One of the new features in Apple’s MobileMe suite is the push services, allowing users to get near instant notification of incoming emails, as well as instant changes to address books and appointments. There are grumblings, however, that it isn’t true push. For example, when settings are changed in the MobileMe control panel on a Mac, it doesn’t initiate an automatic sync, so the handset isn’t updated till the next scheduled sync, which is every 15 minutes. It’s really more of an annoyance than anything else, but is a sync every 15 minutes really true push connectivity?[MacRumors]
With yesterday’s bumps mostly smoothed out, and MobileMe live for a straight day, Apple is apparently comfortable enough to push the MobileMe OS X update back out. (It was pulled after going up briefly on Wednesday.) Interestingly, it’s version 1.1. Hit Software Update to get the party started, and let us know how it goes. [Apple]
The iPhone 3G may be here, but what we’re really excited about is the iPhone 2.0 software update. Only some people really need faster browsing and slightly better location services, but everyone can use the new features in the OS. Now that we’ve gotten chance to go through all that updated functionality–as well as a good chunk of apps, MobileMe and Exchange–we’ve only got one question left. Is iPhone 2.0 so good that you don’t even need to upgrade to an iPhone 3G? It depends. But if I was forced to choose between an iPhone 3G barren of apps and the slower original with them, I’d go for the apps.
So we showed it to you briefly yesterday, but then MobileMe turned around and seemed to bite the Apple that made it, and has been unavailable until just now. Can we assume more technical hitches than its developers had anticipated? Yes, I think we can, particularly given Apple’s “it’s taking longer than expected” error message. But now it’s up, and since the iPhone has already been on sale in some places for nearly a whole day, that can only be good news. Update: There’s a getting started tour, which didn’t appear to be there yesterday. Everything else works as anticipated. [Me.com]
newVideoPlayer("/mobilemepush_gizmodo.flv", 494, 390,""); As you can see in the video, MobileMe push mail is now active, fully operative, and perfectly armed. My iPhone is now getting all email in real time, both over a Wi-Fi connection and using a mobile phone network. I even use EDGE–not 3G–and a non-official carrier on roaming. So far, not a single problem. Bad news, RIM: BlackBerry is dead, dead, dead. Dead.
Apple TV 2.1 is out via Software Update. It adds two things: Support for the Remote app for the iPhone and iPod touch (awesome), and support for MobileMe. Hoo. Ray. [iLounge]
Apple’s MobileMe, the bigger/better/more version of .Mac, just went live, sort of. We logged in and poked around, but then the site went dead and the server started redirecting us back to the old “coming soon” page. Here’s what we saw before things went away: galleryPost('MobileMeFirstScreens', 3, '');
newVideoPlayer("mobileme2_gizmodo.flv", 494, 390,""); We already knew that MobileMe e-mail services are now fully active and accessible through any desktop mail client. This morning I tried to set up MobileMe in my iPhone with OS 2.0 and I discovered that the calendar, bookmarks, and contacts all synchronized fine, even while push synching–the ability of MobileMe to make changes to your iPhone over the air as they happen–is not active yet.
Both sending and receiving of me.com mails is working now. Following a tip by reader Gizmodo reader Tom, we have tested this with our own Mac.com accounts. It works perfectly, both for sending and receiving. Setting it up is very easy:
MobileMe, Apple’s replacement for .Mac, was announced at WWDC today. Feature-wise, it actually sounds pretty decent, and appears to be a graceful and highly usable evolution of its aging predecessor. Something struck me (and some others)as as a little odd about the name they chose. Not only is MobileMe an awkward name, its logo is remarkable similar to notorious software disaster from nearly a decade ago.When rumours of the MobileMe broke a while ago, the most compelling reason to disregard them was the fact that the name sort of sucked. Would a company so famous, especially in recent years, for extremely shrewd marketing and the creation of household brand names really release this product as MobileMe, and make it look like this? Yes. Yes they would.
