Even sheltered by the glow of the iPhone, Apple’s MobileMe fumble isn’t sitting well with the public. MobileMe, Apple’s answer to keeping e-mails, contacts and calendar appointments synced across multiple devices has suffered since it stumbled out of the gate July 10, and now people are calling for bloody vengeance.
And by people, I mean Philip Elmer-DeWitt over at Fortune’s technology blog, who wants to know who’s to blame for Apple’s misrepresented and messed up service. While both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times gave MobileMe negative (and maybe even worse than negative) reviews, calling for someone’s head, so shortly after Bastille day is a touch unnerving.
But Elmer-DeWitt has a point, in that even as Apple fixes one MobileMe glitch, (and apologizes) another glitch pops up right in its place (and another apology hasn’t always). And while hopefully most MobileMe users have at least gotten their money back, if not all their lost emails, a stiff apology and plea to their “loyal customers’ patience” may not be enough for Apple to keep the hounds at bay.
Of course this is embarrassing for Apple, but what makes it worse is their continued secrecy about the outage. They have an alternate email address for me as well as all other .mac/mobileme users, so there is NO excuse for not communicating with us. The 1% statistic is a lie, and that lie will not be forgiven by myself and the growing “1%er” group. And yes, I STILL cannot send or receive email over a week later. MobileMe is a total failure.