I want to get Insync... MobileMe?

[John L]

I dont understand MobileMe. Hoping someone here can offer up some advice and answers for me-

I have a Windows PC on my office desk using Outlook for email and contacts and calendar.

... a Windows PC on my shop office desk using Outlook for email and contacts and calendar.

... an iMac also on my office desk using ?? (I dunno, I just got it) for email and contacts and calendar.

... an Ipad

and

... an Iphone.

Will MobileMe dependably sync all of this stuff together? Is it difficult to set up across all these devices? What do they charge for the MobileMe service? Any advice or tips?

Thanks!

 

[TheSnowman]

From what I can tell from my MobileMe, which I wouldn't have ever bought had I realized what it was...all it sync's up is your Mobile Me email, which you may be able to add a pop3 email to, your contacts, your calendar, and whatever pictures you want to upload. It doesn't sync up with your computer I don't believe...all this is done from me.com. I mainly got it for the "Locate My iPhone" option, but now that's standard, so I basically wasted like $150 on nothing when I bought my phone.

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

There are rumors MobileMe will be a free service soon... That being said, I still think it's totally worth the $99 a year.

MobileMe keeps all my Mac's and iPhone's sync'd up at all times. Here are the items that are synchronized:
- Website Bookmarks
- Calendars
- Contacts
- Dashboard Widgets
- Dock Icons
- Keychains (Username and Passwords)
- Mail Accounts, Rules, Signatures, and Smart Mailboxes
- Notes
- System Preferences

I also get 20GB of online storage and the "Back to my Mac" feature. I also get the find my iPhone function (which you can get free without MobileMe now)

"Back to my Mac" is basically a DDNS service that allows you to "see" your Mac when connecting outside of your network. So you can remote control the computer or connect to shared files anytime, anywhere.

All these features work great with the Mac. I'm not entirely sure about the Windows side of MobileMe. I believe it will sync Outlook Contacts, Calendar, and Mail accounts with your Macs and iPhone/iPad

 

[John L]

Thanks guys.

Jamie, did you use your iphone before installing mobileme? I am wondering if the service causes any significant lag or interferrence with the iphone cause, of all my stuff, thats the one I use the most?

 

[John L]

Trying to get in there to read about it but when I enter my name and password the login screen just shakes at me.


Edit... never mind that one. You have to set up the Iphone first. I'm on it.

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

I have the iPhone 4 now and haven't noticed any lag.
Are you talking about lag as the phone being slower, or the email not being delivered instantly?

For instant email notification you need an account that supports Push. MobileMe supports push and the emails are sent to the phone and you're notified immediately.

Even though I have MobileMe I don't use the email that's included.

I host my own Email, Contacts, and Calendar at the office on MacOS X Server. (Unfortunately Apple's mail server doesn't support push for the iPhone so I have to "pull" email from the server every 15 minutes.)

I had a Microsoft Exchange Server before but the cost to keep that up was too much so I switched to Mac. The Exchange Server supports, push so those emails were delivered instantly. (I kinda miss my push email now)

Apple licensed Microsofts ActiveSync protocol for push email on the iPhone/iPad but haven't yet implemented in their own server technology.

 

[CES020]

Just to add to what's been said, the rumor is that it's about to go free very soon. I do use it myself. I only have a PC and my iphone, but I like it a lot. The fact that I can put in contacts in my phone and have them automatically updated on mobileme contacts is nice. That and calendar stuff too.

They have already pulled the retail boxes from the store shelves, so it won't be long now before some announcement.

I think it's a decent service.

 

[econolinesigns]

I tried Mobile Me and before the year was up I switched to using Google. I actually have both my iPhone and my wifes iPhone syncing to the same set of calendars. Our address books sync as well.

 

[John L]

Well I've already switched. I had an issue with MobileMe deleting my 2400 contacts from iPhone!! After a couple hours searching the net, I got the contacts back, synced everything, and cancelled MobileMe. I don't know what went wrong... But that CAN'T happen. So off I go.

Now, so far, my new flame, dropbox seems very stable. It doesn't do all I wanted of course but it's really fast, very simple, and a really cool way to share files, fonts, pics, and whatever else across all puters and devices. So far...great.

Thanks all.

 

[iSign]

Jamie, you miss the Outlook Exchange server, but discontinued it due to cost?
What was the cost?


I'm new to the iPhone, and currently have no other Apple products, but I do have 5 PC workstations in my office, where 4 different people may need email access from time to time, and discovering Outlook Exchange was a godsend to keep one set of inbox, sent mail, and contacts (& calendar to, now that I've started using that more)...

So, for me the $10 / month that I pay godaddy is a steal... just thought I'd chime in partly in case you were paying more and would benefit from knowing GD's price...

...but I also had some other related iPhone questions... I moved my 2500 songs to my phone and enjoyed having them when I did some air travel last week, but otherwise I don't really use the iPod feature much... but twice recently when I called ATT about some phone service irregularities, they said have I synced with iTunes lately...

I said no, and they basked in the luxury of telling me that is likely to blame for any issues and to go away and do that... but I've seen that take time due to the songs I presume(even though nothing has changed) so I don't want to sync on a regular basis, just to get reliable phone service...

My iPhone is running 4.2.1 and they said I need an update...

Does this MobileMe thing take advantage of the existing web access of my phone to eliminate the archaic stupidity of a mobile device needed constant sucking up to my desktop computer to run as advertised?

 

[CES020]

Does this MobileMe thing take advantage of the existing web access of my phone to eliminate the archaic stupidity of a mobile device needed constant sucking up to my desktop computer to run as advertised?

No.

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

Doug,

I ran my own Exchange Server. It came time to renew all the software licenses and I was thinking of upgrading the hardware as well. After weighing all the options it was less expensive to switch the server to Mac OS X Server. $500 for an unlimited client license is a steal. (I could have used Linux and that would have been even less but the "user friendliness" of OS X was worth the $500)

The reduction in headaches has also been worth the switch. The current "up-time" on my XServe is at 93 days. My old Windows Server would always get little "hiccups" that would require me to restart the server or spend 10 minutes reading log files trying to figure out what went wrong.

I still have it and if I ever do miss push email that much I can always just turn it back on.

 

[signswi]

There's no reason to host your own iron anymore in the age of Software as a Service. Use a Hosted Exchange company if you want to go the Exchange route.

I think most sign shops will find that Google for Business is also a compelling offering.