September 2nd, 2009

Syncing with Dropbox

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 5:00 am

Categories: MobileMe

Tags: Apple iPhone, Wired Inc., Apple MobileMe, Dropbox, Mobile Operating Systems, Smart Phones, Storage, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Hardware

I’m a fan of Apple’s MobileMe service because of its OTA contact and calendar syncing and cool features like Find my iPhone and Remote wipe — although, thankfully I haven’t had to use the latter two.

The problem with MobileMe is that many users bristle at the thought of paying $99 per year for anything, especially when they can be done for free.

Wired magazine has a piece in its September 2009 issue on how to Sync your life with Dropbox. Dropbox is a free online storage service, that allows you store your data on the cloud and access it wherever you have Internet access.

The Wired tutorial explains how to use Dropbox to sync your iCal data on two computers — for free. It involves a little Terminal chicanery, but if you’re not afraid of the command line, you could save yourself a couple of bucks.

If you’re looking for online storage that is accessible from the iPhone SugarSync and iDisk are also available as free apps while Dropbox is available as a Web application for the iPhone.

Anyone tried it with contact syncing?

August 31st, 2009

Thieves: Beware the iPhone

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 10:38 am

Categories: MobileMe, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Apple MobileMe, Smart Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Thieves may be starting to have second thoughts about stealing iPhones thanks to Apple’s ingenious Find my iPhone feature that it enabled in iPhone OS version 3.0.

Find my iPhone requires that you have a $99 MobileMe account, but could pay dividends if you ever lose your iPhone — or get robbed.

That what happened to an unidentified map in suburban Pittsburgh who was robbed at gunpoint by two assailants that demanded his wallet, PIN number and iPhone. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the victim logged into his MobileMe account after being held up and was able to pinpoint his iPhone’s exact location on a handy map.

The victim gave the map information to local police who were able to apprehend the duo at a Wal-Mart where they purchased items with his stolen credit card.

On your iPhone’s Home screen:

1. Tap Settings
2. Tap Mail, Contacts, and Calendars
3. Make sure Fetch New Data is set to Push
4. Select your MobileMe account and turn on Find My iPhone

July 19th, 2009

The proper way to set up MobileMe on an iPhone

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 9:03 pm

Categories: MobileMe, Sync, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Apple MobileMe, Smart Phones, Mobile Operating Systems, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

If you are a MobileMe customer and want to sync your contacts and calendars Over-The-Air (OTA) to your iPhone there’s an easy and a hard way to do it — and the easy way isn’t exactly intuitive or documented very well. This post will explain how to setup up MobileMe the easy way so that you don’t have multiple versions of your contacts and calendars on your iPhone.

If you’ve already synced your iPhone to iTunes and checked the boxes for syncing your contacts and calendars, I recommend starting over — which means restoring your iPhone as new. First make a solid backup of your iPhone and be sure to sync any photos you’ve taken to either iPhoto or Aperture as they get wiped on restore.

Also, make sure that any notes you’ve taken using the iPhone’s Notes app are synced to Mail, which requires 10.5.7. If you’ve got data or levels stored in your apps, follow the developer’s instructions for backing up your data as this too gets lost after a restore. Once you’re confident that your data and settings are backed up, connect your iPhone via USB to iTunes and click iPhone > Summary > Restore. Once your iPhone is restored resist the urge to restore from a backup and instead set up the iPhone as new.

Read the rest of this entry »

May 22nd, 2009

When iSync goes bad

Posted by David Morgenstern @ 1:41 pm

Categories: 10.5, MobileMe, iPhone

Tags: Event, ASCII, David Morgenstern

Usually a friendly, helpful service, SyncServices can sometimes go rogue, and screw up your Address Book contacts and iCal appointments on your iPhone or MobileMe account. An updated Apple support note describes the steps to return correct syncing.

Advanced troubleshooting for contact and calendar syncing describes the two stages for resolution of bad sync.

If your issue involves syncing with MobileMe, such as data not syncing successfully, unusually long sync sessions, or you notice an alert about inconsistent data, you should reset sync data. You should back up your data before doing so and always do this from the computer that’s the most up to date.

In the iSync application’s Preferences pane there’s just one item under the Advanced heading: a big button labeled Reset Sync History … If that doesn’t work then you will have to fiddle in the Terminal app.

Read the rest of this entry »

February 25th, 2009

Apple quietly updates MobileMe

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 9:38 pm

Categories: MobileMe, Software, Software Update

Tags: Window, Apple Inc., Apple MobileMe, Construction, E-mail, Online Communications, Jason D. O'Grady

Apple today issued a raft of improvements to its cloud-centric MobileMe syncing service. According to a kbase article (HT3409) improvements include:

Mail

• Compose window address selector shows all email addresses for contacts, not just home and work addresses.
• Newly added email addresses to Contacts appear in the compose window selector without having to logout and login.
• Improved printing of HTML formatted messages.

Contacts

• vCard export supports all text fields.
• Improved results when searching with both first and last names.
• Improved Japanese name ordering.

Calendar

• Faster start time when accessing Calendar for the first time.
• Faster performance when switching between day/week/month views.
• Calendar now retains your last view settings, such as day, week, or month view, as well as showing or hiding the To Do panel.

Gallery

• Faster loading of Gallery home page for visitors.

Login

• MobileMe login has new design featuring news updates.

December 14th, 2008

Deal breaker: no subscribed calendars in MobileMe

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 9:42 pm

Categories: MobileMe, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Calendar, MobileMe, Cable, Digital Music, Digital Media, Network Technology, Wireless, Telecommunications, Personal Technology

One of my favorite features of MobileMe (and DotMac before it) is subscribed calendars. This feature allows my wife and I to maintain separate calendars which we share with each other by subscribing to each others calendar. It’s great way to keep schedules in order and to prevent double booking events – but it doesn’t work with MobileMe.

I initially avoided MobileMe’s iPhone syncing after following the rash of problems the service was experiencing. After growing tired of syncing my iPhone with Apple’s stupid, proprietary 30-pin cable, I finally switched to to MobileMe syncing last month. It worked quite well and I was excited about it – until I noticed that my wife’s calendar wasn’t syncing.

It turns out that I forgot that Apple dropped subscribed calendar support in MobileMe back in August, making it a deal breaker for me. Knowledgebase Article TS1213 states:

When syncing subscription calendars between a Mac and an iPhone/iPod touch wirelessly via MobileMe Sync: Subscription calendars do not appear in your iPhone/iPod touch.

So now I’m back to syncing an advanced wireless devices with three built-in radios with a $19 cable.

August 20th, 2008

Apple discontinues MobileMe status blog

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 9:35 am

Categories: MobileMe

Tags: Blog, Apple Inc., MobileMe, Blogging, Internet, Jason D. O'Grady

Wow, that was quick. MobileMe’s status page is no longer going to be updated.

Promising to “write a posting every other day or so to let everyone know what’s happening with MobileMe” the blog-like page started out strong, with three posts in July.

Then it went dark with Monday’s “Final Post” stating “this will be the last MobileMe Status posting.” The final blog post refers readers to Apple’s MobileMe Support and MobileMe News pages.

Why did Apple punt on one of their first honest attempt at a corporate blog? It’s a shame. Tidbits has an excellent piece comparing Apple’s act of contrition with Google’s.

August 18th, 2008

MobileMe subscribers get a 60 day extension

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 7:10 pm

Categories: MobileMe

Tags: Subscriber, MobileMe, E-mail, Online Communications, Jason D. O'Grady

The following email was sent this evening to MobileMe subscribers detailing a free 60 days extension of their service. This extension is in addition to the 30 days that were given back in July.

We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. To recognize our users’ patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber as of today a free 60 day extension. This is in addition to the one month extension most subscribers have already received. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe’s launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around. Read this article for more details.

The MobileMe Team

August 5th, 2008

Apple: Shut down MobileMe immediately

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 1:02 pm

Categories: MobileMe, Opinion, Service, iPhone

Tags: Apple Inc., MobileMe, E-mail, 3G, Online Communications, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Not long after blogging about Apple’s MobileMe mea culpa ten days ago comes a leaked email memo purportedly authored by Apple CEO Steve Jobs and sent to all hands regarding the MobileMess.

A few hours after the Ars Technica piece on the MobileMemo from Jobs, setteB.IT published the full text of the email message sent to all Apple employees about the MobileMe launch.

It reads, in part:

Team,

The launch of MobileMe was not our finest hour.  There are several things we could have done better:

– MobileMe was simply not up to Apple’s standards – it clearly needed more time and testing.

– Rather than launch MobileMe as a monolithic service, we could have launched over-the-air syncing with iPhone to begin with, followed by the web applications one by one – Mail first, followed 30 days later (if things went well with Mail) by Calendar, then 30 days later by Contacts.

– It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store.  We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.

Read the rest at settB.it.

Apple’s attempt at a MobileMe “status page” is nothing more than window dressing and appears to be DOA after just three half-hearted updates. Apple’s culture of secrecy has finally bit them in the ass and MobileMe is a glaring example of why full-scale alpha and beta testing is required with a large group of outside users for such a massive undertaking.

What the hell were they thinking? To quote Merlin Mann “Sync is hard” and Apple seriously underestimated the requirements and resources required of a service like MobileMe.

After dealing with phone calls this weekend from friends that had both their iPhone and their Mac’s contacts, calendars and bookmarks completely overwritten with blank data from “the cloud” I’ve come to the conclusion that Apple needs to shut down MobileMe immediately and refund everyone’s money.

They can re-launch it in about six months – or whenever it’s fully vetted – maybe for half the price, or for free. Apple might even consider running MobileMe through the App Store approval process instead of the bogus super-secret, Cold War era round of “internal” testing that the may/may not have done with 1.0.

MobileMe is a black eye on the company and on all of its users and it’s time to pull the plug before things get much worse. Do the right thing Apple, shut down MobileMe now.

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August 3rd, 2008

MobileMe drops subscribed calendar syncing

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 9:49 pm

Categories: 2G, 3G, Bug, MobileMe, iPhone

Tags: Calendar, Jon Gruber, Internet, Jason D. O'Grady

Jon Gruber points a piece the troubling news that you can’t sync read-only iCal subscription calendars to your iPhone, as confirmed in Apple knowledgebase article TS1213. What’s worse is that Apple took this feature out of their US$99 subscription service, but it’s still available when you sync your iPhone (for free) with a cable. The problem is that they’re mutually exclusive so if you use MobileMe you lose the ability to sync subscription calendars.

This massive ommission in MobileMe isn’t a big deal to me for calendars related to holidays, sports schedules, movie releases — full list at Apple’s calendar page — but it’s a huge deal if you subscribe to calendars published to the Internet from someone else using iCal. Especially for families or businesses that maintain and share several iCal calendars.

So you can sync read-only calendars to your iPhone with iTunes syncing, but with MobileMe you’re out of luck.