MobileMe Team Apologizes for Problems Updating Data
Date : 16 Jul 2008 Category : Technology
NewsFactor NetworkThe company fielded a torrent of criticism from end-users. An e-mail from the MobileMe team on Tuesday read in part:
"Although core services ... went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe Web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the Web apps are now up and running."
As a goodwill gesture, Apple is extending customer subscriptions by 30 days. According to the e-mail, subscribers should see the credited time on their next statements. According to a FAQ on Apple's Web site, customers are eligible if they subscribed to its earlier .Mac service before July 9 or created a new MobileMe account before Tuesday at 7 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.
Push Needs a Shove
Most affected were syncs between iPhones and desktops. The service had advertised push technology that implied any change made in applications on one device would automatically be pushed out to the users' other devices. But push needed a shove, according to user complaints. iPhone and Web-based apps did propagate properly, but Mac and PC desktop changes were less than automatic. According to one user's post on Apple's support Web site:
"If I make a change on the MobileMe Web contacts, my Macs will update pretty quickly, but if I make a change to my contacts on my Mac, nothing happens until I manually initiate a sync, even though I have MobileMe sync set to Automatic ... I was under the impression the way everything was explained was that all the data was going to be stored server side...