All Articles Tagged mobileme

What has the MobileMe team gone and gotten us for the holidays? Why, a slew of pre-New Year updates! Specific to the iPhone:

• Resolved an issue that could cause some contacts to temporarily disappear on iPhone or iPod touch when syncing with MobileMe over an intermittent network connection; iPhone Software 2.2 is required to take full advantage of this
• Improves reliability of new email notifications on an iPhone/iPod touch
• Messages just deleted on iPhone, iPod touch, or a desktop mail application now update more quickly on webmail

And, most importantly to Mac users who previously saw the “push” and “Exchange for the rest of us” labels vanish in a cloud of, er… more like 15 min…

• Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on a Mac sync automatically within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or the web at www.me.com; Mac OS X 10.5.6 is required

Well, they had me at “Back to My Mac” and “Sync”, but if you’re a MobileMe user, is this enough to get you to renew? If you’re not, is it enough to get you to sign up?

While we wait for an “official” iDisk app from Apple, the folks over at Quickoffice have released a free app for the iPhone called MobileFiles. This app is different from our recent post about Box.net. This app is used strictly to access your MobileFiles on the go. There is lots to talk about this app, but what I like the most is that when you access a file from your MobileMe account, it saves it locally for you to access later; without being online. You can even go in and manage what files you want to keep locally or not. Here is a high-level list of things you can do with Mobilefiles:

• Add multiple MobileMe accounts
• Add multiple MobileMe public folders
• View almost any type of supported file
• Built-in file manager
• FREE!!!

Quickoffice is also working on an office client for the iPhone as well. Others that have jumped in the document editing area are Documents to Go and Microsoft. Who will be victorious? I can’t wait to find out. Do yourself and favor, and if you have a MobileMe account, don’t wait, download this awesome app now!

Gallery after the jump…

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Ars Technica’s David Chartier has sleuthed out a support document that reveals all sorts of updates to Apple’s MobileMe “push” service on the web side.

Many of the WebApp updates are resolutions to previous smaller problems, like keyboard shortcut behavior, compatibility with Internet Explorer 7, and the experience when viewing photo galleries on the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Ars rightly points out that it’s nice that Apple not only published the article, but actually detailed what they more often than not sweep under the rug of “this update includes bug fixes and improved compatibility”. We likes the info. However, it would have been nice to push out word of the update via Apple’s MobileMe News “blog”, as RSS notification beats digging through knowledge base articles any day.

If you’re a MobileMe user, let us know if any of this makes your life easier!

The Reviews of the Android G1 Phone on T-Mobile are out and the verdicts are generally as follows: Partly Cloudy¹, but forecasting big things to come. We’re not going to try to hit every point just yet, but there’s one point where this “Sidekick for Grownups” has what appears to be a real advantage over everybody else: dead-simple cloud setup.

So compared to the iPhone, just how good is the setup on the G1? The answer is: Depends on whether or not you’re a Gmail type of person.

Yeah, “depends” isn’t exactly a clear answer, so follow us after the break for a bit more on whether the G1 is PIM Push Paradise compared to MobileMe’s Mechanized Movement of information.

(¹Sorry, could help myself with that pun)

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It’s been a while since our last Today on the Forums post, but hopefully today’s topics will make up for it.

Today on the forums we have some great ideas from Alienwhere, who would like to see some more integration with his iPhone and his Mac. I agree… Check out some of his ideas and add to them if you can.

Next up we have Reaktor5 who wants to know, do you feel inferior when a new Apple product comes out? Everyone who is in this game of electronic gadgets knows there is always something around the corner that will be better. That’s just the way it works. But do you care about the newer device?

How has MobileMe been treating you lately? Fed up to the point where you can not take it anymore? Well look no further than gymnofrool’s thread, MobileMe Alternatives. I recently made the switch to an Exchange account and it has been working perfectly for me. I’m actually getting all of my mail…

Lately there have been so many new devices being announced and released. Everyone here at TiPb is curious as to what you think about the latest and greatest. To comment about devices such as the Touch HD, Palm Treo Pro, Blackberry Storm, etc… head on into the Smartphone Different: Other Gadgets forum.

So what are you waiting for? To get in on the forum action be sure to register, only take a few minutes of your time!

See you on the forums!

Apple’s MobileMe News blog is back after a bit of a hiatus with some helpful info on how, exactly, MobileMe and and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync work and play together (or vice versa):

You can enter new information for each service separately as you move around, and that information is stored and synced separately. But when you check your contact or calendar information you can view the information from both jointly or separately as you choose. It’s an approach that preserves the data integrity of each service while delivering the convenience of mobile access to both of them.

I use both MobileMe (for personal) and Exchange (for work) on my iPhone, and the above holds true for my experience so far. In fact, it lets me compartmentalize things nicely.

Anyone else two-timing on the push? How’s it working for you?

So, we’ve heard all about how the bloggers feel about iPhone 2.0 and the issues surrounding its launch, but we’re not what anyone would call — by any stretch of the imagination — normal. We love our gadgets hard, and hate their flaws with a breathing passion, so we’re skewed from the outset. What about real users, however? You know, the sane ones. What are their impressions?

Technologizer wrote in to tell us about their look into The State of iPhone Satisfaction. 2150+ iPhone Users surveyed, top 7 answers on the board:

Vast majority love their iPhone and rate the App Store highly, but are ticked off about Apple’s acceptance (read: rejection) policies and think Apple responds only “fairly well” to problems/issues. Almost everyone has gone 2.1 and thinks it improves the iPhone. Half of MobileMe users loves it, the rest are mixed or haters. For those who have problems (just about everyone), freezes, crashes, slow internet, and poor coverage were the culprits. The biggest missing feature? Cut/copy/paste (who knew?). And no one cared about the lack of a tic-tac-tile keyboard.

For the full results, head on over to their expanded coverage entitled: “An iPhone Opinion Explosion”.

Well it seems like these scam artists will just not go away! Here at TiPb we like to keep you, our loyal readers, safe by alerting you of every scam out there. A while back we reported two other phishing scams aimed at MobileMe customers, and told you Apple was even posting warnings about them.

Just like those phishing scams, these latest scammers are looking to obtain your credit card information. According to UGN Infomanager:

Yesterday, and over night a wave of phishing attacks hit the servers targeting Apple Mobile Me users, and others who might not know the specifics of the phish. There were several, all from different “senders” but leading to the same address. READ THIS ALERT.

DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINK IN THIS PHISHING ATTEMPT. Not only could it extract information from your computer, the site, or clickthrough pages could contain malware or spyware intended specifically for Mac users. If you can avoid opening it, you will avoid pinging the botnet of a live address.

In addition to all of that, MacNN is reporting that “the originating server DNS addresses have been masked by Joker.com, a site suspected of sympathizing with online criminals”. Really nice isn’t it? Be careful out there people!

(Via MacNN)

A while back we mentioned how Apple’s slipping in of the MobileMe Control Panel was earning the rightful ire of Windows users. Well, it seems Apple has gotten the message, and their news blog now reports:

If you already have the MobileMe Control Panel for Windows installed, upgrading to the latest version of iTunes (iTunes 8 was released on 9/9/08) will automatically update the control panel as well. But If the control panel is not already there, iTunes will not automatically install it. Also, the control panel will appear as an optional download whenever you run Apple Software Update on Windows.

Would that all supposedly bad guy monopolists Dr. Evil types responded to consumer push back so appropriately, eh Paul? Eh Dan? Eh Shill #3 making that post in the background for no reason?

Not long ago we brought to your attention a phishing scam that was going around to some MobileMe customers, we then reported that Apple addressed the scam in their MobileMe blog. Well Apple Insider is now reporting that round 2 is just begining.

In this latest scam, an email is going around that says there are some issues with the users subscription renewal information. It then goes on to direct them to a link to update their credit card information. You can see the exact email that MobileMe customers are receiving below. Notice there is not a single MobileMe logo?

Here are some great tips from Rene:

REMEMBER: Don’t EVER believe email requests for secure data. Go to the site yourself (not through their link — type it in) and log in and see if there really is a problem. Check domain names carefully. App1e.com isn’t the same as Apple.com, they’re just hoping you don’t notice. Worried about the recent DNS poisoning attacks? Use HTTPS/SSL or use a direct IP address. If in any doubt, pick up a phone and call Apple (or your credit card company) directly.

Head on over to Apple Insider for the full story with detailed pictures.