Apple's new MobileMe Internet service still rocky

BY EMI ENDO | emi.endo@newsday.com

7:29 PM EDT, July 24, 2008

Two weeks after it hobbled out of the starting gate, Apple's new Internet service is still limping.

A month before releasing the latest version of the iPhone, Apple announced an upgrade to its Internet service, through which subscribers can publish photos online, store data and use e-mail.

The name of the service, which costs $99 a year, changed from. Mac to MobileMe. Among the new functions touted was so-called push e-mail, which would immediately send new e-mail onto a customer's iPhone. That makes using the iPhone similar to a BlackBerry, made by Research In Motion.

But the launch was so unstable that Apple last week apologized to customers, calling the transition "a lot rockier than we had hoped." The company extended service for 30 days to members for free. The company also backpedaled from describing the service as "pushing" e-mail and other data.

Members reported having trouble signing on, changing passwords and accessing service. As of Thursday morning, an Apple service advisory said 1 percent of customers could not send or receive their e-mail because of a "serious issue" with a mail server.

Efforts to reach a spokesperson for Apple Thursday were not successful.

Apple said in an e-mail to subscribers that while changes made on the iPhone and Web applications immediately updated the online server, changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync and that it would stop describing the service as "push" until it is "near-instant."

Sean Ryan, an analyst with IDC, a Framingham, Mass., research firm, said the iPhone still had a way to go before it "really impacts RIM's business in the near-term." But even as BlackBerry owners use their devices on the weekends to play music or check sports scores, he said, "certainly people are interested in having iPhones for business."

Not everyone has had problems with MobileMe, however.

Richard Hickerson, a board member of the Long Island Mac.intosh Users Group, said he has been able to sync his calendars and upload files for storage through MobileMe.

Hickerson, 64, of Bensonhurst, said his e-mail address through the. Mac service has been his primary e-mail account. "For me, at least when I was looking, I could get to everything," said Hickerson, a librarian.