MobileMe Likey!

Sunday, 13 July 2008 in General
Tags: .mac, apple, blackberry, blackberry curve, dotmac, gmail, iphone, mobileme, mobileme review, push calendar, push contacts, push email, push technology

Apple's new MobileMe - Image by Apple

Apple recently introduced their extension — or replacement — to their internet suite .mac awkwardly named MobileMe, and since i received a $100 visa gift card just last week i decided to sign up for their service and give it a go. (You can sign up for a free 60-day trial at me.com.)

Priced at $99 for a year’s subscription, MobileMe is really a glorified version of what other companies already offer for free. Online E-mail, Calendar, Address Book and a combined total of 20GB of online storage, which you can use for hosting your own website, blog, picture gallery or simply to store your files online.

But what separate MobileMe from .mac is in the technology for these services. I had previously subscribed to the .mac services back when i was in college and whilst i was able to access my e-mails, calendar and contacts online, it was slow and clunky to navigate through the browser.

The new web services are almost identical to the desktop counterparts, which is actually very impressive considering all the comparable functions and performance available between the desktop and online platform. It is clear that the next step in computer software is the blend of desktop and webware (as in the example with Pownce powered by Adobe AIR), and MobileMe is another great example of that.

But the biggest kicker in MobileMe is syncronising the e-mail, calendar and address book services across Macs, PCs and the eminent iPhone, on the fly. Imagine taking a picture on the iPhone, setting it as a picture for one of your friend’s address book icon and immediately seeing that updated on me.com! Everything is immediate based on push technology, where notifications are pushed onto the email and PC clients instead of the clients manually requesting (or in this case, pulling) to download new information from the server.

iCal on MobileMe

With that said, i don’t think i’ll start porting everything to MobileMe since i’m still quite married to Google. At the time of writing i’ve ported my calendar information as well as my address book, but since i don’t have an iPhone (or iPod Touch), i am still relying on Gmail through my gayed-up Blackberry Curve in red.

This service really showcase what Apple is capable of — not only as the great technology innovator but also as the great money making machine. In using this for just a couple hours it’s clear to see how Apple is an expert in making their users bleed cold hard cash.

One of the services they tout is the ability to share pictures and movies via one-click publishing. So as an example i’ve quickly edited and organised a set of photographs of my recent Hong Kong trip — using iPhoto. The software is bundled in new computers, but for most older mac users it is being bought as part of their iLife suite for $99. Whilst it’s not a steep price for five great applications (and iPhoto alone is worth that price), it does add up with the MobileMe services. And if you would like to check your e-mails or picture gallery on the go and enjoy all that MobileMe can offer, you might just have to shelf another $200 for that pesky iPhone. $99 becomes another $99 becomes another $200, that’s how Apple gets you.

Granted these are all solid products made by Apple, and even though Google offers their services for free (Gmail, Calendars, Picasa and et cetra), they are nowhere close to Apple in terms of usability and interactivity between the various applications. There’s no one-click publishing, common user interface, or shared libraries in Google products, and that’s what separate products from Apple products.

So i suppose at the end of it all i’m quite fond of MobileMe, even with the shortcomings (being i don’t have an iPhone for the e-mails on the go). As apple is increasingly stepping away from their mac-only business model and into PC/business and iPhone territory, it’ll be interesting to see how they will evolve in the next five years. MobileMe is a solid step in that direction, and at $99 it’s a quick one-stop shop for all the services i need with slight improvements over the free alternatives currently available.