MobileMe Rumor

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/05/11/rumor-mobileme-may-soon-be-free/

I like the idea of MobileMe becoming free.  I use it and my family benefits from it.

I know I can get all the services MobileMe provides elsewhere for free, but for a Mac user it is hard to find something as easy to set-up and use.

All the computers in the house can get at all the information on our piece of the cloud.  Calendars, documents, photos.  The storage there is useful for backing things up and, lord knows, most of us don't do that well.
 
When one of my kids has the computer tied-up, it is nice to have the same bookmarks in Safari on another machine.  This has prevented a lot of grumpiness in our house.

I bought my wife an iPod Touch mostly for the calendaring via MobileMe.  I subscribe to hers and she has mine.  The kids' calendars are there too. Strange how active kids make the calendaring complicated.  It is very nice to have all of these schedules sorted out and in your pocket.

I'm sure there are a lot of services out there that duplicate MobileMe, but MobileMe has them all in one place and I don't need to remember more passwords to get there.  Why go anywhere else?

I think it is a good deal at $99.  Free would make MobileMe even more of a bargain.  I better stop before I jinx the rumor.

Mobile Me Revisited

I keep trying to figure out why I should keep MobileMe.

Yes, there are free or cheaper work-a-rounds. And I love trying to figure out the cheaper routes, even if they are a little more difficult. But boy, it gets harder to say good-bye to the MobileMe account.

If you use your iPod Touch for a PDA, having MobileMe account makes it easier to keep your calendar, contacts and mail synced. Nice.

Now, there is an iDisk app as well. Step into a friendly wifi hot spot and take a look at what's on your iDisk on your Touch. Nice!!

Oh. And that magic works on your iPhone as well.

But wait! The Google app! Does a bunch of this as well. The advantage of Google is the price...all free.

The MobileMe products do work when you are off the network, however. I am frequently in a place (work) where connecting my Touch to the wifi would be against policy.

Well, happy sorting this one out! It is nice to have choices.

Mobile Me, I think I like you.

I think I will be ponying up the money for MobileMe.

Having all the calendars up-to-date is wonderful.  I have a Mac at work, two at home and an iPod in my pocket all with the same calendar on them.  That, to me, is worth the money.

There are some bonus features as well.  The Safari bookmarks on the computers now match.  That may not seem like a big deal, but when you no longer have to get a kid to move so you can do your research, it is.

I know I don't really need the storage space, web page and mail account because my ISP tosses that into their package, it is just nice to have a little extra.  Who knows, maybe I will want a quick and dirty way to share photos when I am away from my Dreamweaver machine.  Or maybe that's where the kids efforts go when they want to create web content; a kind of intro to web pages with iWeb.

Mobile Me revisited

Apple extended the trial period for MobileMe.  That is a good thing because now I will have a chance to play around with the improved version of it.

I have set up the Main computer, the Mac Mini in the kitchen and my iPod is now set to "Push."

Toss in the iDisk space and I should be able to hop around from computer to computer and get my work done.  Surprisingly enough, getting bounced from the computer you were working on happens in this house.

The sync set-up is fairly easy, but have a cup of coffee in the system before you attempt it.  There are a number of well marked places to lose data if you are not careful.  Read the directions and you will be fine.

I'll keep you posted,  I have 53 days to figure out if I have to have this service.

Free, Cheap or MobileMe? Part Deux.

Ok.  I bit.  When I saw you could give MobileMe a try before you buy, I thought why not?  It may be worth $99 a year, but I would like to know for sure.

It isn't working yet.

I read the directions and printed out a copy to have handy.

It says you need Leopard or Tiger (10.4.11.)  I'm running Tiger(4.11) on what I would call my main machine (iTunes library and syncing for iPod are there.) and there is something funky going on with the login.  It keeps on asking for the password (and I know I keychained it.)  Then maybe iDisk shows up.  I haven't gotten to my calendar, iWeb and all the other goodies.

I would really like to say that I have tried it all out, but YIKES.  I may have to quit my job and put my kids in all-day daycare to get this figured out.  Time to dig into the knowledge base.  Hope there is a kind soul that had a similar set of problems there...