RSSApple comes clean on MobileMe problems, marketing
By Ed Oswald | Published July 16, 2008, 11:44 AM
In an e-mail to customers, Apple admitted it had problems with its MobileMe launch last week, and is prepared to compensate them for lost time. Marketing of the service is also set to change.
"We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped," Apple said in an e-mail to customers.
While services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery seemed to roll off generally without a hitch, remaining services such as Contacts and Calendar worked sporadically -- if at all -- for hours after the launch.
At times on launch day, the service was completely unavailable, with consumers only able to access their mail accounts through desktop clients. The issues seemed to clear up late in the day on Friday, but the aggravation left many consumers with bad feelings.
Apple is apparently not tone-deaf to these concerns. Thus the company has announced a 30-day extension of MobileMe memberships. Most customers would be eligible for the program.
If your account was active prior to July 9, 2008, or you registered for your account before July 15 at 7:00 pm PDT, a 30-day extension will be added on to your subscription period. However, if you registered or were in your free trial period, the extension will be added to the trial period.
Extensions should be applied to all accounts within "the next few weeks," Apple said.
The company also said that accounts that had expired before that July 15 deadline have been reactivated in order to apply the 30-day extension. If consumers still wish to cancel, they could do so.
Apple is also removing all references to push from its marketing materials, likely in response to criticism over its syncing methods, which aren't so instantaneous as the company had first advertised.
"Even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word 'push' until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too," it said in the e-mail.
Yep, here's the full letter I received:
mobileme
MobileMe services are now available.
We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.
Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery 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.
Another snag we have run into is our use of the word "push" in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe "cloud," changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word "push" until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.
We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.
We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.
Thank you,
The MobileMe Team
Please review the MobileMe Terms of Service.*
Of course we forgive you Apple. Thank you for giving us a virus and spyware free experience and most importantly, bringing the world out of the stone ages of computing.
http://www.apple.com/education/it/video.html
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"Of course we forgive you Apple. Thank you for giving us a virus and spyware free experience and most importantly, bringing the world out of the stone ages of computing."
damn, that's sad
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Paul Skinner
The canceled from paying a subscription, which is still canceled.
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All IT people should push for this.. When it doesn't work you get the day off..
saas breaks and everyone at the office gets a day off
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Apple admits MobileMe FAIL
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No, they have admitted to a MobileMe ruff start. :)
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"The company also said that accounts that had expired before that July 15 deadline have been reactivated in order to apply the 30-day extension. If consumers still wish to cancel, they could do so."
Erm... but what about the ones who have clicked cancel once already. They're going to think they've already done it.
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