MobileMe is a No-Brainer for Mac Users

September 14, 2009  |  Awesome Apps

Post by Josie from the great Geekulous blog. Find her on Twitter.

mobilemeAs an Apple fangirl I feel it is my duty to convert all of my PC using friends and family members to Macs, freeing them once and for all of their suffering of blue screens of death, unknown errors and other PC related stressors.

Once I’ve succeeded in converting them one of the first questions I get (aside from, ‘how do I right click?’) is – “should I get MobileMe?”  My answer is always a resounding YES!!!

Some people view MobileMe as a way for Apple to get more money out of you, but they couldn’t be more wrong.  I have found that this misconception is due a misunderstanding of exactly how MobileMe can be utilized.  MobileMe is a necessary utility to keep your life in sync and is essential for anyone who works on different computers or works in multiple environments.

(For all you PC users – don’t tune out, there are benefits to MobileMe for you too, everything that is stated on this)

What is MobileMe?

Originally a named .Mac, MobileMe is a service that allows users to sync all of their contacts, documents, calendars and much more across computers.  It provides storage as well as access to a personal email account.  The service is purchased on a yearly subscription basis ($99 for one year).  You can access MobileMe when you’re away from your Mac through the me.com website.

What does it do?

The better question is what doesn’t it do?  Ok, it won’t make you pancakes in the morning but it will keep all of your important information in sync across (almost) any platform.  How many times have you been somewhere and wished you had your computer with you to access a document or contact?  MobileMe solves this problem by allowing you to access the files anywhere, whether you’re on a Mac, PC or mobile phone you can access your files.  It does this by storing your information in what is referred to as a “cloud”.

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What’s a cloud and why am I storing my information there?

Typically one stores their information on their computer, but what happens if you need that information and don’t have your computer?  By storing your information in the cloud you are storing it in a location where you can access it anytime from any computer.

By storing your information in this “cloud” any changes you make to your email, calendar or contacts is automatically synced, thus allowing you to see your changes immediately.  For example, say you need to add an event to your calendar while you’re at work on your PC.  Make the change to your calendar on me.com and it will show up in iCal on your Mac at home.  This is the same for adding new contacts, add a new contact through your PC at work and that contact will automatically be added to your address book on your Mac at home.

Share pictures, videos and more

With MobileMe you can also upload pictures and videos to galleries allowing others to view them.  You can set who you would like to have access to view them as well as whether or not people can download your pictures or upload pictures to your album, you can even require visitors to use a password to get access to your albums.  For all you iPhone users out there you can also sync your iPhone photos directly to your MobileMe gallery.

mobileme716iDisk

iDisk allows you to access your files from any computer.  With the base plan you can backup up to 20GB of data, you can upgrade this to 40GB (additional $49) or even 60GB (additional $99).  Just drag and drop files on your Mac into your iDisk folder (found in the sidebar or your finder windows) and you’re set.  iDisk is especially useful when you want to share large files that can’t be sent through e-mail.  Just upload your file to MobileMe, click on “Share File” in MobileMe and fill out the form.  Other options include the ability to set the link to expire after a specified number of days or set a password to protect the file from prying eyes.

Speaking of e-mail, MobileMe provides that too.

Push E-mail, Contacts and Calendars

With your MobileMe subscription you are also given an e-mail account for which you can create up to 5 aliases.  The benefit of having an @me.com or @mac.com address is the ability to have your e-mails pushed to your Mail program (or your iPhone if you have one).  This means, you don’t have to set your e-mail to check for new mail every ‘x’ minutes, as soon as the message is in your inbox you are notified.  (this is a feature some may not see as a big deal but once you get used to having your e-mail pushed to you you won’t want to wait for a mail program to check your mail).

MobileMe has the ability to “push” your information to all of your devices.  So if you change information for a contact on your Mac you will be able to immediately see that change on your iPhone or PC.

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The Pièce de Rèsistance – Find My iPhone

If you have an iPhone I couldn’t encourage you more to get MobileMe.  With the release of the iPhone 3.0 software came even more utilities for MobileMe.  How many times have you lost your phone in your house when it was set on silent or vibrate?  Have you ever had a phone stolen or lost?  Find My iPhone is by far the best feature and number one reason (if you’re an iPhone owner) to get MobileMe.  When activated on your iPhone, Find My iPhone uses the GPS in your phone to locate it.  You can also send a message to your phone and set it to play a sound for 2 minutes that will play even if the phone is on silent.  Best of all if your iPhone is stolen you can perform a remote wipe to restore your phone to its original factory settings deleting any personal information.  There are many stories out there about how MobileMe has allowed people to retrieve stolen iPhones.

What are you waiting for?

So, now that you know exactly how MobileMe can be useful you should take a moment, mosey on over to the Apple website and sign up.  Oh and if you’re still not sure after reading this, don’t worry, Apple will give you a 60-day free trial to try it out for yourself.  If you’re a multi-tasker who works in multiple locations from multiple computers or just want to be able to access and share your files from anywhere MobileMe is for you.  If you have an iPhone, consider MobileMe a requirement for being a responsible iPhone owner.  Paying $99/year (a mere $8.25/month) is well worth it when you know how to use MobileMe to its full advantages.

Do you use MobileMe?  How about something similar?

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  • I have MM and have used dropbox. MobileMe is great if you have a mac, otherwise it's web interface just makes it less useful. Dropbox is the best I've found for what it does, but that's all that it does, whereas MobileMe has email and the other features.


    Both are great, it just depends on what you need them for.
  • cbiggins
    As already stated in the comments, you can get all this functionality free through dropbox and gmail syncing. The only thing you can't get free is find my iPhone. As I am anal about my iPhone and where I leave it, I'll be keeping the $99 in my pocket. On the upside, as a stout Linux user, I have recently decided that my next machine will be an iBook... Kinda excited about it, too.
  • All good points, it seems to me that the big point that sets Dropbox apart from Apple's service is that you have the ability to access your files locally on any computer you have the software installed on. A nice feature indeed. Unfortunately some people, myself included, are restricted in what we can install on the different computers we use. Without the ability to access files locally Dropbox seems to have the same functionality as MM. Although it does get bonus points for being able to access deleted files, Apple provides that functionality through Time Machine but you can't access it remotely.


    Like I said in the post though, if you have an iPhone the $99/year is worth it just for the Find My iPhone feature alone.
  • I've been debating the same thing for a while now. I like how MM consolidates everything, and gives you a one-stop solution, but I've been trying to figure out if that's worth $100/year to me.
  • Use Snow Leopards new Google (or yahoo) syncing abilities for Contacts/cal, IMAP for Mail, and Dropbox for storage. iDisk is slow, and remote only. Dropbox is fast, and remote+local. Also get 2x the space for the same price. With MobileMe, you are paying $99 for an email address, find my iPhone, and "Back to my Mac", which becomes irrelevant (IMO) with Dropbox.
  • On itself it sounds as a convincing story, but apart from the push e-mail address, why is MobileMe any better than similar (and cheaper!) solutions like Dropbox and SpiderOak?
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