mobileme

Apple's Jobs says oops on MobileMe launch

Apple CEO Steve Jobs admitted it was a "mistake" to roll out the company's MobileMe service at the same time it launched the iPhone 3G and other big products, tech news site Ars Technica reported late Monday.

Ars Technica cited an internal memo sent by Jobs to employees that acknowledged MobileMe had flaws and was released too soon. In the memo, Jobs said the launch of the service could have been handled better, the article said. He also acknowledged the service was "not up to Apple's standards." And he said the individual MobileMe services … Read more

Apple: MobileMe e-mail issues are behind us

Almost three weeks after it launched, Apple is finally able to tell MobileMe customers that everything is working as it should.

The latest update to its MobileMe status blog posted by the mysterious David G. says that all is well with MobileMe, Apple's replacement for .Mac that offers subscribers e-mail and access to Web-based contacts and calendars for $99 a year. "We have completed restoring Mail service, including historical messages, to all of the 1% of affected members. Thank you all for your extreme patience during this trying time."

Almost right from the launch hour, MobileMe was … Read more

Apple's MobileMe on the road to recovery

Apple has started to provide regular updates on the status of its MobileMe service, which is still causing problems for some users.

Some poor soul at Apple known only as David G. was drafted by CEO Steve Jobs to write every-other-day posts on the status of MobileMe, the successor to Apple's .Mac service that has caused no small level of frustration in the two weeks since it launched. In the initial post on Friday, Apple acknowledged that those affected by the outage lost 10 percent of their e-mail between July 16 and July 18, the height of the outage.… Read more

Funambol: Open-source MobileMe that actually works, and on more than the iPhone

Apple's MobileMe problems are now well-documented, most recently by Walt Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal. So much promise...so little delivery. A great idea that could be a great product, if it just worked. (I am a longtime Apple .Mac customer and am certainly not happy to see the service prove so incorrigible.)

So, what's the alternative? As you might imagine, open source provides a compelling answer.

Funambol has been offering its open-source "MobileMe" service for a wide variety of devices, not just the iPhone. In fact, Funambol now supports over 1.5 billion devices … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 773: Spam on the lam

UPDATE: We just learned that the escaped Eddie Davidson, the "spam king," was found dead after having apparently murdered his family. Obviously, we did not know this at the time we recorded our podcast, and we apologize for any insensitivity that could be inferred from our remarks. We will definitely address this horrible turn of events in tomorrow's show.

The recently imprisoned "Spam King" goes straight-up mint jelly and escapes from federal prison (check your barns and garages, Coloradoans), Yahoo Music makes the MSN Music mistake with the benefit of hindsight, and Walt Mossberg slams … Read more

Mossberg pans MobileMe amid service outages

As if Apple wasn't having enough problems with its launch of MobileMe, its usually reliable friend Walt Mossberg has recommended that people stay far away from the service.

Mossberg's review on All Things Digital doesn't even take into account the service outages that have many former .Mac users up in arms over their inability to access e-mail. In his view, "it's a great idea, but, as of now, MobileMe has too many flaws to keep its promises."

MobileMe does more than just give you e-mail: it's designed to let you access your contacts, calendars, and bookmarks … Read more

Comcast customers: Sent e-mails blocked?

I have Comcast cable modem service here at home. It's been very reliable. Service interruptions have been rare and brief. The cable modem I was given years ago is still working fine. Network performance has been reasonably good.

So all in all, I'm happy with the service.

But I just found out about something that really bugs me--and may explain why I've received occasional reports over the years that an e-mail I sent didn't get through at all--or was marked as spam when it did arrive.

This came up about a week ago, when I noticed that some (but not all) outbound e-mails sent through Apple's .Mac service (now known as MobileMe) were not going out. After waiting about an hour for the messages to go through, I reported the problem to the service's support desk.

It turned out that… Read more

CNET News Daily Podcast: AOL's spot in the Microhoo saga

Recent rumors have been swirling that both Microsoft and Yahoo are revving up talks with AOL. But how does this relate to the long-running Microhoo drama? CNET News intern Holly Jackson checks in with reporter Dawn Kawamoto.

And following last week's MobileMe migration glitches, some members of Apple's new service will get 30 days free as a we're-sorry gift from the company.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Today's stories:

Yahoo and Microsoft step up Time Warner AOL discussions

Apple offers 30 days free to MobileMe customers

Lawyer sues Google over unfruitful ads

NY spammer hit with 30-month prison sentence… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 767: Announcing: Snobble

Sad news for CNET: Rafe and I are about to quit and go start our new search engine, which filters results by snobbery. There's a market for everything out there. Also, Sony decides it wants to sell some consoles, and maybe some videos and TV shows, too. Good idea! iPhone's enterprise capabilities are under fire, the Dev Team claims to have unlocked it, but Google's blowing it bigger with some secret Android SDKs. D'oh. Listen now: Download today's podcast Episode 767

BOL Episode 767

With a $100 price cut, the Sony PlayStation 3 finally joins … Read more