My Mobile Life

Okay, so after enjoying the 60 day free trial of MobileMe, I’ve decided for a number of reasons that it doesn’t meet my needs. While initially I thought it would be the perfect solution for syncing data between my PC at work and my MacBook Pro as it turns out, it doesn’t allow you to sync calendars with Exchange server (which we use in the office). While I know I will miss the MobileMe Gallery feature and being able to quickly and easily upload photos to my gallery and is nice to be able to add items to my calendar via the web from my PC, I’m not sure I’m willing to pay $119 for these priveleges.

So in the process of turning off MobileMe I discovered that it’s actually a little bit scary and thus I figured it would be a good topic for this post. 

The first thing you’ll probably want to do is sync your iPhone and computers via MobileMe one last time to ensure that your calendar information and any other info (such as contacts) is uniformly synced. This should prevent information being lost when you delete your MobileMe account.

Next I suggest that before disabling your account you clear out any emails that you want to keep from your mailbox. I just backed these up to a Mailbox on my Macbook Pro, so I can access them at a later date if desired. 

Once you’ve done this you will want to delete the mail account on your iPhone. To do this, go into Settings, Mail, Contacts, Calendars, pick your Me email address and then scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click the big red button that says “Delete Account”. 

If you have the account setup in Mail or Outlook or some other email client you will also want to remove it from there.

Finally you can then log in to MobileMe and deactivate your account via the Account Settings section of the website. You will get all sorts of warnings telling you that all information will be lost, etc… but don’t be shy, go ahead and delete the account.

Disclaimer: while I have done my best to ensure that these steps are accurate and will not result in any loss of data, I don’t take responsibility for any loss of information (important or otherwise) which may occur as a result of you following the steps in this post. Hehe! But do let me know if you think there’s anything that I missed or should add/change, etc…

Have something you really want changed on the iPhone? As great as it is, I think most of us probably fall into this category. Well, I came across this site yesterday called PleaseFixTheIphone.com. It’s a neat little site, dedicated to collecting votes from users like you and me who want to tweak their favourite phone in some way.

Some of the top requests include:

1.) Copy and Paste

Personally this has to be at the top of my feature wish list as well. Having come from a Windows based PDA/Phone, it’s probably the only feature I really miss (well that and To-Do list integration with my mail client).

2.) MMS capability

Given that the iPhone is so good at multimedia generally, this was always going to be on people’s wish list. Yes, I know you can email photos from your iPhone, but it’s just not the same as being able to MMS someone a photo. While this certainly wouldn’t be too high on most business user’s wish list, I think the iPhone is certainly more than a business phone. In many ways it’s a phone that tries to deliver all things to all people and this is something we’ve come to expect from our phones.

3.) Flash plug-in for Safari

Once again, this probably isn’t that important for many users. How often do you go to a site that has Flash on your iPhone and really miss the Flash content? If you’re like me, not very often. However, it is a nice to have and I think that generally describes the iPhone as well.
Again, probably

Over the last few weeks I’ve been planning to put together a post comparing the iPhone plans that are currently available in Australia but it turns out APCMAG have already done it for me. I found the article today and to be honest I doubt that I could do a better job of comparing the options so check out the article for all the details.

To give you a bit of a synopsis (which might be handy for those who don’t have time to ready the whole article) it looks like Optus is providing the best value for money with some of their plans, though for heavy data users you may want to check out Virgin Mobile. Whatever you do, don’t go with Telstra (unless you live in the bush in which case it’s kinda your only option, ouch).

It’s interesting to note that 3 are offering iPhone users an incentive to purchase an iPhone with other carriers (as they don’t have a deal with Apple yet) and will give you $300 to bring the phone over to their network.

A couple things to add to what the article says. If you’re with a carrier already and don’t want to change, you may find that you can use a plan which isn’t advertised specifically as an iPhone plan and just add a data pack. This is what I did with Vodafone. So rather then going onto their cheapest iPhone plan (at $69 per month) I stayed on the $49 plan I was on which offered the same value in calls ($310 per month). I then added a 100MB data pack for $11.95 which gives me more data than I would ever realistically use (my billing month is almost up and I’ve used less than 40MB) considering I already have 3 or 4 other internet connections available at work/home, etc…

One other point that may be worth noting* is that so far Vodafone seems to be slightly better than Optus at providing customers with information about how much of your plan you’ve actually used. With Vodafone you can dial 1512 and get a breakdown of how much data you’ve used, how much of your phone allowance you have left and how much of your reward product you’ve used (i.e. Best Mate rewards such as a 100 free sms messages). Whether this is worth paying more for, I don’t know, and it may well be that other carriers will soon provide this service if they aren’t already doing so.

Note: this is from my own experience and discussions I’ve had with a friend who uses an Optus iPhone plan.

Yesterday I came across an interesting web app for the iPhone called Buzzd. Listed as: 

A location-sensitive city guide and social network on the mobile device. buzzd answers the question, “What’s going on around me right now?” by allowing consumers to get up-to-the minute information on what’s happening at any venue right now, rate events and connect with friends and other people in the area. buzzd delivers content from Citysearch, Flavorpill, Time Out and ZAGAT. 

The application allows you to set your location and create a profile for yourself. Once you have done that you can then add and invite friends or make new ones.

Right now Buzzd seems largely focused on the US market and I must admit I was a bit disappointed with the lack of events in Australia, particularly in Brisbane, my hometown. However I think this is exactly the sort of application that users are looking for to enhance their mobile lives. Particularly when you’re in a new city or country. I mean how many of us have been in the situation where you’re in a new city, like Perth for example, for work and you have no idea of what to do and would use a service like this to suggest something cool to check out on a Friday night!

The user interface for the iPhone is better for US users then the one you get as an international user, but I suspect this is becaue the site for international customers is relatively new. In any case I look forward to seeing this app take off,  as it provides a cool way to find out about what’s going on our local cities.

Generally one of the first things I do when I get back from a trip, particularly one that involves some leisure time in a new place, is upload photos to the web. Usually I use Facebook for this task, but this time I already had my photos in iPhoto (as iPhoto is automatically launched when you plug the iPhone in every time you sync). So I thought I’d explore the options in the Share menu. There are a couple of options from this menu which allow you to export selected photos or albums. One puts the photos up on your MobileMe account and other allows you to create a gallery via iWeb.

I figured I’d try the MobileMe account this time and I was blown away by how easy it is to get your photos up. Once you’ve clicked on the MobileMe menu option (and are connected to the web) iPhoto syncs the galleries automatically and there’s nothing else for you to do, except share the link with your friends and family.

Speaking of family, if you’re mother is anything like mine you probably get regular complains that since the age of digital photography she never gets printed photos anymore. Ah, well Apple have a solution to this too, iPhoto ’08 Print Products.

Printing a set of photos as a book, cards, calendar or individual prints is now a breeze from iPhoto. All you have to do is select the photos you want published and click on the Book, Calendar or Card options at the bottom of the screen in iPhoto. There’s also an option to Order prints from the web which making getting prints of the selected photos a breeze.

Once you’ve selected the format for the book/calendar/card you can then place the photos as you want them throughout the book. You can retouch while you go and add more photos from other albums if you didn’t choose enough the first time. Once the item is ordered you can duplicate it and modify it slightly if you want to customise it for particular people. I’ve just used this service to order 3 books in fact, one for each of my parents and another for my Grandma. What a great service!

Interestingly enough, as I was reviewing the last post on MobileMe I checked my email address (the one that comes with the MobileMe account – mjmcmahon@me.com) and found the following message:

MobileMe Update

We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. To recognize our users’ patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber as of today a free 60 day extension. This is in addition to the one month extension most subscribers have already received. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe’s launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around. Read this article for more details. The MobileMe Team

I guess there’s been enough issues with the service that Apple have recognised there are some deficiences in it and are working towards some resolutions to the problem which is nice to see!

The 60 day extension applies to all MobileMe users who were still in their trial period at August 19, 2008 at 0:00 Pacific Daylight Time (West Coast USA time). If you’re currently in the situation where you you have purchased the service but haven’t used your activation key it’s probably worth checking the additional details by following the link above as it appears that you would still qualify for the extension (just don’t use the activation key yet).

I suspect that for most iPhone users, one of the first things you’ll want to do when you unpack your shiny new iPhone is synchronise your contacts, email and data, quite likely with multiple computers. Maybe like me you have a mac that you use at home or on the road and another computer (perhaps a PC) which you use in the office. Given the limitation that prevents users from synchronising with more then one iTunes library at any one time, we are faced with needing to find another solution to this problem. The first one you’re likely to come across is MobileMe. An Apple offering, formerly known as .Mac, which offers to solve this exact problem using a data in the cloud* approach. The web based storage space that comes with your account provides 20GB of space and 200GB of transfers per month, a respectable amount for just about any data junkie.

The concept works on each computer and device updating the data in the cloud via it’s own internet connection. This works well in theory, though given the high cost of data plans in Australia, I can’t see too many users opting to let their iPhone sync with MobileMe automatically every 15 minutes (the highest frequency setting on the iPhone).

The account comes with a 2 month free trial, enough time to get you used to the idea and see if it works for you. After the two months is up you pay AUS$119 per year or US$99 for the service. Pretty good value for most users, who require such a service, I would suspect.

I signed up for the account straight away, thinking it would be the perfect way to synchronise data (particularly calendar appointments) with my work PC and my MacBook Pro. Time management is always a big issue and without my calendar to record appointments and engagements, I’d be lost. The email account that comes with the MobileMe account was added to the other half a dozen email addresses I already have. This one will be my fully mobile account. The one that I will give to friends and family when I’m on the road and want them to be able to contact me with ease.

The MobileMe application, it turns out, is automatically installed with the latest version(s) of iTunes and configuring your settings is pretty easy. I started with my desktop PC and synchronised my calendar items and uploaded a few photo albums to test out the account. This seemed to go quite smoothly, though transferring large amounts of data (i.e. music albums) to the iDisk appeared to be too slow to be very useful.

Next up I sync’ed my Mac’s contacts and calendar with the account. After sync’ing had completed, I compared my calendar entries on the laptop with those on the MobileMe account to make sure that they had been copied correctly and I was surprised to find that all the times were out by 7 hours. At first I assumed that this was caused by a problem on the server, though I eventually realised that it was due to the location settings for the calendar. I would’ve thought that the software might pick up your locale settings from your computer, but no you have to manually go to the calendar in MobileMe (through your web browser: www.me.com) and choose settings, Preferences and Advanced, select your time zone and click Save. A fairly major gotcha if you don’t know about it.

Finally I set up my iPhone to sync with my MobileMe account. To do this you have to turn on Push data and then go into mail, via your MobileMe account and specifically select each of the data types that you want to sync with MobileMe. If you choose to turn on this synchronisation for a particular data type (i.e. contacts) all existing contact info on your phone is deleted, so it’s essential that you synchronise your data with your computer via iTunes first, otherwise you could lose critical info.

After setting up MobileMe Sync for Calendar, Contacts and Mail I found that my Calendar information was synchronised but the Contacts in All Contacts had been deleted and despite setting up automatic synchronisation and leaving it on overnight the situation remained unchanged the following day. Interestingly the contacts in my various address groups (Clients, Personal, Company, etc…) were still there but going into All Contacts showed me an empty list. I had a look on the Apple website for tutorials on the synchronisation process to see if perhaps I was just doing something wrong but didn’t have much luck with that either. So far now it’s back to syncing with iTunes for contact info.

I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has had similar problems but have worked through them, so if that’s the case please share your experience in a comment to this post.

* For non-techy readers “data in the cloud” just means data out in the Internet somewhere. In this case on a server which hosts your MobileMe account.