mobileme Contacts disappearing
mobileme is certainly a massive PR disaster for the normally robust Apple.
UPDATE -it’s even made the BBC site today.
I’ve just suffered from the loss of all my contacts on my iPhone which is a slightly nervy experience! However, I have now solved this by following these instructions:
- Turn your iPhone or iPod touch off and then back on (if you did not already try this above).
- Turn syncing off for the affected data. From the home screen, tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, and then tap your MobileMe account. Move the slider for the data type that is causing you issues. Wait for confirmation that that data type has been disabled, then press Home. Confirm that the data has been deleted on your phone, and then turn syncing for that data type back on.
This is taken from this Apple support article and I can report that I did exactly this, and managed to get all the contacts to reappear. I would definitely also back up your address book and calenders, just to be sure.
mobileme Problems in WSJ Review
If you want any more confirmation that mobileme is not ready for primetime, check out Walt Mossberg’s review:
I’m incresingly thinking that I may not need mobileme / .mac in the future.
Dropbox is awesome for files and syncing.
I don’t use Safari, I use Firefox 3 and Foxmarks for bookmark syncing.
I use Time Machine and SuperDuper for backup.
I have the iPhone 3G for email access and my iCal.
All begs the question, do I need mobileme? Hmmmm…. what do you think?
1 Million iPhones sold
That my friends is a seriously impressive sales figure. Pretty amazing really considering the 02, AT&T and iTunes activation hassles.
CUPERTINO, California—July 14, 2008—Apple® today announced it sold its one millionth iPhone™ 3G on Sunday, just three days after its launch on Friday, July 11. iPhone 3G is now available in 21 countries—Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the US—and will go on sale in France on July 17.
“iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world.”
Appleinsider has more info here. What will never cease to amaze me is the amount of brand loyalty and love that Apple have stored up. Any other company who had just gone through the launch disaster that the iPhone 3G just had, would be in serious trouble by now. Luckily, people, and I guess me included, will let Apple / O2 off. Ok, the product helps, as it is a cracking one and one that fulfils a lot of people’s mobile dreams.
What stands out to me is the almost reckless scheduling of new iPhone software, mobileme launch and the new iPhone 3G. Surely someone recognised this “perfect storm” where too much was supposed to happen too quickly? I wonder how many heads have rolled by now?
iPhone 3G, mobileme and Software 2.0 thoughts
App Store and mobile me
The web has almost reached a crescendo of frenzied Apple reporting / drooling / expectation for tomorrow’s launch of the iPhone 3G. Today has been pretty exciting too with the release of iTunes 7.7 and also the App Store. This is working perfectly and there are 500+ apps waiting to be downloaded onto the new iPhone 2 software. This has not materialised ‘officially’ yet, but I actually have the upgrade file sitting on my desktop right now:
I haven’t done anything with it YET, but I think I will just leave it until the official update comes through on iTunes.
What has been a little frustrating is the lack of the new mobileme service, replacing the pretty lame .mac. mobileme has apparently appeared a few times during the day but is currently not live. This is a shame as the new cloud apps look fantastic. To be fair to Apple, it must be a H U G E job to get everything organised – new mobileme, iPhone 2 software, new iPhone 3G and get it all working together – I bet there are some stressed out people in Cupertino!
So, tomorrow, it is off to the local O2 store to score a new iPhone. Not quite the same experience as last year!
.mac rejuvenates to Mobile Me
So finally, .mac gets a kick up the you know what and is replaced by Mobile Me.
Push email. Push contacts. Push calendar.
MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars on a secure online server — or “cloud” — and pushes them down to your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. Push happens automatically, instantly, and continuously. You don’t have to wait for it or remember to do anything — such as docking your iPhone and syncing manually — to stay up to date.
Wireless syncing is pretty cool, but it was already happening with imap email, or have I missed something? To be honest, anything would be better than .Mac currently – it was started to become very dull. The new Mobile Me web-based services, all built in Ajax look very swish, so that will really help peple have a better perception of the revamped .mac – check out a pic below from Apple’s site…
Apple are pretty on the ball with their communication too – I’ve just received an email detailing the new service, what is happening as an existing .mac customer and all the features.
The push email is something I will welcome, and the wiresless syncing but I am not sure when I would use the web apps as I will have my iPhone with me. I do like the fact I will get ANOTHER email address!
As a MobileMe subscriber, you can continue to use your mac.com address for email. You will also be issued a me.com address with the same user name that you can use if you prefer. The choice is yours.
