Apple shortchanges e-mail users with MobileMe update

Accustomed to basking in the white-tinged glow of its products, Apple is beginning to feel what it's like to be on the receiving end of some consumer rage.

Last week it was the launch of its new iPhone, which despite being well-reviewed hit a snag when thousands of users found they couldn't activate their devices because of a fault with the iTunes website.

Today it was the upgrade to its old e-mail service, .Mac, that left an unknown number of users without access to their inboxes.

Apple is in the process of transferring all its .Mac accounts to a new service called MobileMe, which among other things will give iPhone users the ability to have their e-mail as well as calendar and contact information pushed to their new device.

For non-iPhone owners, it will do what .Mac always did, which was provide e-mail and the ability to store information such as photos on the web - for an annual fee.

What Apple has kept quiet is that MobileMe will have some quite stringent system requirements. In particular, MobileMe users will have to have the latest version of Internet Explorer - IE7 - in order for the service to work. (In fact, Apple has added, in some cases MobileMe features won't work on IE7 at all. You'll need Firefox or Safari, Apple's web browser.)

Today was the first full business day after the launch of MobileMe, and when many .Mac users went to check their e-mail at work, they discovered they couldn't, because their work computers had older versions of IE.

As some blogs have pointed out, it shouldn't be too much of a problem - the latest versions of Firefox and IE are free online - but because of the way IT departments control like hawks what can and can't be downloaded onto work PCs, many were left stranded.

"It's super-frustrating not being able to access my web mail," one London-based .Mac user said.

According to one report, some .Mac users have demanded a refund from Apple for the days that they have no been able to access their e-mail while they sort the problem out. (The basic subscription to MobileMe costs £59 a year.)

MacDailyNews - the pro-Apple news site - reminded readers that, if they just switched to using Firefox, rather than IE, they wouldn't have the same problem.

But, it added, "at the very least, Apple should add a week to every .Mac subscriber's term of service," to allow them to make the necessary updates. "An apology would be nice too," it said.

Apple today could not give a figure for the number of .Mac accounts that are being transferred to MobileMe. A spokeswoman pointed MobileMe users needing help to this Q&A on the Apple site.

Comments

[Ian]

Apple also promised that e-mail, contacts and calendar information would be "instantly, automatically, continuously pushed" between a subscriber's various devices. Now it turns out that doesn't happen between a Mac/PC and MobileMe, and Apple has quietly changed their marketing materials to reflect this, even after people have signed up and paid for the service expecting to see such "push" functionality.

[Byron]

And why are you checking personal email at work against the vast majority of corporate computer use policy? tisk tisk

[Luke]

You can add itunes 7.7 to the list of rubbish Apple software. I'm now stuch with an ipod that doesn't work after my copy of itunes decided to upgrade last week. a search of forums has shown loads of people have the same trouble.

Apple could do us a big favour and not try to sneak Safari into every download of itunes too.

[Rich]

Why are you paying £59 a year for webmail?

[Sam]

Apple sent me an email saying I'd get an extra months subscription added on for free.

[Mark]

Forcing people to update their Internet browsers in order to use your service, given the security issues from using old version, particularly of IE, this sounds like a good idea to me

[Khaled]

Can we have some perspective on this issue please? Apple informed all .mac users 1 month before MobileMe was launched that the service would be changing. Apple's email had details about how to avoid any intermittent problems using a short and easy to use guide. Had a majority of .mac users bothered to read that email, maybe they would have not experienced any problems with MobileMe.

As a .mac and now MobileMe user, I'm vastly impressed with the new service.

[Ben]

It seems a little strange to me. Why would you blame Apple because their using the latest security technologies on their new service? Isn't it the users fault for not updating their browsers to the latest version?

[michael kaldezar]

Can't access their email? what happended to going direct to the .me site! Apple have screwed up on this launch but they have compensated with another 30 days free mobileme service. Does any other company move so quickly to address compensation issues? Go Steve Go! Apple rules!

[webdev]

To be honest i'm glad that a large and prominent company (and website) is sticking up for web standards. IE's blatant disregard for coding standards and interpreting XHTML and CSS is a disgrace. I'm not surprised they don't want to support it when they've made, to be honest, an excellent web service, with MobileMe.

(Of course the pessimist, will say Apple is just trying to push their own web platform. Which obviously explains why the mention 'Firefox' (first) then Safari!)