posted by
Seth Azria on December 22, 2010 15:32
Most who know me know that I am an Apple advocate. I think that every lawyer should use a Mac because Macs are simply better than the competition. Those who know me well, know that I am an Apple advocate for that reason alone and if Microsoft, Google, or some other company has something better I will not hesitate to use their products.
In the age of the cloud and data sync among devices, I have abandoned Apple's MobileMe and have gone elsewhere for the increasingly important data sync service.
I used MobileMe to automatically sync my contacts, calendar, and files between two Macs, and iPad, and iPhone. Then something strange occurred, my caller ID was telling me a rather unlikely person was calling at a rather unlikely time. I answered to discover it was someone else. Odd I thought, and after a quick check of contact info, discovered my contacts had been hopelessly scrambled and prodigiously duplicated. I tried to fix it but could not so I was forced to migrate my contacts to Google Contacts, a part of Google Apps and regular Google Accounts.
A few weeks later, a friend, colleague, and Apple devotee informed me of an identical tale of woe. I migrated his contacts and calendar to Google Apps as well.
For those familiar with the service, DropBox is an admirable replacement for the iDisk and the find my iPhone service is now available for free without a MobileMe subscription. Find My iPhone lets you locate your iPhone on a map, display a message, make it beep, and wipe all the data remotely if needs be- critical insurance for such data laden devices.
I am now compelled to cease recommending MobileMe. I gave Apple credit for accepting responsibility for the shaky switch from .Mac to MobileMe and issuing free time for existing subscribers. But scrambling and duplicating contacts is too important to overlook.
I hope Apple fixes MobileMe and it remains a great company with many great products.