What happens when there's no story?

Those in the blogging community who cover Apple related news have been jumping all over the Mobile Me launch, and its well documented failures.   It’s even got to the point where, allegedly, Steve Jobs has admitted Apple made a mistake in launching Mobile Me at the time they did.   It would be very easy to jump on the band wagon and start hating on Mobile Me as well, but I won’t.   I can’t.

I’m No .mac Daddy

I’ve never been a .mac customer, I never really got it.   But then again, I was a one mac guy and didn’t have an iPhone.   So the prospect of syncing settings and such like didn’t really appeal.   I never really had a need for it, and it didn’t offer me enough over what I got for free through Google Apps.   So when I entered into the Mobile Me world, it was as an Apple Web Service Virgin.

Buying into the Hype

Yes, it happened.   I stepped into Steve’s reality distortion field and wondered around the house in a daze for a few days.   When I awoke from my daze, I had a Mobile Me account set up on my MacBook.   That’s the way I always buy Apple products, it’s like waking up the morning after the night before with an expensive prostitute lying next to you.

So I have this Mobile Me account and, as circumstances have moved along since the .mac days, I also have an iMac, an iPod Touch and an iPhone.   All of which are Mobile Me enabled / capable devices.   So that’s a laptop, a desktop, an iPhone and an iPhone.   So what does Mobile Me give me, and how well does it work?

So far I’ve tried out everything apart from “Back to My Mac”, so that’s over the air push syncing of email contacts and calendars, web galleries, web space, syncing of bookmarks and settings and backups.   And I can tell you that so far, everything has worked flawlessly.   I’ve not lost any data, push email comes through to my phone instantly (despite being forwarded from a GMail account) and everything is constantly synchronised.   I’ve also not experienced any downtime, nor any problems of any kind.

This is sort of frustrating a a blogger.   I want something interesting to report.   I want the aforementioned prostitute to give be herpes, or something.   It’s not really interesting reporting that “every thing’s fine”.   It’s especially difficult when there are blogs out there grabbing headlines by reporting on how bad Mobile Me is.   I could have taken the same approach.   I could have shouted at the top of my voice that Mobile Me doesn’t work and isn’t worth the money.   I could have yelled that the prostitute stole my wallet.   But it didn’t happen.

What I would say, however, is that Mobile Me, even when it’s working, is not for everyone.   If I only had one Mac, even if I had an iPhone as well, I’d struggle to justify the expense.   With two Macs and an iPhone, it seems almost a no-brainer for me, at least if you’ve got the cash to spend.   For me, with the constant syncing, push email and delightful web apps, it’s become pretty indispensable.