Stan's List

Attempting to do damage control, Apple is providing MobileMe status updates. The first status report is dated Friday, and states a further update for this weekend, and update about every two days.

The report includes details of the mail outage caused by a server blocking certain members, even permanently loosing email. Also, some details of the launch difficulties, and as guessed, Apple failed to anticipate the level of traffic. Increasing server capacity and fixing over 70 bugs likely contributed to more reliable operation a couple of days later.

The page has an RSS feed, which I recommend MobileMe members use as you can see when new posts are made.

Apple Care: If one or more of your Safari Bookmarks is an RSS feed, MobileMe Sync will not sync the number of read/unread articles between Mac OS X 10.4 and Mac OS X 10.5.

This is an airplane that’s stuck on the runway for hours with no food or working bathroom. And the pilot doesn’t come on the P.A. system to tell the customers what the problem is, what’s being done to fix it, how much longer they might be stuck, and how he empathizes with their plight. Instead, he comes on once every three hours to repeat the same thing: ‘We apologize for the inconvenience.’ MobileMess, indeed. New York Times: Pogue’s Posts

In an acknowledgement that the introduction was bungled, Apple states you qualify for the extension if you meet one of the following:

* you were a .Mac member whose account was active as of July 9, 2008
* you are a new MobileMe member who created your account on or before July 15, 2008 at 7:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time

Apple has a FAQ on the subject answering a number of membership questions, further clarifying who qualifies.

MobileMe seems to be up and running, after what many think was a poor implementation, with the launch of both MobileMe and the iPhone. There were early reports of loss data on the iPhone and presumably their Mac.

This update will only appear in Software Update if you have a MobileMe account. The slightly less cryptic description:

The Mac OS X Update For MobileMe is recommended for users running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.4 and includes general system fixes that enhance your Mac for MobileMe.

Update: Mac OS X 10.5.4 does not enjoy the same automatic instant push service that the iPhone or MobileMe does. At present only iSync’s 15 minute intervals or manual push is available, as reported by AppleInsider.

The reader comments point out that subscribed calendars do not get pushed. Hardly enterprise ready.