Living in the Cloud - First Impressions
It seems clear that we’ve seen the direction that Steve Jobs and co. are heading. It’s emerged over the past couple of years—continue to polish the desktop OS, create and improve the world’s best handheld\mobile experience with the Touch OS, and provide the service that ties it all together (we’ll leave out Apple TV for now).
And for the past two weeks, we’ve had the opportunity to test this integration. With the release of Touch OS 2.0 and MobileMe, Apple’s early attempt at ubiquitous computing is here.
Prelude
For those who had never used .Mac, these offerings bring a new learning curve to using Apple products. I’ve been a Mac user for about three years now. But when I made the switch from Windows\Linux, I’d heard so many bad stories about .Mac that I was happy to stay away. Paying $99 a year for a service that rarely worked and caused a lot of problems sounded like a headache I didn’t need.
So I continued to make use of the many free offerings from Google to enhance my desktop computing experience. And before the launch of MobileMe, I was happy with what I got from Google and a few other sources. Below is s a list of the web services I used to make working on multiple computers more seamless:
- GMail – Sometimes accessed by Mail.app, sometimes not.
- Google Calendar – Synced with iCal via BusySync, it’s always available.
- Google Docs – Still using it, loving it more everyday.
- Google Bookmarks – Occasional sync of bookmarks on different computers.
- Google Reader – Only used at work where NetNewsWire is not available.
- iGoogle – This is simply a web page, my home page, but it gives nice clean access to all the services listed above.
- DropBox – File sharing and accessing documents between work and home.
- Flickr – Sharing pics of the kids with the family, as well as blog related images.
I’ll be the first to admit that slick marketing works on me, so I was intrigued when MobileMe was announced. And after purchasing an iPod Touch only weeks before, it seemed that this service was the perfect fit between my Mac and my handheld. So I signed up.
Here are my initial impressions.
MobileMe Web Interface
Here’s where the biggest outward update to .Mac occurred, so it’s where I’ll start.
General Observations
Overall, other than the initial launch, the service has been pretty slick and responsive. From everything I’ve heard about .Mac, this seems to be much improved. The speed of the web interface is comparable to Google (GMail or GCal), and switching between services is smooth.
However, the service does not seem robust. Leaving it open in the browser for more than a couple of hours often results in a loss of connection. For users who are accustomed to leaving a GMail tab open all day, this might be a turnoff. But this may just me a carry over of the troubles at launch—in another month the issue may be resolved. This seems to have improved over the past week, during which I was documenting performance.
One other general observation worth mentioning is the Help pages—these are nicely designed. The navigation is logically aligned and the animation Keynote-esque. There is some insightful content in the Help documentation; letting you know both what features are missing as well as what you can do with the service. But for the most part, the information provided is aimed at beginners.
iDisk
The offering here is much the same as other comparable inline services like Dropbox. There are folders, folders contain files or other folders—you get the idea. Of course, it’s looks better. The interface is, for lack of a better word, lickable. But it is an Apple product, so you come to the party expecting to be surrounded by beauty.
A key factor with iDisk would be speed. How long would it take to upload several music albums or all of the websites you are currently working on? Well … … … … *sigh*. It doesn’t look like things have gotten much better in this regard. .Mac was slow and after two weeks it looks MobileMe is headed down the same path.
Calendar
Again, the interface for MobileMe shines in the calendar. If you like iCal, or Google Calendar even, you should enjoy the calendar GUI. Working with events is just like iCal, right down to the mini calendars and To Dos menu.
There is one glaring omission with the calendar though—sharing. This is 2008 and online services are built around the idea of sharing information with others. The MobileMe gallery is sharable, as is iDisk. It’s curious that there is no similar option here.
One more improvement I’d love to see here is to add an agenda view like Google Calendar—but that’s more a critique of iCal than MobileMe.
There’s not a lot more to say about the calendar—it’s on par with other offerings out there, with one bonus. It syncs with iCal with no 3rd party software necessary.
Contacts
This is another area where Apple has done a good job if your remember that the idea is to provide an address book, not a CRM. The web interface is again spot on. In fact, it’s better than its desktop counterpart—the alphabetical grouping is aesthetically pleasing in a way Address Book never has been.
Working with your data is also straight forward and fairly intuitive. I did have to look in the help to find how to email a contact from the Contacts interface, and emailing multiple contacts at once seems to just not work sometimes, but all other features were solid.
Gallery
I liked the gallery so much that I deleted all family photos from my Flickr account and moved them to MobileMe. The performance when uploading photos has been fast for me. Certainly comparable to Flickr.
When I envision the grandparents viewing the kids in the slideshow, they’re having fun. And I’m betting that is exactly what Apple was shooting for here. The sharable galleries are among the best that I’ve seen from various other sources.
There’s only negative I’ve come across with the Gallery—the information button in the album slideshow view gives so much info, anyone who knows anything about photography will instantly see that I know nothing about photography … if the crappy picture didn’t already give that away.
Here’s where Apple really messed up. Like all the other components, the interface for MobileMe mail is nice and sparkly. Unfortunately, it’s so crippled by a lack of features that it’s almost unusable. I’m no power emailer, so I’m probably missing even more features, but here’s what bugged me every time I tried to use mail on the web:
- No rules. It must be tiring to hear me incessantly compare Apple’s offering to Google’s, but it’s what I’m used to. GMail has rules (aka filters).
- No ability to group emails by conversation like GMail. Mail.app has this—why not the web version?
- Poor search capabilities.
- No option to send from another address. More on this below.
Search is where Google started, so it makes sense that search in GMail is a strength. But MobileMe search is so limited … well, the help files say it better than I can:
Only the selected folder is searched.
Make sure you don’t use logical operators (such as “and,” “or,” or “not”) in your search text.
The last line shocked me—this is not how OS X works. I can’t fathom why the search would be so limited in a web version. I hope this will be addressed soon.
So those are the missing or limited features. There were others that are supposed to be available that just were not—address autocompletion for one (works great in Mail.app and the iPod Touch) simply doesn’t work. The help says otherwise:
As you type someone’s name or email address, Mail displays matching names from Contacts and messages you’ve previously sent. To select a name from the displayed list, use the arrow keys, and then press the Return key to enter the address in the selected field.
Another feature that was stressed in the demos but struggled out of the gate was Quick Reply. For the first week it only worked half the time for me. This has has improved in recent days.
Overall, MobileMe mail and the push concept is made to work with Mail.app and Mail for the Touch OS. But when those options are not available, the web interface is all that’s left for the user.
Apple had an opportunity to catch up with Google in the world of online email. It looks like that ship has sailed—and Apple left themselves standing on the Dock (sorry).
Syncing - The Heart of Living in the Cloud
This is where .Mac fell down and never got up. The Intertubes is filled with stories scary enough to keep the kids up at night—data lost, beach balls spun and a loss of confidence in Apple’s ability to compete with the online giants.
It must seem crazy to outsiders that many hard core Apple fans—many of whom were burned badly by .Mac—would be licking their lips to get their hands on MobileMe. But there we were, crashing the servers before the product was even officially launched.
I’d love know how many times Command+R was typed in the days leading up to July 11th.
But now the dust has settled. Service has been restored and heartbeats are once again pumping at a normal rate. And syncing has been … reliable.
Contacts—good. Calendar items—check. Bookmarks—great, and to Safari on Windows XP to boot.
[Disclaimer] Now I’m not the most knowledgeable source here, because I only have one Mac. I can’t test the syncing of app preferences, dashboard widgets or dock settings. But I sync enough items that I have an opinion.
So again I say, syncing has been reliable.
On a Mac. And on an iPhone or a Touch. But the web interface is still trying to catch up. Oh, it hasn’t been all that bad. Wait long enough and things will catch up. But is that good enough?
I guess we each have to decide for ourselves. If you work on a Mac all day and carry your iPhone\Touch around with you everywhere, you’re doing great.
For those of us without that luxury, we’re stuck with the limitations of the web interface.
Using Multiple Mail Accounts
I’ve had my GMail address for almost five years now. All of my other addresses are also accessible from GMail. And I can send from whichever address I want.
And since changing addresses is a flat-out pain, if I’m to move to MobileMe, I need to be able to appear to others as if nothing has in fact changed. I want the right people to see the right address. ALL of the time.
After all my testing and fidgeting, this works well from Mail.app and Mail on the Touch OS—just set your smtp server to whatever alternative service you use.
But the weak link is once again the web interface for MobileMe mail. There is no option for using alternative addresses.
There is the option in the Mail preferences to create up to five aliases, but they all have to end in me.com. This doesn’t help if you want to continue using your GMail address or an address for your particular domain (i.e. [email protected]).
This is almost seals the deal for me. If I had the option to work in my mac in Mail.app all day, I think I’d be okay. But I have to go to work five days and week and use XP. I need web access to my email all day long. Right now I have to use GMail to send any messages and I’m having to essentially keep two inboxes up to date. Will I do this long term? No way.
My only hope here is that Apple adds this ability. And soon.
To Switch or Not
So, having said all that, does MobileMe offer enough to switch from other services?
Truthfully—it depends.
If you’re on a Mac all the time, the sync appears to be solid enough that you’ll get your money’s worth and more. If you are also a heavy iPhone\Touch user, you’re also going to enjoy this service. And if you were previously a .Mac user, you’re most likely to keep using Apple’s online service.
But if you have to use the web interface regularly, you have a decision to make. This user is still on the fence—I’m sorely tempted to just switch back to using Google only. IMAP GMail access works fine on the Touch and in Mail.app. BusySync does a great job keeping my calendars in sync. And most of all, I have control over my email addresses. This is proving to be a tough decision.
To sum it up, MobileMe is a good service. If Apple can improve on a few key areas and performance, it’s probably the best total package there is for keeping your digital life integrated across multiple devices.
It will be interesting to see in the coming months how they respond to critiques of this sort.
