2008-08-11 #1

ImmobileMe

I decided to sign up for the two-month evaluation of Apple's MobileMe, the online service previously known as .Mac. It offers web service, plus IMAP-based email, a WebDAV-based iDisk, synchronisation of data sets including contacts and calendar, and web access to these features. The decision was partly with a view to evaluating the iPhone, and partly as a land-grab since the cassiel username was available.

Many of these features I have already, having built and configured them onto my Linux-based Rimu hosts, so I need to decide whether it's worth £60 per year for a distributed personal organiser and robust, scalable performance. The initial signs don't look good - MobileMe email has just been offline, and the "cloud" appears to have completely wiped my calendar, except for the categories, which it has mysteriously duplicated. Synchronisation with iCal on OS X 10.4 appears to be totally nonfunctional. The little hamster wheel in my menu bar dutifully spins every few minutes, but otherwise it would appear that nobody is home. I can, apparently, wait for 47 minutes for an online chat with a support technician.

If Eddy Cue doesn't fix it, I'm going to log back into my Rimu hosts and build what I need for myself.