Apple anonymized “blogger” David G. is back with the 3rd in Steve Jobs’ promised regular MobileMe status updates, and this time it’s all good news… at least from their perspective.
First up, the 1%ers, 60-100% of whom have been missing 100% of their email for over two weeks now:
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. If you have been affected by this issue and are still having problems we have established a dedicated chat line to reach a MobileMe Mail specialist for help.
Next, that nasty sync bug that saw data wiped out for some users over the weekend:
For some users this caused their contact and calendar data to disappear from their devices, but not from their computers or the MobileMe cloud. When we fixed the bug in the late afternoon, the problem resolved itself for most users: their data simply reappeared on their iPhone or iPod Touch. If you are one of those affected users and your data has not automatically reappeared, follow the steps at this link to restore your data.
David G. hopes that with this, Apple’s MobileMe woes will largely become a thing of the past, and they can concentrate their resources on improving the service overall (and restoring the faith of their user-base, right Apple?).
Another update is promised for later in the week.
So, how about it? Anyone still suffering MobileMe mail meltdown? Stuck in sucktastic sync-loops? Has Apple been able to help? Please let us know.
Thus far making good on their promise of consistent updates, Apple has once again posted as to the status of their beleaguered MobileMe service. David G. — who may be the poster formerly known as “me” ? — chimed back in last night:
As you know, restoring full email access to the remaining 1% of MobileMe users is our first priority. We turned on web access to their current email yesterday and the feedback has been cautiously positive. Since then, we’ve restored full email history (minus the approximately 10% of mail received between July 18 and July 22 which may have been lost) and the ability to access email from a Mac, PC and iPhone, to over 40% of these users, and expect the remainder to be restored in the next few days.
G. goes on to clarify how some email is now time-stamped by server transfer rather than send time, and explains how to view long headers to extract actual send time info, and promises another update soon.
Kudos to Apple for stepping up the transparency. Given their corporate culture is so immersed in secrecy, its likely a painful, but hopefully transformative lesson for them to learn. Sympathies, however, for the some 60% of the 1%ers still waiting for their 90%…
Read
Steve Ballmer (allegedly!) only throws chairs and smashes furniture. Can we even imagine what Steve Jobs must do to those who harshen Apple’s mellow? Probably makes Dark Force lightning pale by comparison, as the MobileMe team has no doubt been finding out these last, long two weeks. Thus the new MobileMe Status page with its preface: “Steve Jobs has asked me to write” (though “me” him/herself is not named).
At first we’re reminded Apple can stick to the talking points better than half the pundits in Washington, as all our favorites are recycled: “rocky road”, “1%”, but then — remarkably — we get this:
Last Friday a serious problem with one of our mail servers blocked those members’ access to their MobileMe mail accounts. As of today a team was able to restore limited web access to those accounts so the affected members can use their browsers to read mail that has arrived since last Friday (though not before) as well as send and receive new mail. The team has already begun rolling out restoration of full access for all the accounts and expect to finish by the end of next week. We particularly regret to report the loss in the affected accounts of approximately 10% of the messages received between July 16 and July 18.
The mystery “me” goes on to explain some of the problems with the WebApps (unexpected traffic surge at launch), and says they’ve fixed some IMAP mail issues, Calendar bugs, scaling problems, and general performance.
Overall, good first step, but as anyone used to dealing with Apple knows, there’s plenty a trip twixt each step on the way to accountability. Let’s keep them coming, “me”!
And if you’re one of the 1%-ers still without email, you may want to subscribe to the page’s RSS feed so your favorite newsreader can alert you every other day or so when a new update gets posted.
Note: There’s also been an update to Apple’s Knowledge Base article on the matter.
(Via MacRumors)
In the continuing saga of the launch that’s more and more like a sputter (though hopefully not a full crash and burn, right Apple?), MobileMe is reporting:
1% of MobileMe members cannot access MobileMe Mail. We apologize for any inconvenience.
TUAW is saying that the problem might be (or getting ready to become), larger?
Personally, I’m having NO PROBLEMS whatsoever. Email, fine. Push, fine. Web access, fine.
How about you?
Is the faulty launch making everyone hyperaware and quick to find (and post) problems? Or is MobileMe really cursed by scaling bugs?
Woke up this morning and as per my usual modus operandi, checked mail on my iPhone and then went to read some feeds. That’s when it happened, mobile.mac.com (the interceptive RSS reading feature on MobileSafari) came back with a server error.
Seems to be working for me again, but reports have since sprung up of others having trouble with web-bound services of .Mac (though email protocols seems fine).
Server problems round Infinite Loop way? Transitions to MobileMe hitting some speed bumps? Karmic revenge for us knocking the RIM NOC again?
My guess is the road to MobileMe will be a wild ride, server side…
