Apple Inc. has quietly updated MobileMe to improve a number of aspects of the companyis Cloud-based replacement for .Mac. Apple has improved performance on Internet Explorer 7 on Windows, improved Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Gallery, and more.
Our headline says that Apple "quietly" updated the service because the company only notified customers through a Knowledge Base article titled, "MobileMe: About the Late-September 2008 MobileMe update." That notice offers an in-depth description of the changes, as well as an explanation of Appleis approach.
"Apple is always working to improve MobileMe," the company said in the notice. "Since MobileMe is primarily a server-side, or "cloud"-based, service, the MobileMe team can make improvements and push updates to MobileMe without any action being required of MobileMe customers. Since server-side updates are a bit more innocuous than a standard software update to Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows, itis easy not to notice that updates are occurring. Usually the only hint of these updates is that things just iwork betteri."
Among the changes, Apple first touted improvements in localization, which refers to non-American English versions of the service in local markets. Apple has also improved the automated member-name suggestion feature for new signups requesting a name already taken.
There are a number of improvements to the Web-based MobileMe Mail service, including several improvements to basic interface issues, and some performance issues. Similarly, Apple has improved a number of interface aspects of MobileMeis online Calendar, as well as improving performance.
For Windows users, Apple has improved performance in Contacts for I.E. 7, and re-enabled the ability to export vCards from MobileMe contacts. Toss in some more interface issues for Contacts and Gallery, as well as improved iPhone performance in Gallery, and that rounds out the update notes.
Note tat the Knowledge Base article refers to the update as the "Late September 2008" update, though the article was published late on October 29th. We should also note that this continues a recent trend for Apple to offer more details about its software updates.