During the WWDC 2008 keynote, Phil Schiller unveiled MobileMe, their reimagination of Apple’s cloud service, ‘.Mac’. We all know the story from thereon. Massive launch failure, no major feature upgrades, and Google’s feature rich free service, left this service with quite a bad reputation. But many continue to use it, still. Why? I’ve been using it since day one, and it has turned into something that’s an invisible part of my digital workflow. Like a $66 yearly payment to the devil for keeping my life in order.

And now there’s a new MobileMe. A new web client at least. And the new MobileMe is beautiful. The login page is so gorgeous you don’t even feel like signing in. Once inside, the streamlined UI borrows from the iPad Mail’s toolbar, featuring some beautiful buttons, controls, and colour scheme. And it’s not just looks, the entire user experience has been improved. We now have a phenomenally useful endlessly scrolling inbox. The view has also been optimised for wide screens, so you can hide the sidebar and have just your emails in the current screen. It’s got improved performance, message rules, SSL security, better message composer. It’s also got a brand new (since beta) email forwarding feature, which allows you to forward emails from another account to your @me address, and be able to reply with that forwarded email address. And a spam filter. Finally. Thank you Apple, this is great stuff.

But how good is MobileMe Mail, usability wise, for real world usage? I’m only talking about the web client here, as IMAP email is pushed across remarkably well.

The problem with MobileMe web, is it’s very deceptive. On its face, it looks like a powerful desktop class application in the browser. When I first saw MobileMe, I fooled myself into believing it’s actually better than the Mail app; euphoria only lasted so long. When the new beta showed up, I thought I might just give it another chance. Since the iPad showed up I had stopped using the Mail app on the desktop as my daily client, and only launched it when I needed heavy duty work to be done. If Mail in the browser could compensate for that occasional call, I’d be happy never to launch the Mail app again.

There are three key areas where MobileMe failed me. First, was its pitiful search. Like the iPhone and iPad mail clients, it only searches for the message headers, and in the current folder. So if you’re in the habit of sorting your email into separate folders, and you don’t remember which folder you dropped that email into, tough luck searching through them one at a time.

Second, was attachments. Somebody sent me an email with 18 Word documents. Sucks right, I know. But the fact is, that if I wanted to have all those files in my downloads folder, I’d have to click each one, wait for MobileMe to process the request, and then move to the next file. I immediately launched the Mail app and clicked ‘Download All’. Same goes for uploading attachments, as you have to not only select attachments one at a time, they have to complete uploading before you select the next one.

Third, is quick replies. Apple had implemented a brilliant solution for quickly replying to email. Probably inspired by Jobs’s emailing habits. While in the list, just click the reply button and a tiny pop up allowed you to reply to any email without a fuss. Granted, it wasn’t the best way to reply to email, and it encouraged impolite two word replies. But with the new MobileMe, you have to wait till the pop up window shows up, loads its rich text features, and then begin your reply. Compare that with replying on Gmail and you can literally see how much time you’re wasting.

MobileMe also fails on Apple’s mobile devices. Don’t you hate it that whenever you visit me.com on your iPad, you’re politely told to buzz off? I understand the iPhone is a personal device, and that the Mail app is a better way to go about email, but sometimes I just want to use someone’s phone to check my email, or look up some contact info, but can’t because it will inadvertently get mixed up with their data. The iPad on the other hand is far less personal than the iPhone. Considering how touch-friendly the new UI is, I was hoping Me.com would work on the iPad after the beta period, but alas, it still tells you to buzz off.

And finally, MobileMe as a service doesn’t have any form of data protection (other than Time Machine on your desktop). There’s no backup or versioning system, so if by accident you delete your contacts on one device, they *poof* off from all your devices.

To a power user, MobileMe web will show its weaknesses, mere minutes in. For those who rely heavily on the web client, I don’t think it’s nearly as usable as it could be; Gmail is a much better option.

Why do I still pay and use it? MobileMe is quite a bit more than its web client. I pay for it because it’s a few less things to worry about. My contacts and bookmarks are instantly all over the place, email is very reliable, I like the way iDisk works for sharing large files (really, I prefer it to anything else out there), and I use photo galleries to share images with family. Sure I could use Gmail’s contacts sync, or use Dropbox for sharing files, but there’s a certain elegance about how MobileMe does it, that I just can’t imagine using anything else. As an iPhone, iPad, and Mac user, who’s used to seeing things squeaky clean, MobileMe web carries forward that experience to the browser, even if in a less than optimal way. I’ve also grown so used to its ad free clean look, that I’m quite horrified looking at Gmail’s busy look.

Sometimes I wonder whether it’s foolish to continue paying for this service. But that’s just sometimes.

It was a hush hush update, as the MobileMe minions set to work on adding fine improvements in to its web extension. It’s got some visual refreshes like better icons (yay!), unread counts in the sidebar of the Mail app, and other possible subtle changes to the UI.

The most important change to me however, is the Mail’s ability to retain formatting while replying to emails. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve preferred reply to an email on the iPhone instead of having the >>s scattered across my email.

What’s still missing? A decent search for one. MobileMe still searches on the headers, and only in the current folder. I like what Apple is doing with MobileMe, but I’m afraid they’re not working fast enough.

Here’s a complete list of changes at the MobileMe support page.

[via TUAW]

Oh…there it is.

Well, what do we have here? Is that a phone that that actually assists you in finding itself? What a novel idea! Of course, it’s got caveats. First of all, you need to upgrade to iPhone OS 3.0. Check. Second, you’ve gotta have PUSH, or as I like to call it, Battery-Drainer 5000, turned on. Check. Lastly, you have to a MobileMe subscription. Check. If you’ve met all three of these conditions, you’re giving Apple a lot of your money. But you’re also ready to find your phone anywhere.

Setting up your iPhone for Find my iPhone requires you to toggle a switch in your iPhone preferences. They show you a nice Google Maps map in your me.com Account Settings pane, along with a box to send a message/sound alert to your phone, and also remote wipe the mother. Looks like you can send alerts to the phone without having Push turned on, it just will take a little bit longer. You can send any custom message you like, just in case you don’t know who’s gonna be picking up your precious iPhone. The kicker is, the sound alert will ring your phone even if you’ve put your phone on silent.

They all worked without a hitch, except I’m not sure how well the remote wipe works. Not really gonna try it either, cause I don’t wanna reinstall everything on my phone. Once you’ve installed 3.0, turn on Find My iPhone in the MobileMe preferences, and give it a try.

Several MobileMe Mail users, including our very own Preshit, noticed that the certificate for Apple’s MobileMe’s SMTP server (outgoing mail) had expired. The error showed up no matter what, including on the iPhone. Thinking that it was just MobileMe acting up again (after a while, mind you), Preshit contacted Apple Support. He was horrified to find that they actually forgot to renew it!

The Apple support executive was clueless about this issue, and after much convincing that the problem was on their end, has decided to investigate the matter. The fact of the matter is of course, that Apple has forgotten to update their me.com smtp certificate (much like Google did last year). Users around the globe will soon see the shiny warning that their certificate has expired. If you do get the warning, all you can do right now is to click “Continue” and hope that someone doesn’t think you are a spammer or your mail doesn’t land in the hands of a hacker. I personally do not know the implications of having a security certificate expire, but if it’s a security certificate, it’s obviously there for a big reason.

You’d think they use iCal or something to remind them once a year to renew something as simple as a certificate. Oh, and before you start blaming Apple, Google also had a very similar slip up some time back. Talk about large companies with big budgets!

If you’re a MobileMe user, you’ve probably seen this by now. The login page now features an updated layout, along with news updates at the bottom. Smart move on Apple as users will now know about new features as they are implemented (for those who don’t read Smoking Apples at least).

The redesign is not all however. Looking through the service updates list, we can see they’ve implemented performance improvements for Calendars, Gallery, and fixed bugs all over. Contacts support has also been greatly improved. Overall usage experience feels speedier and more stable.

Coupled with the nitro javascript engine of Safari 4, the MobileMe experience is far superior to what it was 8 months ago. At least four of us at Smoking Apples have been using MobileMe for a while now, and we have no reason to complain. You?

You remember that awesome feature Schiller demoed at WWDC last year? Try and think about and the faint memory will come rushing back to you. With a single click,  you could email any file from your iDisk folder along with some nice options like limiting the number of downloads or days. 

What if I told you that feature is now live and active! Indeed if you check your iDisk page now, you get the Share File button for every file. You can set the number of days it stays active (the limitation on downloads however is not present). You can also password protect the file. iDisk will then put a radio icon next to the file to show that it is shared. You can manage your shared files by clicking the Shared tab in the sidebar. Change the options or stop sharing it. The receiving end of course gets a styled email with a download link. Note that you aren’t required to enter an email address, as all you need is that link at the top. Share it, and hook it up to twitter for all your tweeps to download. 

This feature suddenly makes iDisk 10 times more useful. There have been so many occasions where I have wanted to share a file with someone, but hesitated putting it in my public folder. I can’t contain my excitement.

Thanks to Benjamin for the tip-off!