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How Hard is MobileMe Really "Pushing"?
Merlin Mann | Jul 16 2008
Apple’s MobileMe Lacks True Push Syncing - InformationWeek
You may have shared my slack-jawed gape and consequent fistbump when Phil Schiller’s WWDC demo of MobileMe [free iTunes link] implied magically fast, truly instantaneous syncing. Because that’s really hard to do well — and implying MobileMe would enable such a thing suggested mighty technological leaps over the previous .Mac service, whose sync skills and reliability were famously uneven at best. While most of us won’t see our lives fall apart if true Push is not happening on MobileMe, it’s still disappointing that Apple implied they were solving a complicated and thorny problem vs. simply speeding up the frequency of syncing via an existing method. FWIW, this weekend I informally tested MobileMe’s syncing skillz on two Macs, “the old iPhone,” and via apps on the MobileMe site. Mostly this consisted of creating calendar items with unique date and time stamps and seeing how long it took for them to show up on the different devices. Let’s just say the two Macs were, far and away, the pokiest syncers for both incoming and outgoing events. Mostly I guess I’m just bummed that this wasn’t the sufficiently advanced technology that it seemed. I’m sure there’s room for improvements and enhancements to MobileMe — and God know what it took to get that thing out the door in the midst of last week’s shitstorm — but I’m disappointed in Apple. I don’t mind the RDF — a lot of times, it’s a fun place to hang out for an hour or two — but playing fast and loose with terms that mean something in the market they’re trying to penetrate is not cricket. Elsewhere on this issue:holgr.com » Blog Archive » Apple’s MobileMe - Push or in sync?
MobileMe not so pushy - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
MobileMe’s Push Services Detailed, No Mac to MobileMe ‘Push’ - Mac Rumors
The Question to YouWas Apple playing lawyerball with the term “Push?” Is this just a marketing disappointment, or are you missing functionality that you were counting on? Is a 15-minute syncing adequate for your needs? And what had you taken away from the MobileMe demo at WWDC? Was Mr. Schiller’s explanation accurate of the service you received? Jump to starting around 1:07:00 of the WWDC Keynote to decide for yourself. Update 2008-07-16 09:00:04 PDT Excerpted from a Me.com customer email sent an hour ago:
Classy, well put, and mostly well-explained. Plus, as Dan Moren mentions in comments, they’re tossing in a free month of service, owing to a .Mac -> MobileMe transition that was “rockier than we had hoped.” Thing is, it still doesn’t help me understand how some of the most competent engineers (or is it marketers?) in California knowingly chose to call this functionality something that it clearly was not. That still bugs me. 29 Comments
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 Apple dropping "push" nameSubmitted by dmoren on July 16, 2008 - 7:12am.
According to an Apple spokesperson, Apple plans to stop referring to all of its MobileMe services as “push” due to the confusion about this issue (as well as offering a free month to current subscribers as an apology for the transition hiccups). »
 Mm. Yeah. Apology.Submitted by Merlin Mann on July 16, 2008 - 7:28am.
It’s cool that they’ve made that change (see Before and After), but, like so many pieces of cheese that catch my attention these days, I’m disheartened when something disingenuous or knowingly untrue goes out while all the mics are on, and then gets quietly followed by an “Ooops! Our bad!” — and only once the cash registers have mostly rung and the tribes of attentive reporters have crawled back to their caves. This pattern bugs me, and I’m thinking it’s time we demand more out of companies than “Oopsie Daisy!” I’d like an explanation of why so many smart people decided to call this something that they clearly knew it was not. Fixing an error is good and honorable, but without owning the cheese and explaining — what happened, when, and why — it’s a hollow way to explain away the smell. »
technically "push" is the correct word to use for this serviceSubmitted by mario on July 27, 2008 - 3:36pm.
Apple are just playing nice here because technically they are using “push” technology. “Push” refers to the fact that the client doesn’t continually keep checking for new data as opposed to “pull” which polls the server at regular intervals. It doesn’t directly refer to immediacy of data transfers. I’m surprised Apple caved in to public pressure. »
My experience with Mobile MeSubmitted by coreymol on July 16, 2008 - 7:23am.
Well I too took the jump and got the mobile me package. I have not tried to “push” anything to my iphone yet as I have not upgraded my firmware……. for a few reasons :) However I have been playing with it on the web and my laptop. When I create an event in iCal it is displayed very fast on the web. I just hit refresh and it is already there. BUT going the other way…… not that fast infact I have been quitting iCal and opening it back up for it to see the event. Other then that I am pretty happy with it so far and I hope that it works with my iphone this will help out a lot while in an airport or somewhere else and i input an appointment or contact and then forget to sync for a day or two! »
 It's just Macs that don't pushSubmitted by yesno on July 16, 2008 - 7:27am.
As near as I can tell Mobile Me web app changes show up nearly instantly on the iPhone, and vice versa. It’s just actual Macs that don’t push yet. »
Re: It's just Macs that don't pushSubmitted by Merlin Mann on July 16, 2008 - 7:34am.
Web to iPhone syncing is not the issue; the problem/disparity is that changes from either will not show up on a Mac for up to 15 minutes. And that ain’t “Push.” »
 MobileMe = Not Sufficient "Push" for $99/yrSubmitted by justin.levy on July 16, 2008 - 7:50am.
As with many others I was excited when watching the WWDC Keynote and hearing how MobileMe was going to be "Exchange for the rest of us". In my companies I don't have an Exchange server and therefore rely on POP. I use GCal sync to sync my Outlook calendar with Google so that I have an web-based version (backup, assistant access, etc.). Therefore when I saw that MobileMe would allow Blackberry-like push of email I was excited. The calendar, contacts, photos, etc were an added bonus. Once I signed up for the free trial I came to realize that the email push is only for the @me.com account. You can have it fetch email from POP accounts but there's no ability to set the time frame. My experience was that it would only fetch if you initiated it on the site. I have also experienced the delay that everyone talks about with the calendar and contact syncing. Unless some major improvements are made then I agree that this really isn't "Exchange for the rest of us" and is certainly not worth $99/yr when I get the same features (basically) with Google's products. »
 There's a greater problem...Submitted by Lighthouse 365 on July 16, 2008 - 8:14am.
Merlin You are so right about this. My daughter got a new mobile phone which I dumped quickly in address book on a new card. Later I merged the two cards in address book to tidy up and pressed sync. Imagine my horror to find that on mobile me it now had my daughters name but no details at all, not even the old ones. I pressed everything, synched several times, tried to look for preferences to reset contacts to no avail. A day or two later, after leaving mobile me open for a while, it appeared like magic. If Apple had said “It takes 15mins” then I would have been fine. The most simple definition of push is push. You do it and it appears - surely that was the promise. I’m OK about it now but more cynical. And the greater problem? Many of my clients are still using Win NT and IE6 - now I cannot reach mobile me at all unless I bring my own laptop and data card. If I use their network I’m effectively locked out of dotmac. It looks pretty but on first experience it’s actually made the cloud harder to use, not easier. »
more mobile me madnessSubmitted by yesno on July 16, 2008 - 8:33am.
Dollars to donuts true push will be part of Snow Leopard. I’m not sure I’d blame the engineers. They may have already written the code. It’s also really lame that the iPhone doesn’t understand how to send “from” different mobile me aliases— but it can for other kinds of accounts. I have to use a totally different SMTP sever (which overrides what the iPhone says) just to make my iPhone emails be from the right address. It’s a basic feature of Mobile Me that they’re dropping the ball on, there. It also doesn’t sync subscribed calendars. Pro forma complaint about notes, to dos etc. »
I agree, but maybe we should cut them a bit of slack?Submitted by al on July 16, 2008 - 9:01am.
I agree with you, but think that the “we are going to stop using the word “push” until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too” implies that they’re working to fix this. One comment I have read elsewhere was that Apple are an Agile development shop: if this is true, it would explain why the scope of the service could be cut to meet the launch date (also cf. iDisk sharing). Not ideal, definitely, but then again would it have been good to delay the launch? We could argue that one all day though I suspect. :) As an aside, I think there is a bit of a misconception among a lot of people as to how Exchange works. MobileMe was never going to be the same as Exchange, since as far as I know Exchange doesn’t sync or push to desktop machines at all: Outlook is essentially a thin client for all the data held on the server. Also, many people have unfavourably compared the performance of MobileMe to their company’s Exchange server: however, Exchange implementations are typically for far fewer people than MobileMe will be serving. Yes, Apple should have anticipated the load but I think that they have been caught by surprise by the speed of both iPhone 3G and Me takeup, which has resulted in a lot of the issues. »
About Merlin MannBio Merlin Mann is an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster. He’s best known for being the guy who started the website you’re reading right now. He lives in San Francisco, does lots of public speaking, and helps make cool things like You Look Nice Today. Also? He looks like this, answers questions, and has something like a life. Merlin’s favorite thing he’s written recently is a short essay called, “Better.” |
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