Marianne Schultz

the musings of a geeky girl

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Dear Apple: How to make my MobileMe iDisk more useful

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My dearest Apple,

While I’m quite sure I singlehandedly boost your in-store and iTunes sales in the Northeast by at least a couple of percentage points every year, you probably don’t notice little old me at all. Though you may not know it, I am one of your biggest fangirls. Not big as in circus freak exhibit, but big as in “Oh, I must buy every new Apple product that comes out within a maximum of 24 hours of its release!” Just to be clear. However, fangirl status aside, there are times when I literally want to throttle your stubborn virtual neck. When I ponder my iDisk and its relative uselessness in relation to my iPhone, that is one of those times.
Let me explain. I have been a .Mac/MobileMe subscriber for about 6 years now. And I must confess that I have rarely paid the full $99 for my subscription each year, thanks to Amazon and eBay. However, you may be happy to know that I have become iPhone crazy and have more than made up for my cheapness in scouring for MobileMe deals with the number of iPhones and iPhone apps I have purchased. Anyway, my point is that I am a long-time MobileMe subscriber and an iPhone user. I love the ability to sync my contacts and calendar over-the-air between my Mac and my iPhone via MobileMe, and I’ve found my MobileMe email to be more or less reliable over the years, even through the MobileMe transition that was disastrous for some.
You recently put out the iDisk app, allowing iPhone and iPod touch users to access the contents of their iDisks while on the go. While this is nice, it is incredibly insufficient. While I can view files on my iDisk, move files to the Public folder to be shared, and email them to others, I can’t edit them or create new files on my iPhone and save them to my iDisk. Why does this frustrate me? Because I have the ability to create new documents on my iPhone (through Dataviz’s Documents to Go, or even Notes, if you want to count that) and to get them on my Mac, I have to use a special application to transfer them via Wi-Fi (or sync via iTunes for Notes, and then copy and paste the contents somewhere else if I want them to be truly useable). I have this lovely 20GB bit of storage in the cloud and I can’t even use it directly from my iPhone to save a document. Does this not sound ridiculous? Does this not boggle the mind with its insanity?
Steve – dude – I really can’t believe that you would let something like this continue. The iPhone is all about having easy, intuitive access to so much in the palm of your hand. This level of connectivity is only reinforced by the mandatory data plan required on AT&T’s network with an iPhone and its Wi-Fi connectivity. You guys make MobileMe and the iPhone. Make them work together better, please.
Forever yours,
a geeky girl

A small confession: I have hoarded silly @me email addresses

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If you were a .Mac subscriber before Apple re-branded it to MobileMe, you are probably aware of the fact that Apple committed that existing users could maintain their existing email addresses ending in @mac.com and that new addresses under the @me.com scheme would be handed out on a first-come, first-served basis. Well, I definitely kept my @mac.com address and I decided to have a wee bit o’ (very geeky) fun and kidnap a few cute @me.com address aliases as well (spaces added to try to evade spam bots):

whyarentulooking @ me. com
throwthecat @ me. com
throwthedog @ me. com
Yeah, I know. I need to get out more. And I’m not quite sure why I felt that throwing animals was amusing to begin with, but there you go. I said I was geeky, which does not necessarily imply sane at the same time.

I don’t need another Mac, but I *want* one

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I currently have only one Mac, which is not out of the ordinary for me since I have almost always had a second computer (usually a PC) through work with my Mac at home for personal use. However, my MacBook Air has become my primary computer for work and home and I’ve been recently toying with the idea of getting an iMac to be my “main” computer and keeping my MacBook Air as my – you guessed it – mobile computer for when I work off-site and travel. No, my MacBook Air hasn’t let me down and does everything I need it to do. But have you seen the latest iMacs? Can you say pretty?

I already have a MobileMe account, which would make it easy to keep things in sync between both of them. I have a 20″ cinema display which I could sell to help raise funds to get one. My husband would have a conniption and ask me why I need two computers and I wouldn’t be able to have a good reason except to say that I just wanted one and that they’re pretty. Which, unfortunately, would not fly. Not one little bit. Though I suppose if I asked him why needs 3 complete sets of fairings for just one of his motorcycles (at about $1,000 per set), 2 portable generators of the same model (when he only uses one regularly), and a garage full of other mechanical goodies that have slowly assimilated every one of my own tools and mechanical gadgets, he might ease up a little. Maybe. Dorkface.
Of course, the more I keep thinking about this, the more I remind myself that I really should wait for this tablet that keeps popping up in the rumor mills. What if Apple really does put out one of those and it somehow makes sense for that to be my mobile computer over my MacBook Air? Then I could sell my MacBook Air and display and get an iMac and the tablet, which would make more sense for the use I have in mind.
If this tablet does come to fruition, I’ll be really interested to see how text entry on it works. I’m pretty speedy on a regular keyboard at around 90 WPM. I’m fast on my iPhone but it’s still far less comfortable to type on than a regular keyboard if I have the choice. Of course, Apple would probably not intend for it to be like a stand-alone computer that could cannibalize MacBook sales. I could see it as a large iPod touch-like device with the ability to connect to your home computer remotely to view media and files. However, if that puppy comes with a pop-out stand to keep it at a good viewing angle and can connect to a Bluetooth keyboard, I still might consider that a worthy purchase. Oh, who am I kidding? If Apple puts out a tablet, I’m getting one whether or not I really need it. I’ll get you my pretty! And your little dog, too.

Dear Apple: There is such a thing as too simple

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I love Time Machine in Leopard. Well, I used to love it until this weekend, anyway, when a pop-up error unceremoniously let me know that it had not backed up my hard drive for the last 21 days. Yep, 3 whole weeks without a back-up and Time Machine only deigned to let me know now. What an arrogant, pig-headed little sneak.

This is my Time Machine. It is empty.

I wouldn’t call myself a back-up freak. I like to ensure I have a back-up of my hard drive’s contents and I was ecstatic to learn that Leopard would make it a no-brainer activity that didn’t require any input from me. I stood in line on release day to get Leopard right away, did a clean install of it as soon as I got home, and did a happy Mac dance (which involves an odd sort of humming as well, by the way) afterward.

Fast-forward to the present where, after delving into troubleshooting mode after the oh-so-timely warning I received, Time Machine stays in “Preparing” mode forever and never gets to start a back-up. So far, I’ve employed basic trouble-shooting tactics, such as repairing permissions, connecting the external hard drive to my Mac (it normally stays attached to my Airport Extreme Base Station) and using Disk Utility to repair it. However, this has had no effect yet and Time Machine isn’t working still. I’m going to have to roll up my sleeves and dig a little deeper and I may need to just re-format and re-partition the drive and start over.

If there are any Apple execs or software engineers, or even genies in magic bottles who have a spare wish or two to pitch in reading this, my gripe is this: making Time Machine so simple and invisible that it won’t tell me until 3 weeks have passed that my back-ups aren’t working is NOT GOOD. I know you want everything to “just work” and all that, but for the love of God, tell me a bit sooner so I can try to fix something before it’s too late. Seriously. 3 weeks? That defies all common sense for a feature that’s supposed to save me some teeth gnashing and rending of garments in case my computer goes tits up suddenly.

Bad Apple! Bad!

Dirty rotten developers: minor reformation

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I wrote about Matt Rajca, a developer who released an update to his Gazette RSS feed reader app but made it a paid update requiring users of the previous version to pay yet again to get the newest version of the app, a little while ago. At that time, Rajca held firm against the criticism of his actions in that forum thread, stating “It’s just $2.99! Maybe the App Store wouldn’t full of crap [sic] if people would be willing to pay a decent amount of money for quality products” in response at one time. However, he’s since made a vague attempt at amends that I wanted to note.

Matt is now offering promo codes for the latest version of Gazette to those who purchased Gazette 1.X. However, the major catch is that this offer is only valid for MacRumors.com forum members. In order to get the code, he’s asking for a screenshot of your iTunes purchase history showing your previous purchase of Gazette 1.X and your iTunes account email address so that he can have proof of purchase and know where to send the code.
First, I do want to say that I appreciate that he’s making this offer. However, I have not seen him apologize anywhere for his poor treatment of the customers who bought Gazette 1.X, nor does this promo code offer seem to apply to any other customers but those who happen to be members of that forum, and chances are that there are still many forum members who purchased Gazette 1.X and have not seen this offer. I would have hoped for a better, more thorough attempt to reach out to unhappy customers to make things right, as well as some sort of acknowledgement that he didn’t make the best decision to shaft his customers to begin with.
For the record, I have not taken him up on his promo code offer, nor do I plan to do so. As I said before, I am perfectly happy with ByLine as my RSS reader app and I think I’ll even go back to NetNewsWire once the transition to Google Reader synchronization is complete since I found it to be a very competent RSS app as well.
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