I got a free trial a while back to see how it worked. At first, I wasn't too impressed.. the apps are good etc., but nothing I thought I really needed, and the push service didn't work with my iphone at all (I have it without contract, and without any data plan, but it's usually connected via wifi).

The push service was fixed a few days later though, and works very well. The idisk is immensely handy, and the other web apps are pretty useful if you want to look up a contact or check your diary while out somewhere. I'm pretty tempted to pay for it now, so I guess they got something right.

120 days (4 months) is a little closer...still a pretty substantial apology, I suppose. :-)

I assume the initial free trial period was 60 days. So total free time is 180 days, although only 120 of those are actually apology.

Don't forget if you are on a trial you get 60 days free from the off, so that plus the 2 months already given, plus another 2 months just announced...

..and I got a third off the price for buying with the phone anyhoo, so that's only £40 for 18 months use :)

I've no interest in this service. But I still have it available in control panel, thanks to the latest iTunes. QuickTime and the constant nagging about Safari were bad enough - anybody want to buy a used iPod?

that having someone update him every other day will make things better. STEVE IT WON'T, it just deflects the team from fixing the problem because they are preparing a report for you on what they did yesterday.

Sadly too many managers think that if you ask some one to report every day it makes things happen faster. Even worse they sometimes think they can help by asking questions like, have you compiled it with debug, and is it plugged in to the network.

I'm quite fond of the mobileme service. It's a nice easy way to exchange-like capability without dealing with an exchange provider that you cant trust as far as you can throw..and as far as cost goes, the yearly fee is less than most exchange providers.

The only problem is push. It works fine MOST of the time, but every so often I get 8 messages at once with delivery times scattered through the day. This normally happens if I've moved between network types.

60 days original + 30 for launch problems + 30 for cc error + 60 for latest issues...

even though i now have access until early next year... i am still finding it fairly unappealing, buggy and too ajax based and clunky in the web-apps.

also until they let me bring my own domain mail across like gmail then i will never actually pay for it....

unless i had registered f***@me.com or b*gg*r@me.com i don't want to have a me.com email address.

I completely neglected to factor in the initial free trial! Sorry...

... works fine if it takes ten to twenty minutes max, conveys all the important information without delving into microscopic detail, and makes sure that those who need to know something get to hear about it.

If you're spending four hours putting together a powerpoint presentation or word document, it's /you/ who's doing it wrong. Sure, I grumble at stupid PHB questions too, but good communication is vital to teamwork, and if the overhead is small enough then it's time well spent. It only takes one person to pipe up once "Hey, hang on, but what about ...." with something that /you/ weren't aware of in response to your report, and you've saved all the time it would have cost you to find that whatever-it-is out.

So don't dismiss it unthinkingly - get the balance right, instead!

"I've no interest in this service. But I still have it available in control panel, thanks to the latest iTunes. QuickTime and the constant nagging about Safari were bad enough - anybody want to buy a used iPod?"

Not just in your control panel, check your processes and you'll happily find mobileme sat ther running 24/7 even though you don't use it. I scrapped 2 or 3 itunes programs invisibly autostarting with windows, but i don't think i got them all.

.co.uk domains work, I'm using mine on it.

I'm still getting big gaps between sync's of contacts and apointment added on my home office computer. It can still be a full day before a new appointment shows up on the iphone, which was added from the office PC. I have every thing set to automatic sync (every 15 mins I beleave) but it just isn't happoning quickly every time which is shorely the whole point ? I haven't seen the extra 60 days added to my account ether as yet, so thanks for the heads up on that one!

While the push services seem to be working ok, iDisk is hideously slow in the UK. I also have issues with the finder interface to iDisk. Apparently there is a software update for mobileme, but I don't seem to be one of the chosen few to receive it!

Typical El Reg anti-Apple spin on what was in fact a fairly grown up admission of SNAFU and a generous gesture of recompense.

@ David Evans - iDisk has always been painfully slow here in the UK - I don't believe this is function of the MobileMe move, myself.

i meant for email rather than web site hosting... afaik you cannot allow mobile me to act as your mail provider i.e changing your mx record to point at apple's server etc like google's free hosted domain service will do....

i know people have talked about auto forwarding and having a different reply to address or even leaving a pc on at home to sync etc etc... but it's all a bit nasty...

all i am saying is that google gives me that for free at the moment and no-one would know i would using gmail as the mail client to send and receive mail for that domain....

this service i would expect in a paid for solution like mobileme and one in which there must be thousands or small companies / designers / developers who are using apple products to run their businesses but want to use their own domain name in their email

By the time the really long free trial is over, the average Joe will be so tied up in MobileMe that moving will be too much of a pain in the arse for them and they'll just let it continue.

Kinda like those 180 day MS Office trials... By that time, you've got a hard drive full of documents in the latest proprietary format and oops, better cough up or I'll lose access to them!

(An equal opportunity comment)

Or as my drug dealer used to say "The first taste is free."

I started my free MobileMe trial 3 weeks ago and I have to say I haven't had any problems at all... I initially started a free trial to see what it was like and I had no intention to use it, I didn't think I'd need it. But now I love it and I would be happy to pay for it. It's a very useful service.

I have a Nano and so have to have iTunes installed.

Where does Apple get off thinking that they can install services at will.

For example, as well as the mobileme Control Panel applet you get the Bonjour music sharing service, Apple Mobile Device Service (the iPod service used to do the detection and management job just as well) and of course the friggin' install Safari, its the best browser nagware.

It you can uninstall the mobile device service but I find that Windows rejects the iPod if I do this.

Jobs is obviously trying to outbloat the bloatmeister, ye olde Beast of Redmond

I therefore now dub Apple "the Beast of Cupertino"

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer called a Press Conference today and apologised for the poor performance of Windows Vista.

Yeah, right!

Just a gesture, and a nice one at that. Apple clearly know that they bit off quite a bite more than they could chew. We've seen others do it before.

Perhaps El Reg could start acting just a teensy a bit more grown up and accept that gesture in the good faith that it was offered. You do yourselves no favours by acting so immaturely.

Gotta love Apple for making the right response to their own errors.