I am well aware that often times I am a power user and I understand operating systems and networking very well. The goal is to find a solution that is easy to use that I don’t have to manage.

The questions and challenges I was having do not seem to be that far off the beaten path from a typical use case in my opinion. First a little background on the hardware, operating systems, and services involved with the issue. Using my frequent traveller reward points I recently purchased two iPod Touches, my wife has an iMac, I have a MacBook Pro, and we are using an Airport Extreme to connect all this together at home. While I am traveling I often use iChat to talk with the wife. She had a MobileMe/mac.com paid single user account and I had a complimentary mac.com account for use with iChat. She also uses the iDisk and backup tools included with MobileMe. We tried sharing documents using the iDisk but configuring it for a secure connection was not as easy as hoped. So we changed to the free version of Dropbox (I get a referral reward of more storage if you use it; even the free version) to allow for easier sharing.

I did not think anything of this decision to use Dropbox, then came our iPod purchases. The iPod Touch feature set had some things that we thought would make our lives easier. It appeared that MobileMe was going to be the service that was going to make all these things work. The goal was to be able to do the following:

1. Share calendars
   As alluded I travel quite a bit for work, so being able to keep my comings and goings straight can get to be tricky
2. Share files
   Already handled via Dropbox but if we could integrate it with MobileMe and make it easier, even better
3. Share contacts
4. Continue to use iChat
5. I also had additional uses:
   1. Ability to read and write personal email from the iPod
   2. Keep the contacts and calendars on the iPod synchronized
   3. Have some basic files on there as well
      Once again previously done with Dropbox but looking for easier integration
   4. The fun feature was to be able to have palindromic email addresses
      I am not going to publish the e-mail addresses here for fear of spambots, but my more astute readers can probably figure them out. My domain is bradfordbenn.com, the domain for MobileMe is me.com. Get it?

So far after a week of “use” the following the results have not been as hoped for. Perhaps my expectations were too high but for being the “easier” solution in terms of marketing positioning, it does not meet my expectations. However before I go into the entire diatribe, I do want to give Apple credit and kudos for their technical support, when I have hit a problem contacting support has been quick and easy.

The first sign of trouble came when trying to register under the wife’s account after expanding it, and paying more, for a family account. This process took over 40 minutes with Technical Support. I know this time is correct as the transcript contains time date stamps. I wanted to transfer my complimentary account name to the paid account, the online help indicated that it would be possible. So I went ahead and tried to register it, rejected, “invalid username or password”. Maybe I “misremembered” my information, but being that my username is my name, and was active as a complimentary account, I did not think that was possible. I checked the Keychain application on my MacBook Pro and verified that I had the proper password. The combination of username and password still did not function. I thought, okay maybe I was confused as to how to register. My complimentary account was under mac.com and MobileMe uses me.com, so maybe it wasn’t adding an existing account, perhaps it was create a new one. The directions said “use the button” so I was using the button, but things can be wrong or unclear. So I tried again with the creation of a new account; sorry that account name is active.

Time to contact Technical Support via their online chat. I follow the directions and connect and write the question, the queue system says it will be eight minutes waiting. A reasonable amount of time given the wait times on other Tech Support contacts. The agent came on after about a minute. I explained the problem I was having. The chat starts off reasonably enough with the standard exposition, I did not feel as if I was being talked at except for when the webpage address of help was sent back to me. I was following the directions on the help file and by the user agent. I was able to recover the password for the complimentary account through the self serve web application. I then took that and went to the page Set Up Family Member Account > Convert existing> and type into the Member Name “BradfordBenn” and the password into password and it responds “Unable to convert account This is an invalid membername or password”. The agent indicates that the username “is not a valid mobileme account. You should be able to add it as a sub account. You will choose to create anew account.”

So then I tried that again, and it still comes as the username as “unavailable” Hmmm the two results seem opposed to each other. The agent agreed, but I could tell he was a little incredulous of the problems I was having. He suggested creating a test account, so I used our dog’s name. That was the first sign that there was something odd going on. When I set it up with Proper Case, the MobileMe system response was username “is unavailable but the suggested member names are …” with one of them being the exact same name however all lower case. I then tried the username I wanted all lower case, that worked. However at no point in the documentation of the user creation process or the first 35 minutes of the chat was this mentioned. I do not think the agent knew the fact either. When I send an e-mail to the new account it is case INsensitive, so the case sensitivity does not seem to be through the entire system. We all know that there are tools that can convert a mixed case phrase to a single case, so that could have been handled behind the scenes more elegantly.

That was an inconvenience but we got it straightened out, and I was signed up. All should be working now, right? Wrong. But you already know that or else I wouldn’t be writing this post.

I wanted to share my calendar with my wife. Now by share I should actually say collaborate with my wife as that is more correct. So I created a calendar using iCal 4.0, I clicked the Publish button and got the resultant link which iCal queued up for me so that all I needed to do was select her e-mail address for Address Book using Mail. I figured that would allow her to make and add things to the calendar as well. After all the page http://www.apple.com/mobileme/features/ said “Add an event on your iPhone and it appears in the Calendar application on me.com in seconds, then syncs to your computers. You can even manage multiple calendars. So you’ll never miss a lunch date, soccer game, or important meeting again.” In fairness it does not indicate that multiple people would be able to collaborate with each other, I took that from “manage multiple calendars” coupled with the fact that the free Google calendar allows for the sharing of calendars. I figured that MobileMe as a pay service would offer that feature, it did not.

I figured it was operator error and I was doing something wrong, so off I went to the online documentation again. The MobileMe help page only has documentation up to iCal 3.0; however the documentation that is there (for iCal 2.0) indicates: “With MobileMe Calendars, you can view your iCal or Outlook calendars online and make changes online at any time.”

You do not need to share your account use name and password for others to see your calendar data.  Instead, you can publish and share your MobileMe Calendar as read-only.” In my opinion the verbiage implies one should be able to share it as read only or allow a user to make changes online. So I continue digging going to the article it references for more help that one is about iCal 3.0. So once again I go to online Chat Support.

I ask how to setup the iCal share so that it is not just view but has the ability for authorized users to make edits to it. This feature is supported in the MobileMe Address Book integration. The support agent informs me that I “won’t be able to do that unfortunately unless she just uses your account on her phone and computer.” So I ask a few more questions “When I publish through MobileMe is my calendar public or can I restrict who can see it?”

Support Agent “no you can’t restrict who can see it however the person would have to know the exact address of the  ico feed just to even gain access to it”

I do some more thinking and ask about placing on secure network sites such as DropBox or JungleDisk. I can export to it, if I figure enough I might be able to publish to it. However they would still not be able to make changes.

So I am now thinking about this some more and realizing that MobileMe is not really a good value for the performance given what one gets for it. It really isn’t even secure with sharing your information. The calendars are wide open, one would just have to run a directory search or guess at some of the names. I am sure that there are plenty of people with the default name of “untitled calendar” or “My Calendar” selected.

Now to their defence, there is a feedback page http://www.apple.com/feedback/, But I figure I would overflow the pages.

After thinking about this situation more, I can share a calendar using Google but I have not figured out how to do contacts yet. I can purchase hosted Exchange services that will allow for the sharing of the calendar and contacts, while not free; neither is MobileMe it is $150 a year for a family, $99 for an individual. Is it really the best solution for the money?

MobileMe does integrate fairly well into the Mac environment, but it does not seem to have all the features completed.

My next rant will be about the software functionality of Apple’s offerings… but that is the next one. Part of it was posted here

So I had decided to upgrade the operating system on my Mac Book Pro to Snow Leopard. When I did that I received a warning on the battery being in need of service. So I checked the Apple site and was prepared for it not to be supported and having to buy a new battery. However since I have AppleCare, which is still in effect, after answering a few questions over the phone they indicated that it would be covered. The downside was that I would have to go into a store to verify it and find time to do that. With all the traveling I would be doing, I would not be able to do it for a few weeks. They indicated that as long as I kept it under 300 cycles on the battery it would still be covered – I was at 179 so it was not a problem. I made my appointment with the Genius Bar for last Friday, I showed up, was greeted at the door and signed in. About five minutes later I was talking with a Genius, explaining my challenge, and getting a brand new battery as well as instructions on how to condition it. I also got a few minutes of Snow Leopard questions since I was done early…. I was figuring I would not have that option I would have to do a 1:1 appointment but they volunteered. It was very easy and fast.

So the other challenge was my Jawbone headset, and replacement parts not being available. I sent the e-mail and got a response on Sunday, one day later. The response was very generic so I was not excited:

Hi there Brad,

Thanks for your e-mail!

While the accessories for the Original Jawbone are no longer available for sale, we would like to try and find a solution for you.   Please call us during the week at 1-877-254-7426 and press 2 to discuss further options.  Any of our Customer Service Representatives will be happy to assist you with this — we open to take calls from 6am PST to 9pm Pacific Standard Time.

Thanks!  Have a nice day.

So I got around to calling today, the person was very apologetic and explained how the parts were obsolete because their supplier stopping building them. However they were going to send me a demo set of the suggested replacements (a $10 value on their website) that should fit but are not a direct replacement. No charge. They even sent me a confirmation e-mail indicating what we talked about and closing the loop. Completely different than I expected.

Hi Brad,

Thanks for calling! It was a pleasure speaking with you today.

Your accessory replacement has been initiated and you should receive it within a week.  If you do not receive your package in a week, please reply to this e-mail and let me know.

Thanks again, Brad. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week!

So maybe Customer Service isn’t dead. I know that SmugMug proves it isn’t dead, but then again based on a friend’s experience Comcast is proving that it might be hiding.