
Steve Jobs: MobileMe "not up to Apple's standards" - joshwa
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/08/04/steve-jobs-mobileme-not-up-to-apples-standards
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timae
The thing that will really limit the potential of MobileMe is that the email
address is not free. No one wants to sign-up for an email address that will go
away if they ever decide to stop using the rest of the service. And, no one
wants to pay full price for something if they're not going to use all the
features. Make the email free (me.com is a pretty cool email) and people will
start to whip out their annual Benjamins for the rest of the service!

Maybe Eddy Cue, the new head of MobileMe, reads HN. If so, you're welcome.

~~~
netcan
Maybe the whole thing needs to be free. Break Apple's make a profit on
everything policy. In this case, these are the types of features people will
use because they're there and get used to having. The they get hooked.

Apple could get their own social network out of it. And they're going for a
few rubles these days.

------
pg
Impressive candor. What other big co would have the confidence to admit its
failures so quickly? Not even Google. Microsoft, meanwhile, is launching a
huge ad campaign to convince users they're wrong for disliking their latest
OS.

~~~
briansmith
I think the intent of this message was to admit failure internally only. It
was a corporate email, not a press release.

Bill Gate's emails were a lot more strongly worded than this email from Jobs.
Take the Gates email about Windows Movie Maker that was published everywhere
last month as an example.

Also, Microsoft's ad campaign boils down to "despite what you've heard, we
think you'd like Windows Vista if you gave it a try. So why don't you?" In
other words, it isn't "you are wrong for disliking Vista" but more like "what
you've heard about Vista is wrong or outdated."

I agree with you about Google. They rarely say anything, good or bad. If there
is a specific widespread problem then they might admit there is a problem and
then issue a statement when it is fixed; their commentary is minimal if not
non-existent.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_I think the intent of this message was to admit failure internally only. It
was a corporate email, not a press release._

There's a fertile grey area between the top-secret internal email and the
press release, ranging from deliberately dropping a copy of your "top-secret"
email on the floor of a journalist's office to deliberately sending the email
to a bunch of people who are known to be bad at keeping secrets.

Apple's pretty good at keeping secrets. When something leaks out of Apple
within 24 hours I tend to assume that it had some assistance.

I think the diplomatic wording is another clue that Jobs, at the very least,
doesn't care that this email got out.

~~~
boucher
The way Apple keeps secrets is by keeping information strictly need to know.
Anything that gets sent out to the whole company is usually leaked pretty
quickly.

------
huhtenberg
This is a textbook example of an orchestrated PR leak. They admit they have
problems, but on other hand they really don't since it's an "internal email".

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volida
heh seems that anyone who uses "Me" in a product release ends us a failure

------
netcan
'"The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about
Internet services," Jobs says. "And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is
both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are
all proud of by the end of this year."'

If its not leaked & not intended for general consumption its pretty worrying.
Could you imaging working with someone who says 'we will press on to make it a
service we are all proud of' instead of 'this sucks. We need to fix it.'

------
netcan
'"The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about
Internet services," Jobs says. "And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is
both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are
all proud of by the end of this year."'

If its not leaked & not intended for general consumption its pretty worrying.
Could you imaging working with someone who says 'we will press on to make it a
service we are all proud of' instead of 'this sucks. We need to fix it.'

