MobileMe- will it “just work” for the rest of us?
You’ve almost certainly heard of Apple’s upcoming MobileMe service announced by Steve Jobs this week. Jobs touted the sync service, the replacement for Apple’s .MAC, as "Exchange for the rest of us". What he no doubt meant by that statement is that while Microsoft Exchange Server has the (deserved) reputation as being very big and complex (and enterprise capable), MobileMe (MM) is designed to "just work" for the "rest of us". What exactly does that mean, anyway? Let’s take a look at MobileMe and see what we know so far about the new service.
The new MobileMe service is the replacement for the .MAC service that Apple has run for some time. All .MAC subscribers, and I am one, will be converted over to the new MobileMe service when it goes live. New subscribers will pay $99/ year for the service which also provides 20 GB of combined email and online file storage. There is also a 200 GB monthly data transfer limit which I haven’t heard discussed much yet. Apple is also providing a family "5 pack" subscription for email accounts and a 5 GB email and file storage limit along with a 50 GB of data transfer limit monthly. You can get 20 GB of extra storage for $49 per year and 40 GB for $99 annually High volume accounts will quickly get very expensive as you can see.
MobileMe at its core is an online PIM solution, email, contacts and calendaring functions that can be totally accessed via a web browser. It can also work with photos and iDisk online file storage. This means that MobileMe is a cloud application that stores all your PIM data online. Jobs demonstrated the browser-based applications during his keynote and they look like full-function applications that just happen to run in the browser. This frees the MobileMe customer from a single computer and allows full interaction with any compatible web browser. Apple is claiming that MM can be used not only in Safari and Internet Explorer but also in Firefox 2.x and up which is great news for me as a big Firefox fan. This also means that MobileMe is platform agnostic since it can be used in just about any web browser. I hope that Apple makes the online apps work just as well in Internet Explorer and Firefox as they do in Safari for to do any less would be a mistake. I use Outlook Web Access for online connections to my Exchange Server and the Firefox version is not as good as the Internet Explorer version which is a mistake that Microsoft made and Apple would be wise to not make the same one.
MobileMe is designed at its base level to synchronize PIM data (email, contacts, calendar) from a Mac to the iPhone. This is why Apple is rolling MM out with the iPhone 3G, to help compete with other smartphones that have the ability to sync with Exchange Servers. This will work according to Apple with push technology- add an appointment to iCal for example and it is instantly "pushed" to the iPhone (and iPod Touch too). This is a two-way sync so the same thing happens when you add an appointment or contact on the iPhone. The addition will instantly appear on the Mac desktop client. This is all accomplished over-the-air (OTA) in both directions so it will be very fast and the end result is both your devices will be up-to-date all the time. The utility of this functionality is increased as MM will also keep multiple Mac desktop clients synced if desired. This means that if you have an iMac and a MacBook you can configure them with MM to also keep them synced, with or without the iPhone in the mix. All of your PIM data will be up to the minute fresh on all your computing devices.
Where Apple surprised us all is by also adding Windows PCs into the sync equation. Any Windows XP or Vista PC can also be configured to sync with MobileMe just like the Macs, and while they have stated this will work with Outlook 2003 or 2007 it doesn’t stop there. MM will sync email with not only Outlook but also Outlook Express and Windows Mail (in Vista). Contacts will sync with Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Contacts (in Vista). Calendar functions will only sync with Outlook however. This ability to keep your Macs in sync with your Windows PCs (along with the iPhone) is Apple’s counter to the Exchange Server on the Windows side. Interestingly Apple is also going to have MM keep both Safari and Internet Explorer bookmarks synced across platforms. They realize that a lot of folks use Macs at home and Windows PCs for their work and with MM they can keep everything up-to-date on all fronts. This is not as full-featured as Exchange Server installations by any means but it is easily good enough for most users and it’s a shame that Microsoft didn’t get similar consumer focused functionality released before Apple.
There are some key differences in how this push technology of MobileMe will likely work (and there’s not a lot of technical information out there yet) and how the similar function works in Exchange Server setups. I have a hosted Exchange Server for my Windows PCs and frankly I am not the target customer for MM. My solution with Exchange is already in place and is fairly bulletproof and I am unlikely to change over. Apple is not after me but they are after everyone else though and why they are offering this simple to implement and use solution that offers the major functionality of Exchange.
I am interested to see exactly how MM will perform this "push" function. It would seem that there must be some sort of push service (or daemon) running on the client devices that constantly look for changes and when they detect that a pertinent change has been made then the push is instigated. On Windows PCs working with Exchange things are a bit different than this as a persistent connection to the Exchange Server is made when the Outlook client logs on and the user is actually working directly with the information stored on the server. You can configure Outlook to retain no data locally on the client if desired so you can only work with your PIM data when logged in. You can’t always have a connection to the Server (on flights for example) so most people configure Outlook to cache the Exchange Server data locally so that they can interact with their data even if offline and so a cache is stored in an OST file locally. This file is actually opened with Outlook whether there is an online connection to the server or not so the user can interact with it and it then caches changes from that session and syncs it with the Server the next time the client logs onto the Server. I will be surprised if MobileMe will even work with Windows Outlook configurations that are using an OST file which means no mixing Exchange setups with MM.
Windows users of Outlook without Exchange Server are the target customers that Apple is after with MobileMe. These Outlook users don’t connect to a server at all, instead all of the Outlook PIM data is stored locally in a PST file on the client system. This is no doubt what MM is set up to interact with and it will be interesting to see how well this works. Long-time Outlook users have probably seen their PST files get bloated over time and it’s not unheard of to see PST files get corrupted with heavy usage. This situation makes me wonder what will happen with MM if something happens to the PST file. We’ll just have to wait to see what problems this might cause as anything else is just speculation at this point. I think it’s fair to say that MobileMe will expect all clients to have local data stores that will be used for the push syncing and all data will be stored in the MM cloud online. Apple claims you can also use MM with multiple Windows PCs so conceivably you could have MM keeping multiple devices all up-to-date easily. This is appealing to me with all the devices that come in and out of Mobile Tech Manor so you can bet I will check this out when MM goes live next month. Small businesses could use this multiple device capability to configure workers’ computers to all sync to the same MM account providing simulated server capability on the cheap.
I believe that MobileMe will be using a combination of OS X’s iSync and Windows ActiveSync technologies to make all of this magic happen. Apple recently licensed the ActiveSync technology from Microsoft which will probably be used for the Outlook syncing and I’ll bet the Mac to Mac syncing will use Apple’s existing iSync technology. This is all speculation and we’ll have to see exactly what they are using once they roll MM out. They have the potential of making this a very simple service and if they are successful, and Apple often is in this area, they will make a huge splash with MobileMe. Exchange for the rest of us.
Great article, but of course, I got a preview of it during a lengthy conversation yesterday. Seriously, this is the stuff we talk about folks!
Two quick thoughts:
“Where Apple surprised us all is by also adding Windows PCs into the sync equation.” Not all of us were surprised: http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/05/i-still-think-w.html
I’d be surprised if Apple uses the setup you describe where all clients are running a service or daemon that looks for changes. To me, that would be more of a “pull” system, not a “push” system. I suspect that clients are always ready to accept data, but they aren’t the ones that generally initiate it. Solely a guess though. As you said, there’s currently very little technical info available on this right now.
I’m going to guess that the client computers will run a service that creates a persistent connection with the MobileMe service when you log in to the user account on the client, and then data just gets pushed down it. I don’t see why they would do it some other way.
The interesting part will be how they do it on the *iphone*. I know that the push yahoo mail right now supposedly works like the fake exchange push did in WM5, where there’s a hidden SMS sent to the device that tells the client to download mail.
I don’t know how it works with WM5 Messaging and Feature Whatever / WM6 though. It seems like creating a persistent data connection the way that IMAP IDLE does just eats batteries enormously. So how does BlackBerry / WM6 do it?
something tells me that the iphone part of the sync is related to the same push service as made available for third party software on the iphone.
also, by including a web interface, as well as a ms software interface, apple is moving away from their mac only outlook to one more related to a service provider like google.
now if they can hook the appletv up to this somehow, and maybe turn their consumer level mac products into more iphone like products (complete with software available via a branch of app store) things become “interesting”.
it seems that apple is doing what microsoft only talked about with .net and is trying to do with live.
i have kinda observed this in the making for a couple of months now.
James,
I showed this service to a couple of neophyte computer user friends, and they ‘got it’. For the first time since I’ve talked to them about my move to cloud computing, it registered. Chalk that up to Apple’s demonstration capabilities, or putting a solid application together, but if this is the case in a larger audience, MobileMe may be the sleeper hit of the Stevenote. On the compatibility front, Apple will not support IE 6 from what I gather. That may hinder some people, but more likely will push IE6 users to finally upgrade their browser.
For me personally, I think the service is over-priced, given that you can sync Gmail and GCal with nearly everything for free, and get a huge 60gig account with SugarSync for the file and photo capabilities. But, then again, I’m probably not the target market for this.
For Apple to really take a shot at Microsoft on the ‘Exchange for the Rest of us’ they need to push the envelope and open MobileMe up as a ‘platform’. At minimum, they should try to emulate their iWork apps on the cloud. In a combined suite, that would be interesting.
I am using the gmail client on my mobile (Blackberry Pearl 8100) and the free gcal mobile sync to keep my blackberry calendar in sync with my google calendar. If Google would come out with a contact sync app, then I would have no need for MM. I sync my data to share with my wife, so the contact sync, while not required, would be nice. Especially since I have the habit of swaping devices frequently.
The real question/comment I have is, Will MM work on the Nokia Internet Tablets?
I’ve cobbled together a system of mostly free services. I use Gmail, Google Calendar, del.icio.us and Evernote. Once out of beta Evernote will no longer be free. All of these services are available from OS X, Windows and my iPhone. I don’t use Google Docs much because there’s no way to work with and store Google Docs conveniently offline like with Evernote.
Nitin: you make a good point with regards to ‘you can do it with other stuff’. That’s why I switched away from .Mac; I didn’t use some features, and ended up with a lot more flexibility for a lot less money by signing up with a dedicated web host. (A ’shared’ web host.. but I mean they’re dedicated to web hosting, as opposed to .Mac’s odd place in the market.)
One thing that having a combination of Gmail for calendars (which syncs.. okay) and my webhost for private web hosting etc is that I’m accomplishing all these tasks through different places.
MobileMe is aiming to provide *one* place to get several different services, which I think is the good point.
Techie people like those who read jkotr are probably going to roll their own here, but someone who’s less techie isn’t going to want to use 5 different services, they’ll want to just put stuff in their iCal / Outlook and have it go onto their iPhone and be done with it, and *hopefully* MobileMe will do that.
I might give the 60 day trial a whirl and see just how cool it is.
(One thing MobileMe may allow is syncing.. some programs already sync via .Mac, and perhaps Apple is going to make that the official way to ’sync’ with an iPhone?)
i am looking forward to having mobile me push me (my data) around
and i just wrote a poem all about it – http://webpoet.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/pushing-around-mobileme/
That $49 extra for an additional 20GB is per year, not per month. Which, of course, makes it much more reasonable
I’m actually tempted to spend the extra $99 and get a total of 60Gb.
Ian, you are correct and annually is what I meant. It’s been corrected, thanks.
The funny thing is that Microsoft have all this in Hotmail and a few of there other web services (foldershare, etc.) but they’ve never really joined the dots and over the years they’ve gradually restricted access to Hotmail in Outlook Express.
The new Windows Live Mail client (which competes with Windows Mail strangely) gives you Exchange-like access to your mail and contacts but for some bizarre reason not your Hotmail calendar. Also, they don’t bother to market it.
If they could get their Live strategy together they’d have a killer combination but at the moment it’s a bit of a disaster. Hopefully MM will force them to take another look at what they’re doing here and finally get everything working seemlessly together. It would also be nice if they could provide a free service without forcing people onto the web to view ads because that would really bring people back to Hotmail.
You are going to still test this for us right? I am curious to see how you feel about it after you use it for a few weeks….just b/c you have a solution in place already shouldn’t stop you from trying out some new tech
I’m sure I will be testing it as soon as I get the iPhone 3G.
>>>I’m sure I will be testing it as soon as I get the iPhone 3G.
*Cane a-hootin’ and a-hollerin’*
We’ll wean you off that HTC Advantage at some point, Kendrick!
So far, the only part of MM that intrigues me is the bookmark sync option. But there must be things available that can do that right now, huh? Too bad I don’t know of them. hint, hint.
The PIM stuff doesn’t yet interest me. I’d have to see what 3rd-party PIMs come out for the iPhone and see if they will work with MM too. Any bets on that?
Mike, Google Browser Sync for Firefox. I’ve mentioned that dozens of times!
James, I think you are right in that it will likely involve some type of daemon/service/tray app running in Windows and will sync with Outlook in the same way that iTunes syncs with Outlook when you plug in your iPhone. No ActiveSync involved. This analysis seems consistent with the fact that MobileMe has the same syncing capabilities on Windows as iTunes, and probably uses the same software libraries.
Mike,
Pocket Informant is coming for the iphone. That should do it.
Gordon
On the subject of file backup, sharing and storage …
Online backup is becoming common these days. It is estimated that 70-75% of all PC’s will be connected to online backup services with in the next decade.
Thousands of online backup companies exist, from one guy operating in his apartment to fortune 500 companies.
Choosing the best online backup company will be very confusing and difficult. One website I find very helpful in making a decision to pick an online backup company is:
http://www.BackupReview.info
This site lists more than 400 online backup companies in its directory and ranks the top 25 on a monthly basis.
James, one restriction with google browser sync is that you can’t access the data on the web directly. You can only sync between the computer and the server, or to another machine that also has browser sync installed.
Foxmarks or sync2it bookmark sync at least allow you to access your bookmarks from another machine where you may not want to sync all you data, but just want that one link. Also a lot of companies may not allow individuals to install Firefox or if they do any and all extensions they want. So Google browser sync is not there yet completely.
I tend to use all three as each has some good points and some drawbacks.
Google Sync – syncs all data including bookmarks, passwords, cookies, tabs, etc. But no direct access to the data without installing the extension.
Foxmarks – Very nice bookmark sync with full access to the bookmarks through its website so that you can access and modify your data without having to sync it.
Sync2it – The same a Foxmarks, but also offers sync across all the major browsers such as IE, opera, Safari, etc. Drawback is that you have to pay for the full version, as the free versioni’s a bit limited.
James & Mike: you might want to forget about Google Browser Sync (or forget about FF3). See: http://lifehacker.com/396042/#c6187865
If that report is accurate, you’ll be looking at the Google Toolbar, Foxmarks or another alternative.