July 29th, 2008 // 32 Comments
Filed: Tech
Look, MobileMe is having a few teeny tiny problems. Is that any reason to jump all over Apple about this? Or to put up Web sites like this spoof of MobileMe called “FailMe”? I think not. Worse yet, now Fortune is wondering who’s to blame for MobileMe and suggesting that the fault may lie with Dear Leader himself. Canyoufrigginbelieveit? The poor guy can’t catch a break. FWIW, I just got a call from Phil Schiller, who said, “This is Phil Schiller. You think I’m a hype-prone marketing executive who made big claims about ‘push’ services which we later had to retract, and I think you’re a drug-addled pinhead and if I saw you on fire I wouldn’t cross the street to pee on you and put you out. Got a minute?” Phil said he wanted to explain a few things about MobileMe, and he wanted me to tell his side of the story, but he would only do it if we were entirely off the record. I said, Sure, why not? Then as Phil started talking I heard someone else cough and I said, Is someone else on the line? Phil said, Um, no, why do you say that? I said I heard someone cough. Phil said, Oh, that was me, I’ve got this terrible cold, and then he coughed a couple times, and I said, But wait, you were talking when I heard the cough, and unless you’re some kind of ventriloquist I don’t see how you could do that. You’re not a ventriloquist, are you? Phil said maybe I didn’t really hear any cough at all, because in fact he hadn’t heard any cough and I said, Then why did you just say that it was you who coughed? Phil said, I didn’t say that. I said, Yes you did, you said you had a terrible cold. Phil said, I never said that, and anyway can I just proceed with our entirely off-the-record interview which will be entirely on background but may be recorded for quality assurance purposes?
Fair enough. We moved on. Naturally I can’t tell you what Phil said to me but according to a source with very good knowledge of the inner workings of Apple top management, everyone inside the company knew that MobileMe wasn’t ready for prime time but they had orders to launch this thing alongside the new iPhone or face massive firings and everyone knew that it was going to be a fiasco and frankly they’re all surprised it hasn’t been even worse, but at the same time Apple remains very confident that it can iron out the problems with MobileMe in the very near future, and that just because people pay a hundred bucks for a service doesn’t give them the right to go around complaining when it doesn’t work right, and if those asshole customers had any idea how hard people work at Apple they wouldn’t be so quick to jump on every teeny tiny little glitch with MobileMe.
When asked to comment on this, Katie Cotton coughed, then coughed again, then said, “MobileMe is a fantastic service that offers tremendous value. MobileMe is a fantastic service that offers tremendous value. MobileMe is a fantastic service that offers tremendous value. Beyond that we have no comment.”
I’d love to have failMe.
dude… you own that voice. use it more often. awesome .
Just signed up for the trial last night - despite my reservations.
Fail is right. This thing doesn’t work at all - it’s terrible.
It’s dead Dan, leave the damn thing where it lies. Fresh and funny it’s not.
Please?
I agree with you about the health shennagins, but I don’t think it’s fair to hammer MobileMe. Well, it kind of is, since the service has sucked, but not in a mean spirited way. Yes, they fucked up, but they have been amazingly open (for Apple) and are actively trying to make things right. MobileMe was not ready, but it IS being handled in a way I wish more Apple products were - good communication and owning up to mistakes.
To be honest: It stopped being funny.
I disagree, it still is
It’s nice to see you are finally developing a voice and character for RDL… funny stuff.
“Have you got a gut-bustin’ gimmick that makes ya laugh every time ya think about it, but don’t know if it’s got legs to survive more than four retellings on that thair intertubes? Then get yerself to José Cliché.
José Cliché will tell you if you have a funny idea or a dead horse. And the moment you read his hilarious response, you’ll know you’re in the presence of a master.
José Cliché is the Inland Empire’s leading authority on clichés, gimmicks and other humor-related memes.
Always look to José Cliché for all your meme grading needs.
That’s José Cliché! On the corner of Madison and Main.”
Mmm, delicious ad nauseam.
I think there is some inertia to this joke after the peak yesterday. Same thing happened with Jerry Yang jokes. It peaked with “I did not hear what you said because I put my phone down to check myself out in the mirror” and went downhill from there for 3-4 more posts.
Steve, and his company, deserve all the respect they can get. If things don’t work, give them a few weeks to release a service pack. We sure have no problem waiting a year (on average) for Microsoft to release the fixes.
Heads should roll, people will lose their jobs, Apple is finished, blah blah blah.
Don’t mind me, I’m just parrotting the same stupidity I heard people say about the MicroHoo merger, Live Search, Vista, XP, Windows 2000, etc etc etc.
OK, Dan, love ya and all but the You-think-I’m-a-shithead-I-think-you’re-a-fuckstick thing is played. So played.
Clearly the world is coming to an end. Two points of proof…
* The latest FSF crusade (against Apple btw) is getting hammered over on Slashdot of all places… I mean, anti-FSF sentiment on Slashdot? Really?
* Apple is finally being held to the same standards as companies that make stuff and charge people for them, instead of being treated as a race of aliens tho deign to let us play with the shiny toys
It’s Armageddon I tell you.
Why is anybody surprised? It’s Apple’s way to take giant leaps into the future in the spirit of “man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” Many of their signature products (the original Macintosh, iPhone, MacBook Air) have been revolutionary but not quite there, because technology (or affordable technology) hadn’t caught up with the concept. When technology does catch up they’re no longer the only game in town, and people forget that it was Apple who showed the way. The Air is clearly the computer of the future (when everything is in the “cloud”), and and iPhone is so obviously the communicator of the future that I feel a bit embarrassed to admit that for now, my simple LG is good enough.
When I read the comments, I called José Cliché and Cochrane, “This is Carlos. You think I’m a retarded bastard for finding that joke still fun, and I think you’re a serious candidate for Nobel Prize of Stupidity”. Of course, I asked them to keep the conversation off the record, so probably they will shut the fuck up.
Oh, the Synctard platform. Or, as Phil Schiller lapsed it, ActiveSucks (from Active Sync).
Free consulting for synctards: use an USB drive to carry your stuff around. Keychain, have you heard of it?
Oh, the Synctard platform. Or, as Phil Schiller lapsed it, ActiveSucks (from Active Sync).
Free consulting for synctards: use an USB drive to carry your stuff around. Keychain, have you heard of it?
RDL,
Although Mobileme is working fine for me, I still love how you are skewering it. Keep it up. Oh and the whole ‘Got a minute?’ thing is great. Not tired of it yet.
Dan Lyons keep up the good work
Mobilemince !!
it wont sync with my work pc, running outlook, it has lost the contacts and calendars on my macbook twice.
Sorry guys, what happened to ‘it just works’ ???
What happened here is that Apple dived into the enterprise-scale market (tonz of yuzerz). That’s where the all the bugs, pardon money is.
People have an emergency fellas. Emergency with digital crap they carry around to impress other people. Use yuzbee sticks instead. Use gmail or hothothotmail. Or Windows Live services (if you know what they are).
Another emergency is to look busy with a Mac on a train. Take a 17″ because space is limited. And take a movie to ignore ooohs and aaahs.
RDL,
Hi! I forgot to mention that everyone here at Apple is really excited about MiniMe. Gosh, did I say that out loud? I meant MobileMe. We’re all really excited and enthusiastic about MobileMe, just like all the wonderful products we bring to our customers, that create a childlike sense of wonder. Did I mention we’re really excited? XOXO
K
not funny? are you shitting me? this is so not funny that it just became hilarious all over again.
wait, was that a push email coming through?
I think it’s kinda’ hot when Katie Cotton coughs.
Actually, the iPhone 3G is turning out to be a whopping pile of crap (poor 3G reception, dropped calls, slow data rates, performance problems with typing (? how’d they miss that ?) and contacts, now multiple threads in the Apple forums about the plastic cases cracking in the same spot. So it ain’t just mobile me. Apple sure pulled a Vista on this one, didn’t they …
Dan
You lost the funny man, let it go already.
Phone calls over and over make you look washed up.
Face it, FSJ was funny because Jobs can be pictured saying what you wrote. Nobody gives a damn what “Dan” wrotes because you are a nobody like the rest of us.
Collect your check from your little magazine and like Will Farrell should, go away. You lost the funny.
Dan,
Repetition is the death of art, and you are becoming quite artless.
Your approval-rating, judging from a majority of these posts, seems to be sinking to George Bush levels. George, being a obtuse, petulant man-child, could never learn.
Can you?
I think what’s really funny is that anyone expected MobileMe to work. .Mac has been crap for years, and MobileMe is just a few new features and different branding — sync, iDisk, Mail — everything that was already broken still is. So it’s not like this new service tanked… it just didn’t get any better and Apple decided to call attention to it before they fixed it.
RDL,
You gotta do more background here, man. Maybe it’s different for you a-listers, but Katie rarely gets her hands dirty dealing with the reporters. She has an entire army of subordinates who will ignore your calls, refuse to comment on anything that doesn’t have a press release, and turn down WWDC credential requests for her.
Hell, there are five people who are assigned full time to not return calls for the iPhone alone.
tnk
Please continue. I nearly wet myself laughing while reading this.
Additionally the comments on how much people whinge and bitch about it are fantastic too.
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şiir türleri And just so a few more people won’t miss it, some dude above actually said steve jobs is a legend. What the fuck. The man’s a savvy businessman ripe for a bit of satire for sure, but a legend? Lay off the meth.