Sam Oliver
Users can sign up by going to me.com/calendar and clicking on "Request an invitation." They will then receive an e-mail notification to let them know they have been added to the beta. Apple said they will add members in the order of their request in the coming weeks.
New features of the updated calendar Web application, according to Apple, include:
- Beautiful new web application: The Calendar beta includes a new web application at me.com with great-looking calendar views. You'll find redesigned day, week, and month views, as well as a new list view to make scanning your events easier. Your calendars will also load faster, thanks to improved performance. The new web application works best with Safari 5, Firefox 3.6, and Internet Explorer 8.
- Share calendars with family and friends: You can easily share your calendars with one or more MobileMe members to keep everyone on the same page. For example, create a shared calendar called "Kids" for school and weekend activities. You can allow the person you're sharing a calendar with to edit events, and set up email notifications to tell you when they make a change.
- Publish a calendar for a group or team: The Calendar beta lets you share a read-only public calendar that can be viewed by anyone, perfect for publishing an events calendar such as a soccer team schedule. After setting it up you can send the team members a link to view the calendar on their iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.
- Event invitations with RSVPs: Inviting any guest to an event is easy from the MobileMe Calendar beta. Just add their email address to the event (they don't have to be a MobileMe member) and your guests will get an invitation email they can respond to directly by clicking a link. Your event then automatically updates, making it easy to track RSVPs right in your calendar.
- Works on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac: The MobileMe Calendar beta uses the CalDAV standard so you can view and edit your calendars using the built-in calendar applications on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac. Please note that support for PCs with Microsoft Outlook is coming soon.
The MobileMe Calendar beta requires users to be running iOS 4 on an iPhone or iPod touch, iOS 3.2 on the iPad, or Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.4.
In June, Apple refreshed MobileMe Web applications for both the desktop and iOS devices. The new interface refreshed the look for e-mail, following a beta period that began in May. The new mail offers a widescreen view interface, improved performance, server-side e-mail rules, a formatting toolbar for adding rich text to e-mails, and new SSL security when composing and sending e-mail.
In addition, this week Apple added iPad support, as well as multitasking support within iOS 4, for its MobileMe iDisk application. The free software, which also requires a MobileMe account, allows users to remotely access files saved online. With the update, users can play audio from their iDisk while using another application.
William Gallagher
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51 Comments
Surely, this is a glimps of 10.7
Surely, this is a glimps of 10.7
Web apps for 10.7? I doubt it. Multi-touch like the iPad? I doubt that will be 10.7 too. More likely it'll be an evolution of 10.6, because Snow Leopard wasn't a bad OS at all for the desktop, there was nothing wrong with it. In many ways, it's more powerful than iOS, because it can use a mouse.
It seems to me that able has been doing quite a bit of work with its Mobile Me Service as of late.
Just maybe this is leading to a cloud tunes service.
Mr. Jobs please o please give us our cloud tunes :-)
I've been using Macs since '88. I dropped '.Mac' about two years ago. I am now very happy with Google Mail/Calendar/Contacts/Tasks/Apps/Picasa and use Dropbox for essential files I might want to have access to elsewhere. All that currently for free. I dropped '.Mac' because paying £65.00 in one payment seemed to hurt too much given the alternatives were completely satisfactory and free. In itself, I know £65.00 is good value for what you get - but not comparatively good value, compared with very good free add-supported services.
What's the marginal cost to Apple of another .Me subscriber? Must be extremely low. I reckon Apple could create a much larger on-line .Me community by dropping their price to £20 per year and accept automatic quarterly payments to make it easier to pay. I'm sure that at a price one third of the current price the User base would increase significantly - and likely the profitability of the service - and the also the relative importance of the service. With a only a handful of Users, it will remain a service of minor importance, certainly comparatively. The .Me service could be marketed as something important and worthwhile to the Apple-User experience and as such Apple shouldn't make it so 'painful' to adopt.
Apple has created a completely new version of its MobileMe Calendar, and subscribers of the $99-per-year service can now sign up for the beta to be selected in the coming weeks.
I can't wait.
Have 5 Mac and the iPad using MobileMe Mail. Beautiful interface. Makes emaiing a dream to use.
I would suggest that before anybody dises it to keep an open mind at least try it first.
BTW, compared to the cost of 2-3 coffees at Starbucks, or the like, a month, MobileMe is a fantastic bargain. And somehow, I am more confident that Apple will be around a lot longer than a coffee house. However, I do like the idea of a monthly or quarterly subscription payment service via the iTunes Store.