The Mac Sucks!

I received a link today to an article Ron Miller posted in his Tech Treasures blog on Daniweb.com, an IT discussion site. Miller’s article “Apple Has No Business Charging for MobileMe” made some interesting points that I thought were worth sharing with you.

Miller notes that most cloud services are free. Google offers quite a variety of cloud-based services at no charge other than that you have to put up with some of their advertising. Here’s how Miller sees things:

As a consumer, let’s say I own a Mac Book Pro and an iPhone, a scenario that will likely be true when I buy an iPhone next month. I would think that for what I have paid for these devices, Apple would be giving me syncing services out of the box for free as a service for being a loyal customer. It should go without saying, but instead, Apple wants to bleed its loyal clientele for a few more (meaningless) dollars.

Adobe’s Acrobat.com is presented in the article as a pricing model Apple should consider using for MobileMe.

The article also discusses how open source projects are “already rushing in to fill the need for free services” and that Funambol’s service “does just about everything the MobileMe syncing services do without the price tag.” (In fact, they’re even calling the open source solution “MobileWe”.) Miller believes that “MobileMe syncing will become a meaningless service nobody but the grossly uninformed purchase, or Apple may be forced to change to a tiered pricing model”.

I confess that I see both sides of this. Given that Apple has had to invest time, money, and labor into getting MobileMe together, I understand their need to charge some amount for the service (unless, like Google, they can get enough advertising to cover the expenses). Is $99 too much? Only you can decide that. But I also see Miller’s side in this. Given what Google is now doing with Google Sync for mobile phones (including the iPhone), and that they will likely expand this to include email and other data, that makes them a significant free competitor to Apple. Funambol’s commercial version of its software has reportedly been deployed at “service providers, mobile operators, portals, device manufacturers and ISVs including customers such as AOL, 1&1, Earthlink and CA, Inc.” so it’s not as though they’re a bunch of kids in their mom’s basement cranking out code. Other companies will likely get in on this as well. Given the existing competition and the competition that’s coming along, Apple may find it hard to get that $99 away from very many of its customers unless it can deliver a more reliable service than it’s done to date. The free services will certainly have an appeal to anyone who has to watch their expenses in the current economic climate.

According to a post on Download.com, Google released a new way for mobile phone users to sync anc access information from the cloud. The new Google Sync service allows users to synchronize their calendars and contacts from a specified Google account and will transmit changes between the phone and Google. The service reportedly uses Microsoft Exchange’s ActiveSync protocol to do the work. Setting up a phone to sync with Google does not require any special software, and the software supports the iPhone as well as handsets from Nokia, BlackBerry, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola. Gmail synchronization is reportedly not yet available but there are expectations that this is coming.

While this is obviously not a serious competitor to MobileMe (or perhaps, given the issues Apple’s had with MobileMe, maybe it is?) it is clear that Google is working on a similar (currently free of charge) capability.

Apple recently released an update to the troubled MobileMe service, and did so without any fanfare.  As AppleTell reports, “the service still isn’t performing up to the usual Apple standards. Perhaps this is why the updates haven’t been announced as of late—Apple doesn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up that the service will actually work, finally, as originally advertised.”  Reportedly, users who tried to go to the MobileMe home page couldn’t get through to the service, but going to the older “.Mac” page worked.

Apple apparently hasn’t learned yet that Windows users and Mac users expect different things from a software vendor.  Right or wrong, Windows users have come to expect that Microsoft will only mark software updates as “required” if they correct problems with existing software, don’t add substantial new functionality, and don’t require payment of an additional license or service fee.  If you look in Windows Update, you’ll see this policy adhered to pretty much religiously.  The only possible exception might be when a product like Internet Explorer reaches the end of its life cycle and becomes non-supported.  They might (and I stress “might”) mark it as required at that point.  This how Windows users expect software updates to work.

Apple, on the other hand, views software updates in much the same way a drug dealer views the handing out of a “free sample” to a prospective junkie.  If you download and use iTunes, they seem to think this gives them carte blanche to automatically install Safari or MobileMe on your Windows machine, as if finding unexpected software on your system is a “bonus” and this “free hit” of the “Apple drug” will leave you wanting more Apple products.

Apple needs to learn that if I download and install iTunes, it means I want iTunes. I don’t want Safari.  I don’t want MobileMe.  I don’t want the latest QuickTime.  (Maybe I would want those things, but what I really want is the option to choose which ones I get and when.)  Yes, I’ve used the Apple updater and I know that it’s possible to pick and choose your updates.  But if you’ve gotten used to dealing with the Windows Update process and the way updates on Windows generally work, you expect applications (even those from Apple) to follow that same philosophy.  Just as I wouldn’t expect a former Windows application ported to the Mac to begin using “control-C” for copy on OS X like it does on Windows, I wouldn’t expect a software updater to throw new products at me by default.

I know Apple likes to do this on OS X, too.  I had a real mess at work in my Mac Administration after implementing a script to download and install all the recommended security updates each night.  Apple marked new version of QuickTime, which required the payment of an additional license upgrade fee, as required. My script, not knowing better, downloaded and installed that upgrade on our designers’ systems.  A week or three later, it applied an update to that new version.  Then the designers realized they’d been upgraded and, during a critical business time, couldn’t use the software as needed.  It would take 2-3 weeks to get payment processed for the new license, so we needed to remove the new QuickTime versions.  Apple provided an uninstaller, but only for the original upgrade and the subsequent patched version.  I ended up having to muck around with the code for the uninstaller to make it recognize “1.1.1″ in addition to “1.1.0″ (hypothetical version numbers).  Fortunately, that worked and the crisis was averted.  I then had to go back to my script and have it filter out automatic updates to QuickTime in the future.  All this because Apple felt that anyone who had licensed QuickTime in the past would “automatically” want to license a new release.

Clearly, for a number of people, Apple’s products appear to be addictive.  They buy a Mac, then get an iPod, use iTunes, run Safari, buy an iPhone, sign up for MobileMe, etc.  For them, perhaps these “gently forced upgrades” are more a bonus than an unpleasant surprise. For the rest of us, they’re a nasty shock.  Apple needs to learn how to approach customers differently, at least those who aren’t among the Apple-addicted Mac Faithful.

As we’ve covered recently, Apple’s MobileMe service has been plagued with a number of problems, including email outages, synchronization issues, and other downtime.  The situation is so bad, Apple’s had to give away up to 90 days of service to affected customers.  May we suggest a re-branding of MobileMe might be in order?

As Wired reports on its web site, “Apple is giving a free 60-day extension of the service users love to hate — well, dislike.” Apparently, the MobileMe problems are still happening and Apple isn’t too proud of the service, saying in a message to customers “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.”

The launch of MobileMe resembles the failed initial launch of Windows Vista by Microsoft. Early Vista adopters dealt with poor driver software, system bugs, crashes, etc. The result was that Vista still leaves a sour taste in the mouths of many Windows users. While those problems have largely been corrected, many people still avoid the move to Vista. I suspect these extra months of free service are Apple’s way to try to avoid the same kind of stigma becoming attached to MobileMe. My thinking is they’re using the free service to keep people running MobileMe while they fix the problems, so that MobileMe doesn’t become Apple’s version of Windows Vista — a product they want people to adopt but which burned enough people that the adoption rate is very slow.

Phishing, or using social engineering techniques to convince people to divulge private information (such as passwords, credit card numbers, and so forth) is nothing new. It’s also nothing new that there are people out there gullible enougn to fall for it. While Windows PC users are all too familiar with such attacks, Mac users shrug them off, thinking their system’s security is bulletproof and such things can’t happen to them. So, it’s always interesting when you see Mac users fall for something they think only affects Windows.

According to ITBusiness.ca, hundreds of users of Apple’s .Mac and MobileMe services were duped into divulging credit card and other presonal information. The article says that “This particular phishing campaign scammed between 100 and 200 people with mac.com addresses in just one day… The records [snip] included full names, mailing addresses, credit card numbers, card security numbers, birth dates, mother’s maiden names, [email addresses, and passwords.]“

Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal is usually very positive about Apple and its products, so it was a surprise to many of the Apple Faithful that he posted an article highly critical of the new MobileMe service. In that article Mossberg makes these essential points based on his experience with the service:

“Unfortunately, after a week of intense testing of the service, I can’t recommend it, at least not in its current state. It’s a great idea, but, as of now, MobileMe has too many flaws to keep its promises. I am not referring to the launch glitches that plagued MobileMe earlier this month, such as servers that couldn’t keep up with the traffic and email outages that, for some users, persist as I write this…[snip]… The problems I am citing are systemic.”

“…in my tests, using two Macs, two Dell computers and two iPhones, I ran into problem after problem. One big issue is that while changes made on the Web site or the iPhone are instantly pushed to the computers, changes made on computers are only synced every 15 minutes, at best.”

“My MobileMe calendar, which originated on a Mac, didn’t flow into the main Outlook calendar, but appeared as a separate calendar in Outlook, which was visible only by changing settings. My address-book groups on the Mac, which are simply distribution lists, didn’t show up as distribution lists in Outlook, but as separate address books, and they also weren’t immediately visible. Apple blames Outlook quirks for these issues, but in my view, it should have overcome them.”

Mossberg also points out other flaws with the service, concluding his article by saying that “If Apple does get MobileMe working smoothly, it could be a terrific service. But it’s way too ragged now.”

The CrunchGear site has a review of the new
iPhone 3G that begins with the recommendation to wait, and not to buy it
yet. Why? Here are a few excerpts from the review:

With 60% certainty I predict a minor hardware or,
more likely, software update in the next month or to improve the
3G’s thus far abysmal battery life.

3G is nominally faster in the right areas – my
Brooklyn haunt is not one of them – so if you were expecting
improvements over EDGE think again. While most folks in urban areas will
see a bump, the iPhone 3G has yet to show marked improvements over the
standard EDGE/Wi-Fi combo that worked so well in the first model. I
think 3G is a red herring, something Apple threw in at AT&T’s
request to showcase their network. 3G burns up battery life and does not
automatically shut off when out of range.

Without turn-by-turn the iPhone’s
GPS is useless in the car unless you have a navigator. A Garmin or Tom
Tom device is more cost-effective in this case.

All of the sharing
systems built into MobileMe already exist in some form elsewhere and
everything else can be recreated simply by plugging the iPhone in and
syncing to desktop applications like Outlook. So far the push calendar
and contacts have been great but they are not particularly noticeable
nor was I desperate for their addition.

I know multiple sites have waved their
hands over the numbers and found that the 3G is in fact quite
long-lasting. In my experience I’ve found that I can get a full 18
hours of normal usage given I don’t do much browsing. I also know
that my use case is fairly uncommon – I have 12,246 unread messages
right now and I get about ten or twenty every half-hour. However, I
don’t think it’s that uncommon. I’ve set the
auto-fetch to every hour and I’ve seen some improvement in speed
but the battery will be a major issue soon enough – these things get
worse, not better, over time and as I recall another device with a
similar problem, the Sidekick, eventually petered out to eight hours on
a good day and four hours on a horrible one.

Click here
to read the review in its entirety.

The UK-based Register web site is a close, but critical, follower of Apple, Inc. This week, they published the following articles of interest to readers of this site:

The iPhone 2.0 update – don’t do it, kids
Apple has that syncing feeling over MobileMe
Man hacks Mac OS X onto MSI Wind
Apple swipes £121 for ‘free’ MobileMe trial

Sci-Tech Today published an interesting story about the iPhone App Store:

iPhone App Store Thriving Despite Developer Tricks

These are all recommended reading for fans of this site.

According to technology site TG Daily’s Christian Zibreg, “If you have been using the MobileMe free trial or paid membership service since day one, then you know that the service did not have an exactly stellar launch.” Ziberg says that only now are they able to really take a look at what’s missing, what’s not working, and what they hope to see from it in the future.

“…it is clear that the service is still work in progress, prompting Apple to offer an apology and give away 30-days worth of free service to people who already have signed up for MobileMe,” Ziberg reports.

The article goes on to list the features that aren’t working: Contacts aren’t available in MobileMe Mail, Gallery photo upload isn’t working, Groups are inaccessible, Homepage isn’t available, Changes made on a PC or Mac aren’t pushed instantaneously, It doesn’t run on Internet Explorer and Opera, iCards are gone, iDisk isn’t available in Windows, No iDisk sharing, No calendar sync with Vista Calendar, No Contacts sync in Windows Live Mail, No photo sync for Windows, and no Firefox bookmark syncing.

We’ve theorized before on this site, based on the outcome of Apple’s most-recent software product launches that it seems the developers are being forced to meet arbitrary deadlines, putting out products that might not be ready for prime time. I have to wonder if the development staff is stretch so thin now that they can no longer deliver the kind of polish Apple products were known for back in the 1980s and 1990s.

The International Herald Tribune, the global
edition of the New York Times, reported on July 11, 2008, that “Apple leaves some .Mac users hanging as migration to
new MobileMe sync service drags on”…

The $99 per year
MobileMe service lets people view, update, and synchronize calendar,
email, and contacts across PCs, Macs, and iPhones. It also allows users
to store and share files on the Internet. Apparently, some users were
denied access to their accounts for far longer than Apple anticipated.
Users were notified that the site would be unavailable from evening
until midnight Wednesday, but on Thursday afternoon many users still
couldn’t access it.

Again, we here at The Mac Sucks wonder
if Apple is overextending itself…