Another two months of free MobileMe

A lot of people are looking at Apple’s new MobileMe service and seeing push delays, e-mail server outages and other oddities that have led to the service being dubbed “Apple’s MobileMess” by New York Times columnist David Pogue. Me? I’m looking at it and seeing, as of this morning, a total of 90 days of free service.

In their ongoing effort to smooth things over with angry customers, Apple has announced that those with active MobileMe accounts as of August 19, 2008 will receive a free 60 day extension to their subscription. This is in addition to the free 30 day MobileMe extension offered a little over a month ago.

From the release:

Why is Apple granting a 60-day subscription extension?
The transition from .Mac to MobileMe was rockier than we had hoped. While we are making a lot of improvements, the MobileMe service is still not up to our standards. We are extending subscriptions 60-days free of charge to express appreciation for our members’ patience as we continue to improve the service.

Am I eligible for the 60-day extension?
You are eligible if you are a MobileMe member whose account was active as of August 19, 2008 at 0:00 Pacific Daylight Time.

Now, this pleases me. Who doesn’t like to get some free stuff every now and again? But I’m also wondering why Apple is pampering us so much all of a sudden. The current condition of MobileMe is certainly not the biggest blunder in Apple’s history, so why all the love over such a seemingly insignificant element of the company’s bottom line? I’m guessing it’s because it’s not as insignificant as it would seem. MobileMe is apparently a major part of Apple’s business strategy, or they wouldn’t be working so hard to keep customers. I’m encouraged by this, as MobileMe could be something truly great once Apple works out the kinks.

Or, maybe it’s just that a disproportionate number of subscribers will be up for renewal in the next 60 days, and Apple wanted to be sure to keep them around. Regardless, I don’t think any of us have lost 90 days worth of work because of the MobileMe problems, so these extensions from Apple have been more than fair. I’ll certainly take them over the mysterious David G.’s MobileMe Status blog, which saw four posts in a month before being shut down in favor of something, you know, useful.

Get back to your real job, now, David. I take my coffee dark.