Apple: Shut down MobileMe immediately
Summary: 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.
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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Talkback
Apple blunders getting worse
making unthinkable mistakes. What happened to the Apple
who crossed all the "T's" and dotted the "I's"? They seemed
much more solid when they were a small player in the
computer market and owned the music player market. Then
they started the whole iPhone thing and OS X Leopard came
out buggy and under cooked and the rocky road started.
Is Apple a company spreading itself too thin?? I think yes!
It's the culture of secrecy...
This should be a major wake up call. They clearly bit off more than they can chew this time.
- Jason
Agreed
RE: It's the culture of secrecy
[b]I would hope that they do not easily forget the FOUL taste their roll out left in the 'mouths of their customers'.[b]
And, no, it does not taste like chicken!
get it together
hardware during the past couple of years are not what I've
come to expect. Some stuff is just plain phenomenal (Final
Cut, Aperture, Keynote) while other stuff (iPhone/iPod
software, Pages) are lacking in ways I never thought Apple
was capable of.
New strategy...
who crossed all the "T's" and dotted the "I's"?[/i]
Now they're dotting their T's and crossing their eyes. :-)
What about .Mac?
was perfect, but in it's current state it's exactly like .Mac
with a flashier interface. I don't see how it's really a
detriment to keep it going. MobileMe's sync actually works
a little better than .Mac's sync, so I can't complain about
that.
However, I had a .Mac account that was converted into
MobileMe, and most of my e-mail goes to that address. If
MobileMe is shut down, Apple would have to somehow
keep my e-mail going until they bring it back up. I'm sure
it would be just as much of a hassle to revert back to .Mac,
so that's out of the question. My mail is forwarded to a
Gmail account, but I'm sure most people just use the
MobileMe interface to get their mail.
RE: Apple: Shut down MobileMe immediately
they screwed up, but seriously, it's not worth shutting it
down. i've been part of the trial and experienced none of
the problems that anyone has experienced - or those
made up friends you refer to here in order to prove a point.
look, if the service were completely useless and unuseable,
yes, i'd agree that they should shut it down and regroup.
but, the fact is, that it is working fine for at least 99% of
the people using it - 100% now that they've fixed the mail
issue. they should've tested more. they should've rolled it
out in pieces. but, seriously, you sound like a moron for
suggesting they shut it down. way to blog for hit.s
Shaun, you're an apologist.
Stop being an Apple apologist! Just because it's working for you that its working for everyone else too. Have you been reading any of the other Apple sites lately? What about the reports in the MSM? Still think that I'm making it up?
I assume that you've successfully synced your iPhone, computer and MobileMe then, correct?
Any everything was intuitive and worked the first time?
(Yeah, RIGHT!)
Tell the truth and be honest with yourself.
As for your insinuation that I made up facts to support my blog post, I didn't. They called me for help when all their data vanished after turning on syncing on the iPhone. And it happened to me. I've been doing this far too long to make things up.
I suggest that you take your blinders off and stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
- Jason
a reply!
Wow, I've never actually gotten a response from a writer.
Though, I do promise, I'm not an apologist. I was pissed at
the 2.0 software release - ask my co-workers. I give Apple
plenty of bad words when they mess my stuff up. But, I
was trying to convey the point that shutting it down didn't
make sense when a large majority of the users weren't
experiencing any problems. Now, granted, I don't use the
Apple Mail (@me.com) so I could've been part of that
mythical 1% Apple mentioned, but, the other stuff all
worked fine for me. Promise. All you have to do is slide a
couple buttons and it's there.
And sorry, maybe that was kind of a dick thing to say
about the blog hits and making people up.
So yeah, no kool-aid here man. I expect a hell of a lot
from a company I've given a good amount of money to, so,
I don't give them free passes on much.
Keep it up, you're still on my RSS feed!
Shawn (with a 'w')
PS - regarding the MSM, those tools just regurgitate what
you all spend your time writing. They suck.
deja vu
:)
works for me too
people (and I believe a minority)... everything works fine
for me too. To shut down MobileMe would have a 100%
negative impact on my MM experience, and the everyone
else for whom it works. And you think shutting down MM
is an [b]improvement?[/b] I'm with the poster who said
you were blogging for hits.
Yes, it was not yet ready to roll out. Fix MobileMe - Sure.
Should have tested it - Yes. Shut it down?? That is like
cutting off your nose to spite your face.
And you're an hysteric
that it be shut down so it doesn't work for anyone at all.
Get a grip.
Back off both of you.
Assuming Jobs' email is genuine, I see much that is positive about it: Steve acknowledges mistakes, sets up a plan to avoid similar ones, and treats employees with respect rather than "dressing them down."
As for Apple's penchant for secrecy, I think in today's high tech business world, secrecy is a necessary business practice, or, if you prefer, a necessary evil.
From my perspective, it seems to me that Apple's policy of secrecy has contributed much to its success: it protects Apple's plans for future products and it promotes much free publicity when new product releases become imminent.
RE: Apple: Shut down MobileMe immediately
and always has. How come? Probably problems with dogmeat
windows machines.
Please, go back to wishing for windows 7 or whatever and
leave us alone.
Relax, man.
Little Jealous?
RE: Apple: Shut down MobileMe immediately
drinking the Dvorak cool-aid or something? I think you are
being a bit of a page hits whore here Jason. MMe is out in
the wild. They need to fix it. They screwed the pooch on the
launch but going back is not going to be an option.
Make up your minds!
If I write something that's pro-Apple, then I'm a shill, fanboy, whatever and M$ trolls come out en masse to bury me.
If I criticize Apple, then I'm labeled the Anti-Apple, Kool Aid drinking second coming of John Dvorak.
Both sides, take a deep breath.
- We all agree that MobileMe has had problems from day 1 - correct?
I'm simply saying that rather than continue with the blood-letting and risking losing your customer's data (what could be worse than that?) Apple needs to shut it down (at LEAST the syncing part) until the problems are fixed.
Apple's got a royal problem on their hands and it doesn't appear to be fixed.
- Jason
Lol I know the feeling man
I have to agree with people though: once a product like this is out there it really can't just be shelved again for a few months, the damage to Apple would be far worse that way. Where that leaves the customers who are losing data is a completely different story i guess.... I don't really know exactly how the mobile me service works, but wouldn't the best solution in the interim be to enforce a bulletproof backup of some sort before users can even touch the service? and also enforced interim backups?