Apple's .Mac service saw some severe outages last night, as rumours the company plans a service upgrade continue to gather intensity.
Users of .Mac mail saw email problems for almost six hours last night, between 5.30pm and 10pm, US time.
An Apple note said: "100 per cent of members might experience slower than normal response when using IMAP mail. Mail can be sent and received using .Mac webmail. Normal service will be restored ASAP."
This service outage came shortly after last week's widespread rumours which claimed Apple plans to re-brand the service under a new name, (Mobile Me? Me.com?), and may possibly make the move to compete with existing free services, such as those offered by Google.
Code has been found in the upcoming iPhone SDK linking to mobileme.com where .Mac used to exist, it is likely that the upgrade will be announced at WWDC with direct tie-ins with the new iPhone and iPhone software.
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Comments
Me Too!
I've been getting a lot of problems with .Mac IMAP access, and not just in the last 24 hours, they seem to have been working on it in some way on and off for around a week.
I think between this, the 'Me' info, and the old iDisk increased capacity 'bugs' this all points to a .Mac upgrade, at this stage I'd say it almost seems certain.
yeah... .mac is like never
yeah... .mac is like never been majorly updated since it came out and i think i remember reading tht steve was trying to improve it cos they have only like 1 million members
I'm in the ".Mac's getting
I'm in the ".Mac's getting an upgrade soon" camp as well, but before I get my hopes up too high, I'll point out that .Mac mail has had outages in the past, as have Yahoo and my ISP. I think even Gmail's had issues for me. The timing here is awfully coincidental, but it could just be an outage or routine maintenance...
I didn't notice, just enjoyed
I didn't notice, just enjoyed a blissful evening of no email.
I still think it would be a good idea for people to get the free trial to hold their user name, in case there is a big rush next week. Even if they let it expire, they can reactivate it in the future.
been having problems too
I've been having iDisk, mail, and other syncing problems for about a week now, so I'd have to agree that in one week we'll either see a re-branded .mac and a lot of new features / upgrades, or at least the latter.
I think at $99 a year, they should really increase iDisk reliablity and usage, and better syncing across platforms.