Posts tagged MobileMe
You waiting for Me?
2Following the announcement of MobileMe at WWDC a couple of weeks ago I have been looking forward to the early July release so I could sign up with a brand new username and be able to sync my Macs and iPod touch over ‘the cloud’. When I bought my Mac Mini three years ago I tried out the 60-day trial of .Mac but didn’t use any of the services as I wasn’t keen on renewing with a price-tag of £69.
I was going to wait until the Apple Store were shipping before ordering MobileMe, but my friend Chris mentioned that he bought a discounted .Mac Family Pack on Amazon.com which I thought was a great idea. I had a look around and saw an eBay listing for the .Mac user and Family Packs cheaper than elsewhere. I bought .Mac (user) for £48 – a saving of £11 on the soon-to-be MobileMe price. The activation code was e-mailed to me 5 days after purchase due to the increased demand. I headed to the .Mac site late last week and was pleased to grab the name I wanted.
Usually I wouldn’t be too bothered about a saving of around £10 or £11, but at least registering before the upgrade takes place means I have the option of having mail sent to either @mac.com or @me.com. If you want to grab a discounted .Mac so you’re ready and waiting for the switchover then search eBay for ‘dotmac’ and there should be a few listed. Once MobileMe is officially launched then I’ll most likely use it as my main personal address as I’ll be able to access my mail far easier, especially on my iPod touch which never did seem too happy about dealing with my POP3/IMAP mail accounts.
So, here’s the big question…
If you are buying (or moving from .Mac) what features are you particularly looking forward to? One of the features I’m newly excited about since my switch back to Safari yesterday is being able to sync my bookmarks across my Macs and iPod touch. I’ve noticed some intermittent outages on .Mac over the 5 days I’ve had it, mostly with Mail. Since I’m not relying on the service yet then it’s not a problem and I guess this can only be expected during the run up to the MobileMe launch, then hopefully it will be a lot more stable.
Remember, there’ll be a 60-day free trial of MobileMe when it launches so you don’t have to commit right away if you are unsure whether it will suit your needs. I was thinking of signing up for the trial, but then I couldn’t really see why I won’t immediately love and embrace all the features right away since the guided tour has me positively salivating 
Made to make your mouth water
10Yesterday Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 3G at the WWDC08 Keynote in San Francisco. For weeks there have been all kinds of rumours as to what would be announced during the event, but the more solid rumour was the new iPhone.
During the keynote which started at 6pm UK time, I was in an AIM/iChat with a few people from Twitter, including my favourite Apple Geeks. We decided to have a chatroom on the go as we suspected Twitter wouldn’t be able to cope with the extra traffic during that busy time as it’s been falling over for weeks without something as huge as the Stevenote bringing it to it’s knees. Most of us were also listening to the secret keynote audio stream through ustream.tv and getting deafened by the applause and whoops of delight, especially when the new $199 iPhone pricetag was announced! But, that was fun.
o2 were very quick to update their site with information about the iPhone 3G and how existing customers can get their hands on it come July 11th, with a list of the tariffs and prices. The other great news is the new iPhone will be available for business customers. This will please my other half as he is an o2 Business customer and late last year he held off upgrading his phone in the hope that come November/December he would be able to upgrade to the iPhone and slide across keeping his existing number. Sadly that wasn’t possible, and moving to the iPhone and changing his number isn’t an option. So, late December he begrudgingly upgraded his handset from an old and broken one and now won’t be eligible for an upgrade until Springtime next year, but I’m betting the iPhone will be his next phone.
The other exciting news, however, is o2 are going to offer Pay & Go customers the opportunity to get the iPhone without signing any lengthy contracts. I’m on a contract which I can leave at anytime as long as I give a month’s notice. I changed from my £14-99 a month contract last year to the £15 o2 SIMplicity contract which is just 1 month long, as long as I kept my existing handset. What I would like to do is buy the P&G iPhone and put my SIM into that. I have no idea whether that’s possible as there isn’t any details on the o2 website just yet, but I’ll most probably speak to someone soon at o2 about it to find out whether this is indeed a possibility. I really want the new iPhone and am fully prepared to pay up to £300 for the handset if Uncle Steve and o2 allow me to pop in my own SIM and keep going with my £15 a month tariff. My money is ready and waiting in the bank, just hope it gets to spend itself on the gadget of my choice 
I love o2, been a mobile phone customer for years aswell as an o2 Broadband customer since last November. I will love them even more if I can get in on the iPhone.
Then there’s something else I’ll be throwing my money at come July: MobileMe.
This replaces .Mac and current subscribers will be upgraded for free when the service launches mid-July…and what a fantastic service – well worth the £59 pricetag, in my opinion. Wherever you are, your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac (and/or PC) will always stay in sync via the “cloud”. You can watch the guided tour video here – well worth a look. I didn’t ever get tempted by the .Mac service, but MobileMe blows that out of the water.
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