MobileMe Mail has both widescreen and compact views and rules to keep your email organized. Apple explains, "Mail rules help you reduce inbox clutter by automatically filing messages into folders you select ahead of time. Set them up at me.com, and your rules organize your incoming email on the web and everywhere else — on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC."

There is also single-click archiving, a formatting toolbar, as well as increased speed and security with SSL.

There are a couple features that are new since the beta. These are support for external email addresses and improved junk mail filtering. More details about the release in Apple’s official announcement.

Will you use this? Let us know.

The service has been nothing but headaches for all parties involved since its launch. Problems ranged from email access and downtime to even syncing itself.

Apple has at least recognized and acknowledged the service’s shortcomings and tried to make things right with customers. Previously the company gave customers a free 30-day extension of the trial period, and today they have announced an additional 60 day extension.

It is clear that they really do want people to enjoy the service, and these extensions seem like a plea for customers to bear with them. They’re improving the service, and they want people to know it before they dismiss it.

"We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe’s launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around," Apple said in an e-mail according to MacWorld.

It is clear that the company is embarrassed by the trouble it has had with MobileMe, but I think they are doing the smart thing by extending the free trial period.

Maybe this is the kind of mentality that has helped propel them up the customer satisfaction charts.

A blog (a contraction of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order.

That’s how Wikipedia defines a blog. Apple doesn’t have an official blog and, according to reports, even goes to great lengths to prevent some employees from blogging about Apple on their personal time.

Furthermore, while Apple employees are granted permission by Apple to create their own personal Web pages and blogs, they are not allowed to comment on anything related to Apple on such pages. Furthermore, they are prohibited from posting in any capacity on any Mac-related Websites or forums, whether they identify themselves as working for Apple or not.

I’ve criticized Apple for its lack of direct social media participation, but there are signs it’s dipping its toe into the blogosphere with its MobileMe Status page.

Let’s see:

1. “usually maintained by an individual” – check! We have a mysterious David G. providing the updates.
2. “regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events” – check! Two updates on MobileMe’s hiccups.
3. “displayed in reverse chronological order” – check! The first listed is from July 27, the one below that is from July 25.

Add to that an RSS feed and you have all the makings of an official Apple blog. The notable omission is the lack of comments–I’m assuming Apple’s not quite ready to hear from all the MobileMe users who can’t access their email.

Back in November, I warned that, as Apple starts reaching the masses, it would need to engage social media or suffer. I even stated:

If there’s not an Apple blog, forum, social network of some kind by the end of 2008, I’ll eat my iPod.

Hmm, do we call MobileMe Status a blog or more succinctly a WebPageMaintainedByOnePersonWithRegularEntriesInReverseChronologicalOr derWithRSS? It just trips off the tongue, doesn’t it?

Comments

The service was supposed to be available Friday to coincide with the iPhone 3G’s launch, but MobileMe’s service was unavailable, had slow performance and unexpected logouts.

Apple will be offering customers a free contract extension. "We want to apologize to our customers and thank them for their patience, so we are going to be extending all current MobileMe subscriptions by 30 days free of charge," said Apple’s Bill Evans.

The email continued,"Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My PC and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately, we have worked through those problems and the Web apps are now up and running."

The email also said,"Another snag we have run into is our use of the word "push" in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe "cloud," changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices."