true...

 

[Irish Rose]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A400 Safari/6531.22.7)

Yes! I just bought it recently from amazon for $50.

I just got it from eBay for $50.

 

[detroit1]

what? it actually told you the phone was down the back of the sofa??
this beats simply calling it and listening out for the ring!

if thats the case i need to get myself a subscription immediately!

you can play a sound on it...

 

[malnar]

I guess I'll be the one dissenter and say "No, it's not worth it." Not for the price, anyway. If it was a very low price, yes, it would be fine. I'd pay a small amount, but not $100, and even the $65 I paid for it on Amazon is too pricey. What did I use it for? Syncing contacts and two vacations where I uploaded our pictures to MM for family to see, uploading files from work to access at home, and very occasionally to see where my wife was when she was late using Find My Iphone. I didn't renew in August when it ran out, and now I'm using Dropbox (free) for files and Flickr (free or $25 for a pro account) for photos, both of which have apps that are well integrated into the Iphone and Ipad as well as the Mac. The only thing I slightly miss is Find My Iphone, just for the concern of "what if?" And I can't justify paying for that alone, unfortunately.

 

[Small White Car]

It's nice if you have a a Mac and an iPhone.

It's a MUST if you have multiple Macs.

But you don't, so I can't tell you what to do. The way I see it, even at full price (which is easy to avoid) it's still less than $9 a month. That's not an amount of money that bothers me.

I like a lot of things about MobileMe and others have said them already, but the ONE thing I really think you should focus on is its ability to remotely sync Safari bookmarks between Mac and phone. That's one of those things that you don't think about but it will be SO useful many, many times. Those times add up. It's worth it.

Oh, and even though I pay for MobileMe I don't use iDisk. Get Dropbox, it's way, way better. There's nothing saying you have to use every part of MobileMe. I think everyone only uses 50% of its features. It's just that we all use different parts.

If you can find 3 things you like (out of its dozen or so features) then I'd say it's worth the money. I can list 4 things I like and many other features I don't care about. But that's worth it to me.

 

[annk]

You're not alone malnar. I had mobile me/.Mac from 2004 - 2009. I finally gave it up in favor of syncing iCal and my contacts with Google calendar/contacts (Spanning Sync with a lifetime subscription, think it was about 65 bucks). I also use Dropbox and love it. Sync my bookmarks with Google. I sync between my iMac, my hackbook, and my android phone. At work on a Windows box I can access my files via Dropbox and my calender/contacts via Google (or my phone).

I was very hesitant to give it up, but haven't regretted it at all.

 

[Brinkman]

All I want is for Apple to allow syncing over wifi. That would negate me ever wanting mobile.me.

 

[Mliii]

Like someone else here posted, I've had it since it was free and called iTools. I like it a lot and use many of the features.
Syncing is huge. And I DO use my iDisk even though I also have a Dropbox account.
Buy if from e-bay or Amazon or somewhere else if the money is an issue. Usually means it nets out to well under $8 a month if you purchase it that way and that makes it well worth the money!

 

[dav146]

I have a mac and an iPhone. The seem-less sync between them is awesome.

There are pretty easy ways to sync gmail with my devices, but I love how easy setting up mobileme really is. The update to my other devices when I make a change is pretty instantaneous.

I'd rather pay £5 per month for ease. Paying £60 per year feels a little steep at the time it is due!

 

[SpaceKitty]

I've been using MM for the past two years and I'm trying to make up my mind on renewing in two weeks. I use it for mail and contacts.

I tried syncing contacts with Gmail but Gmail doesn't allow custom labels like MM does for different numbers for the same contact. That reason might make me renew.

I never remember I have a .mac address anymore, it's always .me.

 

[GooMan]

To me it's not worth the price. I've tried it and just don't use any of the functionality. Playing around with Find My iPhone was kind of cool but its not worth it just for that. Even if it were free I probably would not use it. Just my $.02

 

[molala]

How did you manage this? Sure would like to know how to get discounts, I've had mobile me from the very beginning (since it was mac.com and free). I set mine to autorenew every year so they charge me full price.

I've had it for nearly 6 years and think it's well worth the money I've paid for it*, especially with the tight integration with my Macs and my iPhone.

*I've never paid more than 50% of the list price. My last one cost only £15.

 

[WhySoSerious]

So I'm hoping to get my first Iphone tomorrow, and I'm wondering about mobile me, is it worth the 100 bucks a year? and if so, why?
I'm just trying to learn more about it. I understand that it will keep my mbp and phone in sync, but if I plug it in every once in a while it will too. Is there a significant advantage to the email use?

Thanks for your help.
Newbie

I've been using MobileMe since 2007 and I will never stop using it so long as I have an iPhone (and I'll always use an iPhone unless Apple stops making them).

Mobileme + iPhone + Mac = total bliss

get it

 

[OllyW]

How did you manage this? Sure would like to know how to get discounts, I've had mobile me from the very beginning (since it was mac.com and free). I set mine to autorenew every year so they charge me full price.

Mainly on eBay, you can easily get a box off there for around £25 if you are patient. Set up a saved search and eBay will send you an email when new listings appear and lookout for ones that finish late at night or very early in the morning.

I also had a free copy after I got stuck in the Bullring Apple Store for 9 hours on the launch day of the iPhone 3G and the last one I bought was an old boxed .Mac which still activated.

 

[SAD*FACED*CLOWN]

I only use it for the free two month trial which allows me to sync contacts and use find my iphone for free...I don't think these two services are worth $100 a year though so that's why I use the trials