A new batch of problems for the already plagued service seem to have started in the late morning for some, including intermittent timeouts and issues accessing the accounts on desktop mail.

The majority of the problems seemed to be for most between about 3:00 and 6:00 pm EDT Monday. During that period, a message also appeared on the MobileMe status page, saying "MobileMe members may be unable to access MobileMe Mail. Service will be restored ASAP. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Some also experienced problems accessing Mail on the iPhone and on the web, although other MobileMe services continued to operate.

Apple said that service was stabilized late last month, after a multitude of problems following the MobileMe launch on July 11. It said it hoped to have "put the vast majority of problems behind us" so it could focus on bettering the service.

Similar problems also appeared to occur on Friday afternoon as well, though they may have been centered around an issue with how the desktop mail app was handling MobileMe's use of SSL.

No doubt, users were once again up in arms over this latest bout of issues. "I give up. I've had enough," poster MacPhelim wrote in the Apple support forums. "I will no longer use MobileMe for e-mail and I may cancel it altogether. The features are nice but the flakiness is just too much."

Others who had planned to use a Gmail account for backup were struck twice -- that service also went down for about two hours.

Apple did not make any kind of official statement regarding the downtimes on either Friday or Monday. A blog it said it would use to discuss MobileMe issues has not been updated since July 29.