iCloud vs. Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7
I have been using MobileMe since Apple started the service to keep my contacts and calendar in sync across all of my devices wirelessly. Except for a few hiccups early on, it has been a great solution to keep all of my information with me all of the time — on my iPhone, iPad, Windows 7 PC and a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard (10.6.8.)
MobileMe still doesn’t support Outlook reminders
Apple’s MobileMe is a great idea. It has been the only real answer to keeping contacts and calendars synced across multiple Apple devices (iPhone, iPad) and multiple computers using both Windows and OS X. Despite a rocky start (see this article) the service has gradually become better and better. But a problem developed for Outlook users when Apple moved to a new calendar format. The upgraded calendar no longer synchronizes your local Outlook calendar with the MobileMe remote calendar (including your alerts/reminders) — instead you get a second, external CalDAV calendar linked in Outlook and stored “in the cloud,” separate and distinct from your local Outlook calendar.
MobileMe – what a bust (but getting better)
Wow. I’ve seen some pretty dismal web launches but I must say Apple and their MobileMe launch has become the colossus of debacles. After spending several hours (and I mean, literally, eight+ hours of off and on efforts) of trying to get my Outlook 2007 data to properly sync to MobileMe and to my iPhone, I am close to giving up.
Updated at 2008-07-17 @ 4:05 pm: It appears that it is working now! Wahoo! Resetting the sync history from the MobileMe control panel never worked, but I tried to reset my sync history from iTunes (Edit->Preferences->Syncing->Reset Sync History.) I then let the next automatically scheduled sync occur and it prompted me to choose what and how to sync. I told it to take my contacts on my PC and overwrite MobileMe and told the calendar to merge. When that finished, I logged into me.com and all my contacts were there! Next, I reset sync history again from iTunes and the next sync, I selected merge for my contacts and to overwrite MobileMe’s calendar with the one on my PC. That finished, and my calendar was updated, too. Keeping my fingers crossed!
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