Marianne Schultz

the musings of a geeky girl

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I really don’t like MobileMe

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I first wrote the title to this blog post using the word “hate” to describe how I feel about MobileMe (the web apps in particular) but I’m trying to stay away from this extreme since all of these issues came up on one day (today) and maybe MobileMe is just having a bad day.  Or month.  Whatever.  I remember Phil Schiller talking about the web interface at the WWDC keynote, describing that they would be easy to use and a lot like their desktop counterparts.  Well, they’re not.

Issue 1:
I ‘reply all’ to an email to plan an outing with some friends.  When I hit send, I get an error that one of the email addresses is formatted incorrectly.  I didn’t change the addresses at all, and double-check them – they are all correct.  I hit send again.  And again.  That error message keeps popping up.  I go back and delete and re-enter the email addresses by hand, which finally works.
Issue 2:
I add a contact, thinking it will be faster to do via MobileMe than on my iPhone since I can type faster on a computer keyboard.  I create the new contact and try to drag and drop it into the primary group that I use on my iPhone.  The icon that represents the drag and drop gets stuck in the middle of the interface and won’t budge, and any further attempts to do it again are unsuccessful.
Issue 3:
I want to send an email to a group of friends, and try to browse my full contacts list from which to select emails.  I’m going through the list and realize that some of my friends are now shown.  Oh no!  Did they get deleted from my address book?  I go to check and they are indeed there, but just aren’t showing up in the list in the new email window.  Why this is happening is a mystery.
Whiskey tango foxtrot!  I never used the web interface often with .mac before the MobileMe roll-out, so I don’t have much of a comparison basis, but this sucks and it doesn’t “just work.”  I was lucky enough to not be one of those whose email accounts essentially stopped working during the MobileMe implementation, but if this sort of thing continues, I’ll re-consider renewing my subscription to MobileMe when it’s up later this year…

I love to read

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I've now had my 3G iPhone for a few days and I'm really liking it. It
is not a drastic leap forward from the first generation iPhone (more
details to come in my comparison review in a few days), but it's pretty
damn nice. The App Store is awesome, and I've already downloaded a
bunch of apps (free and paid – I'm burning through an iTunes gift card I
got in preparation for the App Store's release). The one thing I am
worried about, though, is stability. (For the record, I don't believe
this is limited to the 3G iPhone since the first generation iPhone can
also get the 2.0 firmware with the ability to use 3rd party applications
from the App Store.) So far, I'm not horribly impressed – the Tetris,
eReader, and New York Times apps have all caused my iPhone to completely
reboot. If this keeps up, it will be reminiscent of my Treo days, and I
definitely don't want to return to that. I sincerely hope that these
are just 1.0 app bugs that will be worked out very soon, because
reliability is pretty much my number one requirement in my cell
phone/communication lifeline.

What I really wanted to blog about today were the ebook reader apps that
are now available for the iPhone. As you already know (from a few
negative blog posts in the recent past), I have an Amazon Kindle and I
made the final decision to sell it as soon as I saw that an eReader app
was available for the iPhone. In fact, my Kindle will be off to its new
owner in a couple of days. eReader (www.ereader.com), part of
Fictionwise, publishes ebooks and I'm a long-time customer with nearly
100 books purchased from them in the past 8 years. With their free app
for the iPhone, I can access and download for reading all of the books
I've purchased from them. Buying new ebooks through the app is not
currently possible, but I am content to go to their site and purchase a
book via Safari, and then download it to my iPhone through the eReader
app.

Another ebook application is Stanza, which allows you to browse and load
free ebooks under public domain. Most of the literary classics are
available, and if I were still in school, this is the way I would find
and read my summer reading assignments. At this point in my life, I
know I'll use it to read some of those classic I've missed.

I'm still playing with my 3G iPhone and setting it up to suit my
preferences. I'm absolutely thrilled to have 16GB (well, 14.6GB of
actual free space for my use) to accommodate more music, movies, and all
of the apps I've downloaded and will download in the future. At the
moment, with 7 videos (2 of which are full movies, the others are
podcasts or TV shows), 805 songs, 629 photos, and the 26 apps I've
downloaded already, I still have 6.7GB of free space. Scwheet!

Countdown to WWDC!

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I have been far more patient than usual in waiting for WWDC –
move-related things are the culprit. Normally, by this time, I'd be
incredibly antsy and impatient. We are still not fully unpacked, but we
have been making progress. My husband is the King of Organization,
whereas I'm just OCD about a limited number of things in the same vein
as Monica on Friends – namely my desk area, files, and my gadgets.
Other things, not so much. All of this together means that my husband
has done more to get us settled than I have, god bless his little heart.
😉

So, one week until WWDC! If you don't know why WWDC will be exciting
for me (and many other iPhone/Apple fans), all you need to do is Google
“3G iPhone” to see a healthy chunk of rumors about the next iPhone that
is speculated to be making its debut then. And some news on the iPhone
2.0 firmware is definitely expected – at Apple's last iPhone-related
event in February, the new firmware version was announced and described
to be available in “late June”. The big thing about the 2.0 firmware is
the App Store, which will be a gateway to buy and download 3rd party
applications on the iPhone. I know Steve Jobs generally likes to
under-commit and over-deliver, so I'm hoping that the “late June”
mentioned in February will actually translate to early June to coincide
with WWDC and that the new firmware will be ready for download next
week.

There are also rumors about Apple's .Mac service, many of which I hope
will be true (push email, more integration with the iPhone, and better
access to information while on the go). And I've also read rumors about
a tablet-sized Mac – that would be exciting (and would be enough to give
me pause before going ahead and buying a MacBook Air as I've been
planning to do) and just like Apple to throw out something that most
people aren't really expecting.

I'm sure I'll keep busy with things around the house (and with migrating
my site to a new host) until June 9, though I'm sure I'll get antsy next
Monday morning until the time of the keynote, and glued to my computer
throughout to see the news on the various blog sites. I'll definitely
write my impressions about every that's announced, as I did for last
year's WWDC.

FYI to everyone who subscribes to my blog RSS feed – I'm finally going
to be consolidating my main blog with this mobile blog, and I'm not
quite sure what will happen to my RSS feed at that time. I'll keep you
posted…

Great experience at the Genius Bar

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So, I usually troubleshoot my Mac on my own through searching on the
web, and I rarely venture near the Genius Bar unless I determine that
the cause of a problem is a hardware issue that I can't fix. Plus, I
usually read so many negative stories online about the Genius Bar – I
think this has tainted my view of the Genius Bar somewhat as well.
Regardless, I finally got tired of a bad battery in my MacBook and made
an appointment to get it checked out, with low expectations in mind.

Several months ago (well within the 1-year warranty period), I stopped
getting the “your battery is low, please plug in soon” messages and my
MacBook would go to sleep suddenly or shut down entirely. I was able to
guess when this would happen based on the battery meter and plug it in
in time to prevent this. However, in the last couple of weeks, this
problem worsened to where my MacBook would shut down any time without
rhyme or reason and I was no longer able to guess when the battery was
actually going to clock out for the day. I was also having some sleep
problems, but the battery problem was foremost on my mind.

I admit it – I expected the Genius to take a cursory look at my MacBook
and then say this was normal and that I just had to buy a new battery.
I do have the extended AppleCare warranty on my MacBook and I know this
does not cover “normal wear and tear” items like batteries. But, the
problem did start just a few months after I purchased the MacBook and I
know that's not normal, though I was prepared to buy a new battery on my
own dime if necessary. I explained my experiences with the battery, and
even went into the sleep problems my MacBook was having and all the
trouble-shooting I'd done on my own, and he explained to me how a bad
battery could actually be causing the sleep issues. I'm not sure why I
hadn't thought of that before, but what he described made sense – a bad
battery would essentially be sending “bad” signals back to the power
management controller, causing it to prompt sleep, wake, or shutdown
incorrectly. Since the problems started while my MacBook was in the
first 12 months of its original warranty (and also because I'd never
brought my MacBook in for any other service of any kind, I think), he
was able to get me a brand new battery!

And I think he was right about the bad battery having a big role with
the sleep issues – since I got back home with the new battery, my
MacBook has been going to sleep (and waking up) exactly as it should.
Makes me wish I had gotten a replacement battery sooner rather than
experience all of that frustration. And I have a little more faith in
the Genius Bar now…

A few more thoughts on my Amazon Kindle…

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Well, I've been using my Kindle regularly now for a couple of weeks, and
I like it. I don't love it like I do my iPhone, but I like it, and it
has made finding and getting ebooks as easy as I was hoping. However,
there are few things that do bother me that I think could and should be
improved:

– The next page/previous page buttons on both sides of the device are
really just in the wrong place if you are using the Kindle in the cover
with which it comes. I hit those buttons by accident at least once
every time I'm reading. How on earth does it make sense to put buttons
in places where you will naturally hold on to the device? This is
analogous to putting the call and end buttons on a cell phone on the
sides where you grip it to hold it up to your ear. I know people
somehow get used to this with the Kindle, and some don't even find it
to be a problem at all, but I'm at a loss as to how they do this. I
have small hands and I'm not an uncoordinated person – Amazon needs to
find a user interface/ergonomics professional and fix this. So far,
this is almost enough of an irritant for me to cause me to not recommend
it to others.
– There is no way to create custom folders to store your content. Call
me crazy, but I like to have my stuff organized (I own two label makers
– two, I tell you! A place for everything and everything in its place.)
and I am a bit frustrated that I can't group all of my Samples in one
folder, Books I've Read in another folder, and Books To Read in another,
etc. Why won't they let me create my own folder structure to do this?
My Kindle home screen is already spread out over 3 pages and it looks
messy with no rhyme or reason. Yes, I can choose to display everything
by newest first, author, title, or a few other options, but none of
these really meet my needs. Amazon: please allow users to create their
own file structures to manage their content!

So, those are my two gripes so far. As expected, I have already
purchased more books than I ordinarily would have if I were buying paper
books. And the reading experience continues to be just about as good as
reading paper (with the exception of the next page/previous page button
issue, as noted).

With my luck, though, Amazon will have version 2 of the Kindle out that
will address all of my gripes (and in a nicer package!) shortly. And
this is why eBay is my friend.

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