MobileMe [Apple's product details] is a service by Apple, Inc. that syncs your email, address book, browser bookmarks, and calendars on all your Apple computers, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. What I’ve stated are its core features and practical uses, but MobileMe can do other things too, like web photo galleries, and locate your lost iPhone.

Primary Capabilities

MobileMe is primarily about syncing your personal data on all your Mac devices. Let’s say you use Apple’s iCal, and you have three Apple machines (a Macbook, Mac Mini, and an iPad). Well, in no time at all, your calendar (iCal), to the smallest detail, can be synced on all devices.

What’s even more powerful is that you can access your calendar from the Internet. So when you don’t have access to you Mac devices, you can get to your contacts, email, calendar and the like from any computer—Mac or PC. So if you’re at a hotel that offers the use of a computer during your stay, that PC in the lobby can access all your personal account info via MobileMe online.

Other Powerful Features

You can upload your photo albums and home movies any way you like; share them most any way you like. There are all kinds of benefits to this, like your friends and family can download home movies and pictures, print copies of your pictures in high quality, add to your photo collection (as they/you so choose), and so on.

Your MobilMe account also give you storage space for your data (think backups). As you see fit, you can use this feature Apple calls iDisk to share files on your computers and others.

One of my favorite features is syncing my Safari browser [browser details page] bookmarks. This way, as I add to and take away bookmarks and organize my Safari web browser, they update (as I so choose) on all my devices. This saves a killer amount of time, and motivates me to use bookmarks to a greater—more productive—extent.

Pros

• MobileMe is surprisingly simple and easy to use.
• It handles a lot, when you think about it.
• It’s a practical tool for Mac users that want their media to be accessible on all their devices without a lot of repetitive steps on the part of the user.
• It instantly sped up my personal workflow and time spent on the menial tasks (thus freeing me up a great deal of time week in and week out).
• Apple.com has several video tutorials [tutorials' page] to help you get started.

Cons

• There are many that compare MobileMe to similar services by Google (among others’). When stacked against Google’s free services, the $99.95/yearly regular price of MobileMe sounds really steep.
• MobileMe lacks many features competitors’ sites have to offer. No one knows when MobileMe might catch up with the competition.
• MobileMe is intended to work for Mac users primarily. It’s impractical for PC users to consider it unless they also use a Mac on a regular basis.
• There’s a little learning process to MobileMe, and at times while you’re learning it you’re wary that you may unintentionally erase your contacts, or something. It could be a little more intuitive for unskilled users. Thus, the video tutorials at Apple.com may be a life saver.
• Some of the setup and features of MobileMe seem disjointed. Adding your MobileMe account to each device is different, for instance.

The Pricing Issue

If you consider how much menial work MobileMe saves you in a year, the price is below that value of time it saves you each year. So if MobileMe frees you to spend more time with your family and friends, it’s rather selfish and stingy of you not to pay for MobileMe. By not willing to save time by forking out the money, you are saying that $100 a year is worth more to you than $100+ (worth) of your time with family and friends. Make sense?

Note that you can save on your first year of MobileMe when you purchase some other Apple products via their web store. I purchased MobileMe the other day because I also purchased an iPad online from Apple, and MobileMe is discounted to $70 when you purchase products like the iPad at the same time.

It’s also worth noting that you get better customer service for what you pay for. Apple is there to help you with MobileMe. Competitors’ comparable free web services don’t offer much in the way of customer service. You are on your own (to Google search) if you have problems with competitors’ similar products.

Overall Value (Conclusion)

MobileMe has great features for Apple apps that you can’t get any other way. Apple should add more to the value of MobileMe over time, or it will start to fall behind the competition. At this time, it’s the best solution for Apple users’ syncing needs considering the time it saves the user.

MobileMe is high on the practical, low on the “wow” factor. Your in a minority—like myself—in the web community if you think that MobileMe is worth the price.

So, all aspects considered, my conclusion is that MobileMe is worth:

★★★★★ [four out of five stars]

Should you get it? If you don’t use Apple’s Mail, Address Book, iCal, then that pretty much means you would be wasting your money for the other features you would get. Use most all the Apple apps that sync with MobileMe and it is worth the membership price.

Noteworthy

Apple.com and MobileMe.com (at the time of this post) is offering a 60-day free trial [sign-up page]. This is a generous window of time to help you make the choice whether it’s right for you.