MobileMe Oh My (or, Apple Breaks Record in Making My Book Obsolete)

In the meantime, I think an article is called for ... to expand on "the tedious and error-prone process of syncing that I labored so hard to describe, in favor of a new push-based mechanism for updating your personal information on various Internet-connected devices."

<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9650>

My interest is driven by synching my iCal (on a MacBook Pro and then to iPod ... no iPhone yet for me) with Google Calendar so that both my wife and I can keep track of the kids' schedules. From my experiences over recent months, syncing is difficult for the creators/improvers/fixers of BusySync, Spanning Sync, etc. to implement without errors.

How does "push-based" technology help those intrepid programmers give us the wonderful technology without the occasional panic-inducing bug?

Chris Ruebeck wrote:

How does "push-based" technology help those intrepid programmers give us the wonderful technology without the occasional panic-inducing bug?

The idea is basically that syncing, as we currently know it, no longer happens. As soon as any change happens in any record in any supported program on any platform for which you're logged in to the service, the new data is sent immediately, and then pushed down to your other devices immediately. In other words, in the space of those few seconds there isn't time to make changes to the same record in more than one place, so conflicts should become very rare. No longer does a device "save up" data to be synced at a later time (unless you're off-line, of course), and no longer are many records changing at once (increasing the probability of errors). And devices no longer "ask" whether there's new data, they're "told."

That's what Apple's trying to pull off - we'll have to wait to see how well it's actually implemented once MobileMe is released.

Joe

It seems to me that with MobileMe, Apple has replaced the Macintosh in
your room with the XServe in Apple's datacenter as the hub for all
personal data (contacts, bookmarks, etc).

On one hand, this will probably provide a better sync experience, just
because Apple's server is always on and always available (in theory).

On the other hand, wouldn't you still have the same problems of sync
conflicts just because the internet may not be available when you make
changes to your data on your Mac, PC or iPhone?

Sincerely,
Heng-Cheong
http://www.myapplemenu.com/

On Jun 12, 2008, at 12:17 PM, Heng-Cheong Leong wrote:

> On the other hand, wouldn't you still have the same problems of sync
> conflicts just because the internet may not be available when you make
> changes to your data on your Mac, PC or iPhone?

Sure, not to mention the security issues that come up with this type
of technology. There could still be conflicts caused with 3rd party
apps running on a computer that prevent the pushed info from being
received properly. Yet even with the risks it's important to busy
families, schools, and businesses alike to use push technology.

I expect some interesting benefits begin to emerge as more apps like
iWeb become webapps. If I keep most of my website graphics and photos
on my iDisk, then it would be nice to be able to modify and update a
website from any computer or my iPhone without having to have a local
copy of iWeb. Content Management for the Rest Of Us? The ability to
add a slide to a keynote presentation at the last minute and then
present it over a wirelessly accessible projector would be extremely
useful. All kinds of collaborative projects could benefit from this
type of cloud-intranet becoming more common in general usage.

Jeffrey

Thanks for the quick explanation. That really helps; I'm picturing a Blackberry and a server. My next question is the same as hcleong's. Yes, Apple's servers may always be on, but my devices may not be. There are still issues of resolving conflicts. Instead of just one Blackberry, now there are multiple devices communicating with the server.

Not to get too personal here :) but my issue is that both my wife and I want to modify the kids' calendars. The kids don't see their calendars, but we're managing the dropoff/pickup times and which of us is doing what. She has a PC at work and so interfaces with her Google account. Maybe I need to learn how to use the current model embedded in iCal and Google Calendar (sending invitations or whatnot), but it seems inherent in my situation (which I bet others have, too) that there isn't just a server and a Blackberry. There are two of us modifying the calendars. Or, in effect, three if I also modify the calendar from my Google account as well as from iCal on my laptop.

Oh Joe-

On 6/21/08 5:25 PM, "Benjamin Lowengard" <lowengardmac.com> wrote:

> you recommend a system t-the toppermost poppermost- and the next day
>
> Apple will put the newer faster version out.

Welcome to the entire history of the personal computer.

>
> Let's not even talk about the lame 100$ iphone rebate (should have been 100$
> and 1 year of .mac)

Bah. I bought one on day one, and while I'll never say no to a c-note, I
thought it was the stupidest thing ever. "O noes, a price drop, gimme
money". Entitlement much? I paid EXACTLY what I planned on paying, got
EXACTLY what I paid for. The fact that a short time later, someone ELSE
could pay less and get the same thing did not *entitle* me to free money.

This was just kowtowing to a whinefest, and I think the people screaming the
loudest for their "just desserts" should have gotten nothing more than a
kick in the keister from Apple.

--
John C. Welch

John C. Welch wrote:
> On 6/21/08 5:25 PM, "Benjamin Lowengard" <lowengardmac.com> wrote:
>
>> you recommend a system t-the toppermost poppermost- and the next day
>>
>> Apple will put the newer faster version out.
>
> Welcome to the entire history of the personal computer.
>
>> Let's not even talk about the lame 100$ iphone rebate (should have been 100$
>> and 1 year of .mac)
>
> Bah. I bought one on day one, and while I'll never say no to a c-note, I
> thought it was the stupidest thing ever. "O noes, a price drop, gimme
> money". Entitlement much? I paid EXACTLY what I planned on paying, got
> EXACTLY what I paid for. The fact that a short time later, someone ELSE
> could pay less and get the same thing did not *entitle* me to free money.
>
> This was just kowtowing to a whinefest, and I think the people screaming the
> loudest for their "just desserts" should have gotten nothing more than a
> kick in the keister from Apple.

Of course it did get all those folks back to the store since it was a store credit, not cash. Which might have been the point all along.

David

MobileMe works with native Mac OS X applications like iCal and Mail; under Windows, the same functionality applies to Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Contacts under Windows XP or Vista.

Not for Linux?

-- Tom Kopacz Port Orange, Fla.

On 6/24/08 5:30 PM, "Tom Kopacz" <tom.kopaczgmail.com> wrote:

> MobileMe works with native Mac OS X applications like iCal and Mail; under
> Windows, the same functionality applies to Outlook, Outlook Express, and
> Windows Contacts under Windows XP or Vista.
>
> Not for Linux?

It depends on how apple implements things. If they are using a MAPI plugin
for Outlook, then probably not, or not easily. If they're using DAV for
Outlook, then you can use Evolution fairly easily.

Without documentation, there's no way to tell though, and that won't happen
prior to release.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

On Jun 24, 2008, at 5:53 PM, John C. Welch wrote:

> On 6/24/08 5:30 PM, "Tom Kopacz" <tom.kopaczgmail.com> wrote:
>> Not for Linux?
>
> It depends on how apple implements things. If they are using a MAPI
> plugin
> for Outlook, then probably not, or not easily. If they're using DAV
> for
> Outlook, then you can use Evolution fairly easily.

Yesterday an Apple systems engineer said Snow Leopard's Exchange
support will not be through MAPI but through Exchange's DAV protocol(s).

The Snow Leopard page says "Mac OS X uses the Exchange Web Services
protocol to provide access to Exchange Server 2007." I'm not sure why
it will only be compatible with Exchange 2007, Exchange 2003 uses
WebDAV, I suppose Exchange 2007 will allow more access than its
predecessor.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/

On 6/25/08 6:28 AM, "Curtis Wilcox" <tidbitscognize.org> wrote:

>> It depends on how apple implements things. If they are using a MAPI
>> plugin
>> for Outlook, then probably not, or not easily. If they're using DAV
>> for
>> Outlook, then you can use Evolution fairly easily.
>
> Yesterday an Apple systems engineer said Snow Leopard's Exchange
> support will not be through MAPI but through Exchange's DAV protocol(s).
>
> The Snow Leopard page says "Mac OS X uses the Exchange Web Services
> protocol to provide access to Exchange Server 2007." I'm not sure why
> it will only be compatible with Exchange 2007, Exchange 2003 uses
> WebDAV, I suppose Exchange 2007 will allow more access than its
> predecessor.

I think he was mistaking Web Services for DAV. It's a common mistake,
because they're both "web" protocols, but they're not the same.

--
John C. Welch