I’m going through the annual decision process as to whether or not I should renew my MobileMe subscription. I do this every year without any sort of real thinking on it, but this year I thought I’d actually enumerate what I get for the money.
I’ve rated each of the areas I’ve looked at 0 to 5 as a measure of how useful each of them is to me personally, as well as call out what makes each useful or not.
Email
I don’t really need another email address, and I have more than enough storage through Gmail, so this is a tough one.
What I observe though, is that battery life on my iPhone is better if I’m receiving email via push through MobileMe than it is via polling with Gmail. Significantly better, it seems, although I’ve by no means proven this scientifically.
There’s also the nebulous thought that since I’m paying for MobileMe, I’m a little safer saving my archived mail on their servers than on Google’s. At least I have someone to call if there are problems. Not that I’ve ever had to do this.
Most interesting, though, is the new iPhone 3.0 feature that lets me search mail from my iPhone that’s hosted on MobileMe. This seems to work really well.
This years verdict: 4/5 due to search and the vague fear that I really should be paying someone for archival of my mail.
Web Site Hosting
Wendy uses my MobileMe account to host her photography web site. She also uses iWeb to manage it.
This years verdict: 5/5 because I don’t have to do any tech support for Wendy.
Calendar
I don’t use this at all, preferring to use the company’s Exchange server for all of my appointments - even personal ones. The reason, of course, is that people who are trying to schedule appointments can’t see the time blocked for appointments scheduled in MobileMe, which means that I have to look at both. Sometimes I don’t, which ends up in conflicts that I have to untangle, usually at inopportune times.
This years verdict: 0/5 because I don’t use it at all.
Addresses
A convenient way of keeping my personal contact list in sync. ‘Nuff said.
This years verdict: 3/5 because I could live without it.
Gallery
I don’t take a lot of pictures (although I wish I did). Gallery is a brainless way of just sharing groups of pictures for the rare times I do it.
This years verdict: 3/5 because, again, I could live without it.
iDisk
I’ve always found iDisk incredibly slow to use on a day-to-day basis. Seriously, there’re times when I’ve felt it would be faster to drive home and get a file rather than try to get it through iDisk.
Sharing large files (password protected, no less), has bailed me out of some tight situations lately. Coupled with the possibilities of an iDisk iPhone app is making me think this is more useful than I’ve previously thought.
This years verdict: 4/5 because it really has got me out of a couple of jams, and I have no reason to believe it won’t get me out of more in the future.
Find my iPhone
I’ve never lost a phone. Ever. But being Canadian, I of course have a deep seated need for insurance.
This years verdict: 4/5. Just in case.
Backup
For some reason it seems that the majority (or perhaps a vocal minority) don’t have a lot of confidence in the Backup app. It’s never failed me, and I’ve had to restore files a couple of times.
I also have Time Machine running against my Windows Home Server, so most of my backup needs are taken care of. But using Backup to push my most important files to some presumably safe server somewhere gives me that extra bit of comfort. See the “insurance” comment above.
This years verdict: 4/5. Again, just in case.
Finally
So again this year, running through the list of features, there’s nothing that really stands out as the single reason to renew (except for maybe the mail search). So again it’s a tough decision. Except that we’re talking about $109 here, and the effort needed to replace all of the small valuable features with other services outweighs the cost.
So final verdict: renewing.
