I could resist for some time. Enough has been said about Apple's absolute disastrous MobileMe start. Today I'd like to join the rant with a quick summary of my personal irritations with Apple's new service and a funny anecdote about what happens if you try to contact Apple support. Almost one year ago I've blogged (in German) about the potential risk for Apple to loose customer loyalty by entering the space of large scale web consumer services and not doing it right. Since then they've fallen into every major trap and did not do any good in handling it - neither in resolving issues nor in communicating updates to their customers. As a good example for what I consider extremely poor communication, the MobileMe Status Blog features some three entries since it's incorporation on July 25th, 2008.

The witty Apple style beginning of the first MobileMe Status Blog post

"Steve Jobs has asked me to write a posting every other day or so to let everyone know what’s happening with MobileMe, and I’m working directly with the MobileMe group to ensure that we keep you really up to date."

is totally inappropriate considering the fact that MobileMe is a paid service and outages might very well have serious affects on you if you're using Apple's services for business purposes or expect an important email that Apple might have lost on its way.

Besides the unacceptable permanent email outage here are a couple of other findings which I'd like to share:

MobileMe does not work with Outlook and Microsoft Exchange

Apple claims: "Works with the applications you know well."

The truth is: If you're using Outlook with Microsoft Exchange, MobileMe does not sync anything. The MobileMe Control Panel application in Windows Vista does allow you to turn on syncing and even indicates a successful syncing process, however, you end up having your iPhone wiped without anything from Outlook added to it. So to be very clear with this: If you're using an Exchange account for Microsoft Outlook you cannot keep Contacts, Calendars and Bookmarks in sync with MobileMe. Besides the fact that I believe Apple should proactively let users know about this known limitation on their fancy web site this killed most of the benefits for me. (There now are some responses in the Apple support forums but this has nothing to do with proactive customer friendly marketing.)

By the way: As a workaround the iPhone 2.0 firmware directly supports Exchange, however, you need to have your Exchange servers to expose the ActiveSync protocol and set up correctly - an option which might not easily be available in larger enterprises.

No password protection for Web Galleries for Windows users

One feature I like is that I can post pictures taken with my iPhone to MobileMe Galleries. Very useful when you're on business trips and want to quickly share impressions with your family back home. Unfortunately there is no way to password protect Web Galleries if you're not using iPhoto or Aperture on a Mac. The Web Gallery settings offer a couple of advanced options but there is simply no way to configure limited user access.

This is stupid, causes many customers to feel uncomfortable and if Apple believes it'll help forcing people into buying more Macs I highly recommend they should rethink their strategy. Remember: MobileMe is not a fancy Web 2.0 free service. Customers are paying for it. Even if they are on Windows.

Limited support for Internet Explorer 7

Come on what the f...! Users get this nice little screen if they enter MobileMe with Internet Explorer 7. Maybe Apple did not get it but the Browser Wars are over. Supporting a browser with 2.6% market share (Safari) but keeping out one with 27% doesn't seem like a reasonable business decision to me. And how does this fit into the Vista friendliness proclaimed in all of Apple's ads? At least my Vista shipped with Internet Explorer 7 pre-installed.

A final word about support

In what Apple might consider an absolutely great move towards listening to customers - and chances are Steve Jobs has asked David G. personally to do so - Apple has started to offer an emergency response chat with their lovely service reps. Here is the full, lengthy, extremely satisfying transcript of my session:

Well, thanks Apple. Frankly, I don't care about your records. I'm a paying customer and today I've lost 83 personal photos because your service sucks. It's not Jamal's fault. Jamal might sit anywhere in India and follow policies designed in California. I grant you three more days to resolve all my open issues or I'll cancel my MobileMe subscription.

Until then I'm happily joining the FailMe community.