Decision 2008: Google Apps vs. Apple’s MobileMe

@impaler: My setup is similar to your ( sans the Apple TV but I WANT ONE ). I have a Mac mini, MacBook, Time Capsule, AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme ( the TC and AirPorts are in WDS mode so my home is saturated with wireless ), and iPod Touch. I have MobileMe but ... I am wondering what the value add is. Now that Google Calendar has CalDAV support for iCal, keeping my calendars in sync and sharing is trivial. I have a Google Apps domain so I can create up to 11 accounts, share documents, calendars, and address book information. With Plaxo (free) I keep my AddressBook synced across all machines ( and platforms ) and I can read my email in Mail.app now that GMail has IMAP support. The only challenge is updating my calendar and address book on my iPod Touch.

Well, it's agonizing. I have bought into the Apple ecosystem at home: Apple TV, iMac, MacBook, iPhone, iPod, Airport network with two Airport Expresses for music all over my house. The idea of integrating even further with MobileMe (especially for the iPhone) is very very compelling. But I go back and forth all the time. Gmail is reliable, works, and I don't have the nervous moments, wondering if an e-mail was actually sent--did it go? Did my calendar sync properly? But using Windows XP/Outlook 2007 at work, the appointments just show up very well with MM sync...so I think I'm going to hang onto MobileMe. I hope Apple just continues to really put resources together to keep improving this service. Although $99 (that's only $8.34 a month), I get the full sync experience and push mail is pretty reliable at this point. Gmail is great--but MobileMe offers the true integration.

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I share your pain...

I agree MobileMe will never be as good as the web-based parts of Google, and we both probably agree Google will never be as good as Apple's mobile-based products.

I'm trying the free trial of MobileMe, but don't anticipate keeping it. I haven't found myself really needing it thus far. I've tinkered with my address book here and there, but I almost don't mind just doing all that on my iPhone. The file storage is nice, but I use other products like Box.net and not very often.

Everyone's needs are different, but like you, I feel stuck in the middle right now.

By the way - Gmail just updated their Address Book, taking a step towards solving address book mangement - and hopefully making the sync tools better in the future.

Great Post.

I have some issues with Google when it comes to them owning any content that you publish on their free services (blogs, photos, calendar events, etc.) I may be wrong here, but I read through the licensing aggreement and they basically can take whatever you put on their services and use it whenever and how ever they like because you implicitly give them permission to when you use them.

At least with MobileMe, what's yours is yours. (i think)

That being said, I leverage google for email and calendar, and although I have used many of their free products, I only use these two 99% of the time.

The holy grail of syncing for me would be to sync my gmail, gcal, with my MobileMe and ical, and then sync all of this with my work exchange server. Then I wouldn't need to carry a Blackberry and my iPhone. I get my new one in a few days, we'll see what happens.

For me it's about usability and as much as I would love to use MobileMe for the total Mac experience, I find that Gmail and GCal are just quicker to use than either the desktop or online Mac versions. Not as nice to look at, but quicker.

So far I've been using Spanning Sync and Gmail IMAP with iCal/GCal and Mac Mail/Gmail respectively and think I'll keep doing that.

Also sharing calendars is, so far, easier on GCal.

Love .Mac/Me Gallery but not sure it's worth the money on its own. Similarly, I'm using a Mozy account for free disk space equivalent to iDisk.

Don't have an iPhone yet - maybe things will change when I do.

Hard decisions!

Puh, good question. Until now I had everything on my own server but I really consider switching to MobileMe. Why? Because it's super simple to use. BUT now that I'm using the trial I can see some issues with me.com..... i.e. no SSL encryption. For contact data! This is awful and will not work out! Performance and reliability are... like twitter. Let's see, I'm not sure yet.

The whole issue mobileme is missing is the ability to host an email domain.

I would forward and filter but my reply would be @me.com. I'm considering a bcc to gmail with a filter so all incoming and outgoing mail is archived (incoming pop'd, why buy postini?), and both Outlook and Mail can send as my hosted domain.

The main issue is that when sending mail on the iPhone, it will default to me.com. If the iPhone could send only as a set domain (like blackberries do), the whole mobile me bridge can be used in conjunction with gApps.

The real issue is that mobile me won't host an email domain. If it does that, it works very well gApps.

I have been struggling with this as well. Love Google apps for personal use and our company runs them as well.

The point about Apple catching up once in a while, hit the nail on the head. They are caught up (or in the lead)...for now. But don't forget about their gross neglect of .Mac for the past few years. If they would have done something like MobileMe, or just provided decent incremental updates, I would have never moved from Mail and iCal to Google apps at all.

The other big issue is my love for flickr. MobileMe galleries look very easy to use (meaning I'd probably do a better job of keeping them updated), but flickr is fantastic. As far as design, the MobileMe gallery design is a little too glossy/heavy feeling for me.

Decisions, decisions...

You can kinda sync a gCal / google calendar with your iPhone liek this:

Wherever you sync your iPhone, open iCal and "subscribe" to your Google calendar. [Calendar-Subscribe.] Enter your calendar sharing URL. (you will find this private URL in your Google Calendar settings.)

Then go to iTunes and choose this calendar as the one you want to sync onto the phone. This'll at least keep a fresh copy of your calendar on your phone, but you won't be able to add/edit events on the phone.

Also, I think Calgoo makes a gCal iCal sync product but I have not tried it.

I'm an iPhone and Gmail loving guy... here's what Apple needs to do to round out MobileMe:

Support personalized domains in MobileMe email (needed so that every time I change providers, I don't have to sent out new contact info)

Do email searching, threading and tagging as well as Gmail does these things (from all apps: web, iCal, and iPhone email)... after using Gmail for years, I can't stand folders any longer

Do something about the price tag...for $99, at least make it usable for the entire family

Probably some more fine tuning and polishing... I like Google's aesthetic for web apps... light, simple, fast and to the point (although, a bit less reliable of late)... time will tell how usable MobileMe is, but it seems on first impression to be a bit more heavy weight... the service needs to just work and work reliably.

For email, it's still Gmail for me for now, but I think I'm switching to MobileMe for calendaring. And it seems I can now sync contacts between Gmail and MobileMe, so that'll make things a bit more tolerable.

Otoh, if Google did something like Firefox based native mail, calendar and contact apps for Windows and Mac, as well as native iPhone apps...then added photos/videos, an iDisk like thing, Google might just be the ticket.

Uggg...the frustration!

There's this reality fans of pure cloud computing tend to forget, that OFTEN TIMES one is out of any network range with their mobile device. Having a local sync, one that is pushed to any time you do get a bit of connectivity, is very valuable as you can access anything cached offline.

My company uses Google Apps for your Domain, and I use MobileMe. I'm waiting until the MobileMe dust settles a bit to dig into it and read other experiences, but I expect that I should be able to set up spanning sync on my work mac (which is a desktop iMac and always on), which also syncs to MobileMe, and I'm hoping it can all tie together nicely that way. I really just want to be able to get my (google) company calendar synced up and be able to create company meetings from my device.

But I just got every thing over to Google. I'd been using, and continue to use my .mac account, but set IT up to forward to my gmail account. I'd love to just be able to ditch .mac/mobileme all together, but will that work w/ an iPhone, a Mac, and a linux machine?

As for moving you email from gMail to MobileMe. I did it like this:

Setup gMail IMAP in Apple Mail (or Outlook/Thunderbird for the Widows crowd)

Setup .Mac/MobileMe IMAP in Apple Mail (or Outlook/Thunderbird)

Once everything downloads to both accounts you can copy everything over from gMail to .Mac/MobileMe via drag and drop. YES! It will take a while! (depending on how much email you keep laying around). If you archive everything it's simple as looking in the [Gmail]/All Mail folder. For the label happy folks just copy each "folder" to the MobileMe account.

Yea! Sync and push the Apple way!

Set gMail to forward to @mac.com or @me.com email address and mark as read/archive/apply label (like "Fwd'd to MMe"), or whatever floats your boat.

Download .ics of your google calendar(s) and import into iCal or Outlook (2007, 2003 needs xml or something different)

Your contacts should already be in address book or outlook, if they're not shame on you! :D Import your contacts from gmail using one the results from a google search for "import gmail contacts apple address book" or "import gmail contacts outlook". The instructions are easy, your grandma could do it, I promise!

Wait for MobileMe to come online--setup iPhone(s)/computers to sync (is this really even going to require any brain power?)

Start enjoying push email/contacts/calendars, people with your old email will still get through to you and when you respond they can see you're new email address, but for those who don't pay attention you may want to send a friendly update (sorry for you folks who get email regularly from 100's of people!)

(Optional) Subscribe to your friends google or MobileMe calendars in iCal and watch as they magically appear on your iPhone in CoLoR!

This is such a tough call for us "hardcore" Google users. I like the idea of MobileMe, I just wish Google had implemented it first!

What to do... what to do....

@Erik
You won't have to manage 2 accounts. GMail allows you to forward all of your incoming emails to another account.

I absolutely love gmail and don't want to have to tell all of my contacts that my email address has changed. On the flip side instantly receiving my emails over push is much better than having my iPhone go out and capture my emails off of the gmail server every 15 minutes. Some of my emails require quick responses push email from mobile me would totally make that a reality.
I've thought about forwarding my gmail to mobile me, but then when I respond to emails the email will come from the mobile me server, AHH!
I will be utilizing mobile me because push calender and contacts will be great. I guess I will just have to suck it up and forward all my email to my mobile me account, and tell my close contacts to email me at mobile me. Unfortunately it will be a royal pain in the butt to have to manage 2 accounts :-( but at least I will have PUSH mail!

MobileMe seems to be able to do everything Google apps can, host pictures, mail etc. But it does more unless Google does this stuff and I don't know it. Store files and send links to people to share them. Host webpages etc. MobileMe seems better
Ryan

Tough decision. I switched from iCal to gCalendar a while back exactly because the lack of something like MobileMe. Being a MBP and iPhone user, MobileMe is very compelling. But I'm going to stick with Google until Apple drops the $99 bullshit.

Jason,

MobleMe is in the cloud. Check it out, bro. http://www.me.com/</p>

google'd rate if innovation has slowed down to a crawl, Apple are incentivized to make mobileme highly integrated with the iPhone and the Nac.

Battle lines gave been drawn.

iPhone/MobileMe
Android/gApps
WinMibile/Live

All are heading in the same direction - Apple is the first to feliver a higjly integrated sokution - whoever dominates as the most popular mobile platform wins - but let's remember this us the beginning of a big ecosystem that will evolve in the next 10 years.

When companies are giving it away for free there is jess incentive to innovate in the long run, only Apple is making money from this.

I was all on Google apps, but my life revolves around my iPhone much more, so i need to review things. I will likely keep my iPhone subscription to see how it evolves.

What about the fact that migrates to Mobileme, means having again a new email address? This is all but awesome!

I'm in Google's camp - they offer innovation for free, and in this arena, Apple is totally playing catchup.

I also love Gmail to death, threaded email is the only way to go, in my mind, and being able to search/store attachments in Gmail is the bee's knees. I often just email attachments to myself, put a few keywords into the subject of the email, and suddenly I have access to a document or file wherever I can get online, including my iPhone in most situations.

I do wish that Apple would drop the proprietary hoohaw though, I want to be able to sync the Calendar on my iPhone with my Google Calendar - maybe Google will build an app for iPhone that allows push calendaring. Right now I just rely on the "Send me an SMS reminder" feature, but at only 200 SMS/month, you can run out quickly doing that.

Here's a simple poll of Google vs. Apple. Check it out and vote ...

http://mktg.typepad.com/marketingjoint/2008/06/apple-vs-google.html

MobileMe = Sync = Dumb

Google = Cloud = Smart

i have .mac service, and about 4 months ago started to slowly migrate my data to google... a very daunting task to say the least. I have been a .mac customer for over 3 years. The reason for this was the $$ why use .mac when google give me everything except an online disk for free??

I'm in the same boat as the author, I have since added an additional mac to my network, and I'm going to get the new iphone. So maybe i should just keep .mac?!

decisions decisions decisions...

You hit the nail on the head. mobileMe is really about the Android threat and the potential of gPhone and gApps tightly integrated as they certainly will be.

I think we are going to see some real competition between iPhone/mobileMe and Android/gApps. Google stuff will always be cheaper and you probably are right, faster with incremental innovation.

Apple stuff wins on design quality and ease of use. Also they tend to define the space and break new ground, as they have here.

I think it really depends on where the center of gravity is on your usage. For me I prefer apps to webapps. I'd rather use Mail, Addressbook and iCal than the gmail, gcal in a web client. So mobileMe seems awesome.

But I know a lot of people though who have never known anything but email in a browser and for them I am not sure there is as much benefit to mobileMe. My friends on PC often use Hotmail 100% in the browser. And on college campuses I see a lot of young people on gmail in the browser. If you are accustomed to this sort of usage you might be happier just eliminating the desktop app and just having an online version and an iphone version.

Someone heavy on gApps or yahoo or even hotmail will want a direct sync from iPhone to those services. Not clear if that will be possible...

I much prefer Google's pricing.

I think my original comment was lost, so I'll just say that I'm in Google's boat and am just waiting for Android to piece it all together in a very cool way.

MobileMe all the way. Elegant as only Apple can do. Easy one stop shopping.