Apple MobileMe vs. Microsoft Live Mesh
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I’ve paid for a .Mac subscription from Apple. I’ve also paid for an MSN subscription from Microsoft. I paid about the same amount for each one. I can’t call it .MAC much longer. From now on, it will be called MobileMe. If you’re asking me whether it’s worth the subscription price, my answer is an unequivocal yes… especially if you have an iPhone. Even if you don’t, the synchronization will still come in handy. You still get web-based applications, and a great experience… whether you’re running on a Mac or Windows.
MobileMe is giving you access to 20GB of space ‘in the cloud’. With that, you can upload photos or documents. You can have and share a calender. You will get email if you would like to use it. You can use Microsoft Outlook to access your account if you wish! If you are using Gmail, you may wonder why you would want to use MobileMe. Again, if you have an iPhone, why wouldn’t you? It’s a no-brainer.
I’m already paying for an Exchange account so I can get my email and calenders hosted to share with Ponzi. I’m already paying for email, basically. Since I have an iPhone, this just makes sense. It’s a new service for your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. This is the simple way to keep everything up to date. You can have the same data everywhere: your desktop, your laptop and your phone. The tagline for the new MobileMe is: Push email. Push contacts. Push calendar. The idea is that when something changes in one place, it will automatically change in all of the others. In essence, it will “push” the changes through across your synched devices and machines. From Apple:
MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars on an online server - or “cloud” - and pushes them down to your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. Push happens automatically, instantly, and continuously. You don’t have to wait for it or remember to do anything - such as docking your iPhone and syncing manually - to stay up to date.
Do everything you need to do on every device you own. MobileMe works with Mail, Address Book, and iCal on a Mac; Microsoft Outlook on a PC with Windows XP or Vista; and the built-in applications on your iPhone or iPod touch.
Check your email, change your calendar, edit your contacts, and more at me.com. Accessible anywhere, me.com is an ad-free suite of web applications — Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Gallery, and iDisk — that are elegant and easy to use. You can drag and drop, click and drag, use keyboard shortcuts, and even switch between applications with a single click. Me.com is such a great web experience, it seems as if you’re using desktop software.
I don’t know if I am going to be able to use the email feature yet. Apple hasn’t said yet that I know of if or how they will handle personal domain emails. My email has been chris@pirillo.com for years, and I want and need to keep it that way. There are so many other features that I’m looking forward to using, though.
It’s not about ‘where’ you are, it’s about where your stuff is. You don’t want to have to stop and try to remember where you saved a particular file. You don’t want to run across a building, or even across town, to retrieve something you may have forgotten to bring to work. It’s going to be interesting to see how many Windows and Linux users subscribe to MobileMe.
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17 Comments
Borat
June 15th, 2008
at 10:21pm
FIRST
George
June 15th, 2008
at 10:27pm
I’ve put almost my whole life onto the web, however I myself would NEVER sign up for a payed subscription to something like mobileme. As long as I can access my google calendar, email, and photos from a web browser, I’m fine. Any programs I DO need (games, productivity) I either have on my laptop for work or my desktop at home. I only have 2 computers, and I use them for very different things. When I’m on the road and am using a computer, google is enough for me. If I needed to do something for work, I bring my laptop everywhere.
Kittyburgers
June 15th, 2008
at 11:17pm
I use Live Mesh, and although it’s only a preview at this time, it looks very promising. There are many more features I would like to see built into it, so we’ll have to wait and see what the end product looks like. There’s quite a bit of potential for this type of application. I’m sure it’ll be scalable, and, as you mention, it looks like this is the way applications are heading … on the web, in the cloud.
My installation of Live Mesh went surprisingly well, even recognizing my 64bit Visa system and installing the appropriate version (at least Microsoft *finally* got this part right and is supporting 64bit systems.
So far, so good. Doesn’t seem to slow system down, and is very unobtrusive. Syncs files and folders smoothly between my remote office computer and home office computer. It’s a bit too early to tell how helpful this will be for my daily work, but so far it looks like there might be of some useful functions.
Future versions *will* allow for Mac device syncing.
Colin Henderson
June 15th, 2008
at 11:52pm
Its still very walled garden-ish. Google Apps premium should be included in your comparison:
- use your own domain
- supported on mobile (awesome on Blackberry)
- email, calendar, docs/spreadsheets
- shared presentations with chat
- works with linux, windows and leopard
CLF
June 16th, 2008
at 1:40am
Was wondering, why not try Google’s solutions (Docs or Calendar)?
I know some are still in BETA and may not be compatible with multiple platforms, but heck if it’s working well, you could save quite a sum of money there!
Google is God.
Saravanan Sahadevan
June 16th, 2008
at 2:43am
This is definitely the end for Google Calendar & syncing for me!
Doug
June 16th, 2008
at 8:25am
Odd… you’re recommending a product that is not even available yet…? Apple still won’t give you the time of day, huh?
David Stark
June 16th, 2008
at 9:04am
Preface: I didn’t watch/listen to the video.
You didn’t say anything, pro or con, about Microsoft Mesh. So how can you post an article like this with the title: Apple MobileMe vs. Microsoft Live Mesh? Where are your ethics? You should have titled it: Ten (or so) Reasons You Should Buy MobileMe. And you only mentioned Microsoft related names/products 7 times. Microsoft Mesh was NEVER mentioned.
Nice try though. Pitting Good vs. Bad always brings in more readers. But if you want to “Lure” us in with false promises, why not use the proven and time tested, “*** Sells” approach? An article title might have read, MobileMe Swimsuit Pages vs. Microsoft Mesh Topless Photo Blog.
MOAT
June 16th, 2008
at 12:55pm
MobileMe sounds awesome! I didn’t realize that you could use it with other devices. I have owned a mac for a few years now and was considering a .Mac subscription. Thanks for the info.
themacbuddha
June 16th, 2008
at 1:04pm
You can continue to use your own domain.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1932
And aside from working on a blackberry (which it may someday) pretty much all the functions Colin notes will be there eventually and far more elegantly than Google has to date.
cananito
June 16th, 2008
at 2:46pm
I see it pretty much a like a google account with better UI and more storage… Defenetly not for me, I really like it, but nah, I’m not much of a spending guy.
I also don’t see it as a “sync” thing. Why? Because it doesn’t actually edit the files on the computers, it edits the data in the cloud, and your computers are just accessing it… I would call it web based storage, that’s it.
But I gotta say, I’m not against it, it’s just not for me, just for the fact that I don’t like spending. I do like the web UI tough.
David Finkelstein
June 16th, 2008
at 4:56pm
Hey! I’ve jumped around a LOT on file-hosting sites. Mostly because they upload way too slowly, and when I’m at school and just need to pop some music files I’m using for an HTML project or the videos I edited for spanish class online I can’t wait around after the bell rings.
I think mobileme is INCREDIBLY cheap for what it is, and its truly a great idea. I think Apple is really doing an EXCELLENT job- their products are extremely well made, **** and stylish, uniform (look the same- you know a mac when you see one), and generally solid preformers.
I have, however, NEVER bought an apple product or service.
Basically, I’d rather pay LESS for MORE (I’m funny that way). Its nice to have MORE features for LESS money, rather than the other way around. That’s why I got teh creative zen, realized that built-in batteries SUCK, and am now looking into buying a sandisk sansa e200 series mp3 player (note: microsdhc slot! that means I can CHOOSE to pay more LATER for more memory, and I can CHOOSE to swap out the battery. I also get fm radio, voice recorder, and a customizable layout).
Notice a pattern in thought process here?
anyways, nice video, Chris, I really enjoyed it, as I do all of your videos.
Take care.
Game Invasion
June 16th, 2008
at 7:55pm
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bobboo
June 28th, 2008
at 2:51pm
Are you getting payed by apple? I’m using live mesh and it is great. mesh says on there site it will be on mac and mobile phones. the live desktop is very helpful. I’m sorry but I think it is a mistake for you to be so much a fanboy of the macs. you do realize that ony 10% of people have a mac. you are cuting down on you posible viewer ship. this will be the last video i watch of yours. Later.
jim
July 14th, 2008
at 7:06am
I kind of expected to see a “mobile me is better than live mesh because…” kind of thing here.
Useful Habits
July 23rd, 2008
at 8:51pm
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YoungIT
September 24th, 2008
at 10:50pm
Hmm…But can .Mac or Google Aps, let me get on a cruise ship, goto Cancun, and using the ship’s wifi, access my Windows PC via remote desktop to edit my local SQL server database, and then grab my homework from the cloud, finish it, and save it back to the cloud. Or let me install it on every computer I set up for others so that I can manage their PCs remotely should they have software issues that need to be fixed. The real solution though would be Linux with Google Aps. The best of both worlds.