Steve Jobs Admits MobileMe Problems

Ars Technica reports tonight on an internal email at Apple where Steve Jobs admits the MobileMe launch was "not up to Apple standards." The email reportedly goes on to explain how Apple has learned several lessons from the problems involved with the MobileMe launch. Lets hope these lessons are applied as MobileMe and other Apple based web services are expanded and launched. It's nice that Steve is internally addressing the MobileMe issues. I still wish they had been more public with their challenges from the beginning for us paying members.

I have to say that while the first week was pretty useless, the expanded over-air syncing has been very useful to me. The web apps also fit nicely into that portion of my day where I'm driving a windows box.

Letterbox Plug-in for Apple Mail

Fresh on the heals of my recent Mail Sorcery Screencast, I've been playing with some other Mail plugins and found this great free plug-in called Letterbox. This plug-in changes the mail view to the Outlook-like side by side view and is very friendly on widescreen macs. I've been running a few days and love it.

Gruber on iPhone Calendar Syncing

John Gruber took the time to write up what a lot of us are thinking about MobileMe calendar syncing. So close ... but not quite.

iPhone Apps - Appeal to Readers

Okay gang, I've been swamped the last few weeks between a very heavy load at the office and a little mini-vacation trip to Las Vegas. As a result, (Except for OmniFocus iPhone) I haven't had time to go very deep with the iPhone App Store. Thankfully, I'll be able to catch my breath this weekend but rather than wonder blindly through the AppStore, I'd like to hear from the readers (via comment or email) what your favorite applications are. Help me sort the wheat from the chaffe. Let me know and I'll put together a post on it in a few days.

Sending Large Files with SugarSync

One of the features I was looking forward to with MobileMe is the ability to send large files without bothering with FTP. There is supposed to be a feature that allows you to easily email a link to a friend that allows them to download the file directly from you MobileMe storage.

Unfortunately, Apple has yet to flip the switch on this feature. However, this is already available on SugarSync. You can even send a file from your iPhone. That is actually an impressive trick over the lunch table.

Screencast 15 - email sorcery

I just published my longest screencast yet. This one weighs in at 32 minutes and covers email management from top to bottom including such subjects as:

1. Pop v. iMap
2. Gmail v. MobileMe
3. Best Practices (managing your inbox and smart folders)
4. Spam
5. Archiving old mail

I put a lot of work into this one and I hope it is helpful. As usual, it is in Apple TV format. So what are you waiting for? Head over to my iTunes feed and download it.

All Is Well at MacSparky Headquarters

We had a pretty good shaker here at MacSparky HQ today. The epicenter is about 25 miles from my home. A few things fell off the shelves but overall there are no complaints. As a native Californian, this was an "easy" one.

Regardless, I'm really touched by the emails that have been coming in from readers asking how we are doing. Thanks everyone for thinking of me and my family. We are just fine.

1Password iPhone Bliss

So I woke up this morning to discover the 1Password iPhone application is now available in the iPhone AppStore. Being the fearless soul I am, I downloaded it and installed it immediately. The sync process was flawless and while there are a few bugs (Agile reports 1.1 is already in the pipeline), I must say it is very nice having my favorite password application in my pocket.

Cuil - The New Take on Search

Did you think anyone would try to take on Google search? I sure didn't. Well it turns out a few former Google employees have exactly that sort of spunk. Their new search engine, Cuil.com, (pronounced "cool") went live today. It claims to search more pages than Google (although Google probably disputes this). What is most interesting is the way in which it displays results. They've dropped the traditional "long list" paradigm for something a little more graphic and three column. It will be interesting to see if this gets any traction.

I did a few Cuil searches and the results were mixed. When I tried to search my wife's business, eclecticpaperie.com, it gave me several accurate results along with a few others that were sort of ... well ... disturbing.

Regardless of whether Cuil becomes a "force" or not, I like the fact that people are coming up with different ways to display search results. The current method has been the same since the days of Compuserve and, in internet terms, that is positively Neanderthal.

Loose Lips Sink Ships

The folks at Apple are masters at keeping us in the dark. And being honest, there is a certain part of me that absolutely loves this. I enjoy the hype leading up to WWDC and Macworld and I love being amazed with the way Apple (in contrast to most of the tech industry) makes few or no promises but always delivers.

All of that being said, silence is sometimes a bad thing. This is especially true with the MobileMess. I get that things went off the rails with this launch but I never got why Apple was so secretive about it. When people are paying for a service and the service breaks, they should be told what is broken and how long it will be until things are fixed. For these reasons I was pleased to see that Apple has lifted the veil (more or less) with respect to MobileMe with a MobileMe status page. While it's great we can now get the status quickly, I'm still wondering why it took so long.