Siri’s great when it works, it just so seldom does. The most common thing I want to do with Siri is make calls to restaurants to order food. But restaurants, particularly ones in this town, tend to have odd names. Siri doesn’t work well with odd names and it usually fails when I try to use it to call, say, Kouzan. It also fails if I try to call Café Viva by reversing the words of the name and saying, “Call Viva Café.” But this sort of intelligence — the ability to parse natural language, even mistakes to some extent — is just what Siri’s billed as being great at.

I’ve pretty much given up calling restaurants with Siri. And since I don’t really make many other calls, Siri phone functionality is mostly useless to me. So what else can Siri do?

Well, Siri’s great at dictation. I mean really great. So this morning I attempted to jot down an idea for a blog post using the dictation feature. After finishing the input the note was empty. Completely blank. Siri just completely gave up the ghost. Turns out there was a network related problem, and Siri famously fails when it has any problem connecting to Apple’s network. Let’s be clear: I had connectivity three ways to Sunday; the problem was Apple-side. I think it might be good for Siri to do some network checking before taking requests, because, though it can save you quite a bit of time when it works, when it doesn’t, it’s a huge time waster. And that just adds to my steadily increasing level of gunshy-ness.

So far Siri’s pretty good about setting reminders. Hasn’t failed me there yet; I’ll keep trying to use it. But I’m pretty close to giving up. I don’t know. Maybe the giving-up threshold is simply determined by a loose calculation of how much time you’ve wasted on a new technology. Maybe once your brain realizes that this thing that’s supposed to be saving you time is instead stealing it away, maybe that’s when you stop playing guinea pig and get back to work.

Whatever the case, Siri has proven, over the longer haul, to be not particularly useful in real world use cases, at least not yet.

Don’t believe the hype. Or at least not all of it.

1. Siri is a believable and convincing enough piece of software to make people react to it as though it is a real person, with real thoughts and opinions.
2. Most people either just have no clue how technology works, or no interest in understanding it. Or both.

Sometimes, ya just gotta laugh.

1. Open Camera app.
2. Take photos.
3. Look at Camera Roll from Camera app and verify that photos are there.
4. Quit Camera app.
5. Open Photos app.
6. Navigate to Camera Roll.
7. Photos app crashes.
8. Open it again, and navigate to Camera Roll again.
9. Camera Roll appears empty.
10. Look again from Camera app, and the Camera Roll shows the recent photos.

Clearly, the photos are in my Camera Roll, but they’re just not appearing when viewed from the Photos app. So WTF?

After a good deal of research I was able to track the problem down to what would seem to be a corrupt database. The solution is kind of a pain, but it works and seem to keep the problem from happening ever again. So here it is, the fix:

1. Plug in and back up your iPhone, for good measure.
2. Download and install either iExplorer (formerly iPhone Explorer) or any app that lets you view the file system of your iPhone.
3. With iPhone still connected, launch iExplorer.
4. In iExplorer navigate to the Your_iPhone->Media->PhotoData folder.
5. If you’re at all concerned or paranoid (like I am) back this entire folder up to your computer by simply dragging it from iExplorer to your Desktop.
6. Delete the following three files:
• com.apple.photos.caches_metadata.plist
• PhotosAux.sqlite
• Photos.sqlite
7. Reboot your iPhone.

When the iPhone returns to service the Photos app should show your Camera Roll repopulated with your recent photos. If you don’t have any other albums, you’re done. Otherwise, any other albums you had — particularly ones that you’d been syncing from iPhoto — will need to be resynced. Simply open up iTunes and perform a sync operation.

That’s it! You’re done. From here on out your iPhone should behave properly when taking new photos; the Camera Roll should always display recent photos from inside the Photos app.

The Phone
In many regards, this is the same phone I had a few weeks ago. The software is the same, the data is the same, most things are the same. And this is a good thing. Moving to the new phone was almost completely painless and straightforward.

Performance
Overall, though, there are some differences, of course. In general, I really like the phone itself. It’s a huge speed boost from the iPhone 3GS, and that helps make everything work better, more smoothly and quicker. The interface is just faster, and that’s really nice.

I was more surprised at how much faster the network is. I assume that this has something to do with my new provider, Verizon (more on that in a minute), but I also think that speed gain is a function of the phone hardware itself. Whatever the reason, I’m extremely pleased by this.

The Body
Coming from the iPhone 3GS‘s rounded edges and arched back, I was a bit skeptical that I’d like the body of the iPhone4S, with it’s all-flat surfaces and hard edges. The 3GS felt perfect in my hand. It was a most ergonomic body shape.

But I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much I actually do like the 4S’s feel. It’s not as soft to the touch, but it feels a bit thinner, and the hard edges add a certain grippiness that makes it feel very firm in hand and easy to pick up. They also afford the possibility of placing the phone on its edge for video shoots.

The glass surfaces, too, are very elegant — far more so than the 3GS’s plastic back — yet have enough friction to them that the phone never feels in danger of slipping out of my hand. They also don’t appear to scuff as easily or as much as the 3GS’s plastic back.

And the iPhone 4S’s body is just beautiful, maybe the prettiest phone I’ve ever seen. There are tradeoffs to the new body style, but they’re very minor and pretty much even out. I’m quite pleased with the body style of this phone.

The Screen
I’m pretty blown away by the Retina Display. This is one of my favorite things about my new phone. Sure, I’d seen friends’ iPhone 4s, so it wasn’t completely new to me. But seeing the screen and using one on a regular basis are two very different things. Using the Retina Display is amazing, especially as my vision gets crappier with age. Reading text on this screen is noticeably better, an improvement that extends to every area of the iPhone experience. Also, I can finally notice tiny details, like the paper texture in Notes, that I’d never seen before. It’s really terrific.

The Camera
The camera is much faster than the one on my old phone. It’s also better, but I wouldn’t say the improvement is huge. Side by side you can certainly tell a difference, but these still look like iPhone photos.

The HDR functionality is good only for certain types of lighting situations. For anything else it usually does a worse job. Moreover, it slows the camera down considerably. I recommend keeping it off unless you need it. For this reason I wish it had a dedicated button instead of being buried within a submenu.

Video is still clearly phone video, though as such it’s quite serviceable. But what impressed me was the stabilization. It’s very good, and on such a small device, it’s really essential. These little video phones tend to exacerbate camera shake, but the iPhone 4S does a pretty darned good job of smoothing out the worst of it by using the phone’s physical sensors, in part, to do the job. This, perhaps even more than the optics, makes a huge improvement to the video the iPhone 4S produces.

Siri
The big surprise for me, with Siri, is how much I actually do use it. For Reminders and phone calls it really is much quicker and easier than using the touch screen. And, yes, it’s really as accurate as everyone says. It’s not for everything, but there are certain situations that Siri is perfect for, and when you’re in those situations, Siri is a joy.

Perhaps my favorite use of Siri is dictation. It’s great! It’s very accurate, and far more convenient than typing everything out on the touchscreen keyboard. Accurate dictation is far less useful on a computer with a physical keyboard, because you can usually type faster than you can speak. But with virtual keyboards, the equation is the reverse, and this is one place where Siri really shines.

Siri’s limitations can be frustrating, though. I wish (as I think everyone does) that it was more hooked into the OS. I’d love to use Siri as an application launcher, for instance. Or maybe even for navigation. Siri’s technically only in beta at this point, though, so I’m sure we’ll start to see these sorts of things as the service evolves. I think it’s going to be great.

Verizon
One of the biggest changes for me with this upgrade has nothing to do with the actual phone hardware itself. For this phone purchase I switched to Verizon as my mobile provider. I was actually a little worried about the switch as I’d been fairly happy with AT&T’s customer service and web apps. But I live in New York City, and AT&T’s reception is pretty lousy here. Moreover, at work, often when I really need a connection, AT&T is spotty or just plain out of range, and that’s not cool.

So I switched to Verizon on a trial basis.

Thus far I’ve been very happy. The cell service is truly amazing, a huge step up. Calls are not only more reliable, they are also clearer and louder. Some of this may be due to the new phone hardware, but credit where due, Verizon’s cell service works everywhere I go, and works very, very well. I’ve not had a dropped or garbled call, nor been in an area with no signal yet. I actually needed to make a call on the first day I had the phone from a previously impossible location at work and it worked flawlessly. With voice commands, no less!

The improved reception has also brought another advantage: my data connection is more pervasive and reliable. Suddenly, I’m able to get a data connection in all sorts of places where it had been terrible on AT&T. At times, I believe this more reliable data connection even makes it appear that the network is much faster than on my old phone, which would choke when trying to connect using a spotty connection. So, overall, the increased reliability has ultimately resulted in increased network speeds.

Verizon’s customer service has been very good as well. I’ve had two occasions to deal with their phone support, and both times they’ve gotten the job done quickly and politely. And that’s pretty much all I ask.

Their account management site is also very good and easy to use.

Verizon is definitely more expensive, however. About $30 more per month for the plan I got, which is a slight step up from my old AT&T plan. I am now getting an employee discount that brings this back down to only about $10 a month more than my AT&T account, but without that, the price hike is significant. If phone reception is key, though, it might just be worth it; the improvement is huge. In my case, I’m more than happy to pay $10 more per month for much, much improved service.

Bugs and Updates
It hasn’t been all wine and roses, however. There have been some bugs and issues.

The most annoying problem I’ve had is that, when shooting pictures or video with the Camera app — and this seems particularly bad when shooting from the lock screen rather than launching directly from the Springboard — sometimes they don’t show up in the Camera Roll gallery. If I sort by Places, the pictures appear and can be moved to other galleries, but for some reason they don’t appear in the Camera Roll. For that reason, importing via iPhoto can be hit-or-miss. Sometimes the photos appear for import, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they get deleted from the phone, sometimes they don’t. It’s more of an annoyance than anything, and I haven’t permanently lost any data yet. But I really wish they’d fix it. And fast.

I was hoping the iOS 5.0.1 update would bring some relief, but it does not seem to have addressed the issue. Moreover, after applying the update, I
experienced the bug wherein contact names don’t appear for incoming calls, despite the fact that they’re still in your Contacts. This I was able to fix, however. It seems the Contacts database gets corrupted with the iOS 5.0.1 update, and the punctuation (parentheses and dashes and what not) gets removed from the phone numbers of all your Contacts. The incoming phone number, however, does retain all the necessary punctuation, and this inconsistency causes the Phone app to be unable to recognize said incoming number.

The fix that worked for me is easy enough: Just restore your contacts from a recent backup. Of course, this assumes you made a backup before updating. If you didn’t, this is perfect example of why you should. Shit happens.

Conclusion
I’m very happy with my Verizon iPhone 4S. The hardware is a vast improvement over the 3GS, and I notice the speed boost and spectacular display all the time, in every area of operation, from note-taking to search, even after weeks of use. Siri is fun and useful, and the technology to watch; it’s going to be great someday and a real boon to iPhone users. Finally, Verizon has really rounded out my user experience by at last allowing my phone to perform well in its primary function, as a phone.

Like a lot of people, I’d imagine, I seem to be on a leapfrog iPhone upgrade cycle, upgrading every other version, and so far that seems to be working out well. Each time I upgrade I receive a subsidy on the price of the phone and a significant hardware boost. The iPhone 4S is no exception. It’s a solid upgrade, and I’m very happy with it.

A Lion Correction
I had originally reported that one of my favorite new Lion features was that Quicklook stayed active even when switching away from the Finder to another app. This apparently only happens on my 30″ monitor at work, and I don’t believe it is the intended behavior. Kinda sad when a bug is preferred over proper operation. Go Lion!

Lion 10.7.2 Update
10.7.2 fixes a few things that were bothering me.

For one, the bug where Desktop icons disappear when you partially swipe to another Space, stop swiping, and stay in your current Space, has been fixed. Do this now and you’ll even see the Finder redraw the Desktop icons.

Also, when navigating sorted columns using arrow keys, the headers now don’t get selected.

Finally, performance and memory use seem to be a bit better in 10.7.2. Specifically, the green slice of the memory pie in Activity Monitor is consistently larger than in previous iterations of the OS.

iOS 5 On iPhone 3GS
If you’re wondering why Apple’s new Reminders app doesn’t give you the option to geofence your reminder — i.e., you can’t set a location — it’s because that particular feature is for users of iPhone 4 and up. Now you can stop twiddling your GPS settings and get some sleep.

iOS 5 Little Thangs
A few other things I stumbled upon while playing with iOS 5.

In the Camera app, swiping right now takes you to your camera roll. Also, you can now set macros, so typing “omg” will actually write out “Oh my gawd!”

Also, custom ringtones! Huzzah!

UPDATE:
Reader Matt points out that Quicklook does, in fact, stay active when viewing apps other than the Finder on his system. So I started investigating, and it seems that the feature works for other users on my computer; there is a problem specific to my account which is breaking it for me for some reason. I’m presently looking into a fix. For now, suffice to say, this is a real feature in Lion and, for most folks anyway, should work just fine.

Thanks, Matt!

UPDATE:
Got it! Trashed my Finder prefs. Now I got the Quicklook all the time!

I just pre-ordered an iPhone 4S. From Verizon. And while I’m excited to get the new phone, and thrilled at the prospect of improved call quality and coverage, I do feel a pang of regret at having to leave AT&T.

I switched to AT&T when the first iPhone first hit the streets. A very big part of that decision was that I was at that time a Sprint customer. And here’s the thing about Sprint: I hate them. I truly hate them. I was a Sprint customer for probably ten years, over which I had several problems. Once, for instance, after moving from upstate New York to New York City, Sprint continued to bill me for my upstate land line for three months after I’d cancelled it. Correcting this took numerous calls to customer service, making me really question the competence of the company.

If competence had been the only issue, I might’ve stayed. But then, years later, I continued to have problems, once when upgrading to a new phone, and then later with billing. At one point Sprint charged me several hundred dollars for a few hours worth of data use that occurred in the wee hours of the morning, when I can assure you I was quite asleep. I managed to have that charge removed, but it took over an hour on the phone — much of it on hold — during which I was, at one point, berated by a Sprint technician for using the phone improperly.

That was when I vowed my revenge.

That day I vowed to leave Sprint at my earliest convenience. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of my life. And when the iPhone hit, I knew it was my chance. That was the day Sprint lost my business forever.

I’ve been pretty happy to see where Sprint’s landed in the ensuing years. They’re currently the #3 carrier, and they’ve only just gotten the iPhone. Ha! Serves you right, Sprint. You guys suck!

I do not have such feelings of ill will toward AT&T, however. In fact, all my personal experiences with AT&T — be they over the phone with customer service, or just using AT&T’s customer website — have been quite pleasant. Their customer service folks have always been courteous and quick, and I’ve never spent more than a minute on hold with them in the handful of times I’ve ever even need to call them. Their customer billing site is also quite good, with clear, user-friendly graphics and explanations of my bill that always make perfect sense. Overall I’ve been pretty happy with AT&T.

There is one area, however, in which AT&T has not fared so well. It will likely come as no surprise to readers of this site that AT&T’s cellular reception, particularly in large urban areas — particularly New York City, where I spend the vast majority of my time — is less than stellar. Reception at my workplace is especially bad. There are areas where I often need to be in which I simply get no signal whatsoever. But coworkers with Verizon iPhones have no problems anywhere in the building I work in. This more than anything is the reason for my switch; it’s purely technical. It’s not everyday I need phone service at work, but when I do it’s usually pretty urgent, and having to use the land line while I’m troubleshooting a server or a projector with a colleague over the phone is incredibly frustrating. It just plain slows me down, and when time is of the essence, that’s a real problem.

So I’ve made the switch. I don’t feel completely good about it — I like to think I’m as loyal to good service as I am damning of bad service. But there is it. It’s done. Sorry AT&T. I wish I could stay.

But, Verizon, consider yourself on notice: treat me like you don’t want my business, and you will most certainly lose it.

iCloud
First off, iCloud. iCloud is really the engine behind the bulk of this year’s significant announcements.

As I see it, iCloud provides centralized storage and services that are primarily aimed at managing all your various devices — your iPhone, your Mac, iPod, iPad, all of it. For the most part, iCloud is meant to sit in the background and do all this seamlessly and invisibly, which is terrific. I think it’s a great start and Apple is approaching this with the right idea: Make everything as easy as possible.

The $25 portion of the iCloud service that will allow you to store all your music on Apple’s servers for anytime access — dubbed iTunes Match — doesn’t seem like something I’d ever really want or need. Other folks who are more into having all their music with them at all times might feel differently. But I predict this won’t be a huge success for the company, because most folks just won’t really find it compelling.

The free music synchronization that iCloud provides, on the other hand, should prove wildly successful, because it makes purchasing music from iTunes even easier and better. And since it’s already available in the latest builds of iTunes, I offer myself as an example of its probable success and obvious usefulness.

Until recently I’ve used Amazon to purchase music. Their songs were generally cheaper and not burdened by DRM. But now that Apple has largely (completely?) done away with DRM, the services no longer compete on that level. Now it simply comes down to convenience. And since all my computing devices are Apple kit, I’ll pretty much be using iTunes to buy my music when possible. Because now, with iCloud, I can do so from any device without penalty or hassle: anytime I purchase something from iTunes it will propagate to any other device that has my Apple ID on it. iCloud effectively provides backups of my purchased music as well, by allowing me to re-download any purchases I’ve made.

This is how it should have been all along. The fact that it wasn’t this way in the past — that getting my music onto my various devices was such a hassle — was always frustrating to me, and it kept me from buying music from iTunes as much as I might have liked to. The fact that they’ve fixed this glaring issue means I’ll likely buy a lot more music from iTunes now. In fact, I’ve already bought eight songs from my Mac. And getting them onto my iPhone was not just a piece of cake, but a complete delight.

Hallelujah.

Oh, and one last thing: I really dislike the new iCloud icon. A cloud etched on brushed metal buttons? Seriously? Blech! I hope this isn’t a new trend because I think it’s ugly.

Lion
I’ve written a bit about Lion already, and there wasn’t a whole lot of new information at this year’s keynote. There were a couple surprises, though.

For one, I was somewhat surprised to see that Apple has backpedaled on offering Lion Server as simply another “part of Mac OS X Lion.” In the original sneak peek promotional materials Apple had written:

“Lion Server is now part of Mac OS X Lion. It’s easy to set up your Mac as a server and take advantage of the many services Lion Server has to offer.”

And indeed most people took this to mean that Lion Server would be free. This is longer the way it’s presented; in fact Lion Server has its own page now. And if you read that page you’ll notice that Lion Server will be 50 bucks.

Now don’t get me wrong. At a tenth what it used to cost, Lion Server is still a bargain. I’m certainly not complaining about this. I was just a bit surprised is all. Though maybe I shouldn’t have been, as reader LeRoy had pointed out this likelihood in the comments to my original article. What can I say, LeRoy? When you’re right you’re right.

That said, $50 for the easiest, most powerful server software available is a steal. I will probably buy a copy just to kick the tires on it. If I were still a Mac Sysadmin, I’d be so jazzed.

The next surprise was the price of Lion: 30 bucks. If you’re keeping track, that’s $100 cheaper than Mac OS X upgrades used to be, about a quarter what it used to cost. That’s phenomenal.

And finally, I was quite surprised by the fact that Mac OS X Lion will be delivered though the Mac App Store. I’ve had my fair share of issues with the Mac App Store, so I’m skeptical that this will be a great delivery method for an OS update. But Apple’s pretty good at making great OS update experiences, so they might manage it after all.

iOS 5
The notifications look great, as do many of the refinements in iOS 5. But then, that sort of stuff is to be expected in any iOS relase.

The real game-changer, in my mind — and it’s deeply tied to iCloud — was PC Free. The iPad and its ilk are clearly the future for Apple, and likely for the computer industry as a whole. But, as I’ve said before, the iPad doesn’t become a real computing device until it can stand on its own without the need for a Mac. Well, now it can.

The iPad is now a full computing citizen. If it serves your needs it can be your only computer. And I think that will be the case for huge numbers of people. PC Free really sets the stage for the iPad to be the revolutionary device its been hailed as. It’s a very important step.

Conclusion
Overall I’m pretty impressed by this year’s announcements. I really wish there had been a revised iPhone announcement, or at least a hint of when it might happen. I’m dying — really dying — to switch to Verizon as I can hardly get calls at work anymore. But I don’t want to switch right before they announce the new phone. So I wait…

Still, it was a good year, with lots of cool advancements for the platform and lots of cool stuff to look forward to in the near future. I think (despite having just renewed my MoblieMe subscription — Doh!) iCloud is on the right track, enabling all kinds of great things, from better music purchasing to PC Free iPads. And, of course, I’m totally psyched about Lion.

And so, a tiny Yay!

I keep getting comments asking the best way to set up two-way calendar sharing between multiple computers, and I’ve finally decided to just write a post that details the process. This is different — and in my opinion, far better — then sharing your calendars via Box.net, as I wrote about long ago. This, in fact, is the real deal. This is good stuff. This is how it’s supposed to work. So let’s get started.

I thought the easiest thing to do — since it’s what I do, it’s fairly simple and it works well — would be to walk you through connecting an iPhone and a Mac to a central calendar on Google’s servers.

Set Up a Google Calendar
The first thing you’ll need is a Google Calendar account. If you have Gmail, chances are you already have a Google Calendar. If not, go set one up now, and be sure there’s at least one calendar active in the account.

Set Up iCal
Next you need your Mac, and specifically you need to open iCal.

1. In iCal go to Preferences->Accounts.
2. Click on the little Plus sign in the lower left corner of the window.
   
3. Choose “Google” from the Account Type pulldown and fill in your Google Account info.

 

4. Once the account is set up you should see Google Calendar’s default calendar in your iCal sidebar. If that’s your only calendar, you’re done. To view a different calendar, or if you have multiple calendars you want to view, go to the Delegates tab and check and/or uncheck which calendars you want to appear in iCal.NOTE: I had to relaunch iCal for it to see all my calendars, which can happen when you have as many as I do — I believe it’s eleven!

That’s it! Now, any event you create in iCal on one of these Google Calendars will get written to the master calendar on Google Calendar. And vice-versa. Go ahead and test it out. Remember to refresh your browser to register changes made in iCal.

Set Up Your iPhone
You can also connect your iPhone (or iPad) to your Google Calendar account (just like you can with email).

1. On your iPhone open the Settings app.
2. Go to the Mail, Contact, Calendars tab.
3. Under the Accounts heading press “Add Account…”

 

4. Fill in all your Google Account info, as usual.

 

5. Once the account is set up, press it in the list and be sure that the Calendars switch is set to “ON.”

 

6. Go to your iPhone’s iCal application and you should now see your primary Google Calendar.
7. UPDATE: If you have additional Google Calendars that you want to sync with your iPhone, you’ll need to use Google’s iPhone configuration utility, which you can reach via any web browser at the following URL (you’ll need to be logged in to your Google account first, of course):
   https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect
   At this web page, simply check which calendars you want to sync with your iPhone and they will sync accordingly. As far as I can tell, this is a new additional step that Google has recently added to the process to allow greater control over what gets synced to your iPhone.

Here, just like in iCal, you can add or remove events and they will be reflected on your Google Account. They should also be reflected on your Mac’s iCal application as well. Just remember: since this is all happening over the WWW, it can take a few moments to propagate to all systems, especially if you have lots of calendars or a slow connection. Just give it a few minutes and you should see everything get in sync.

Also remember: the Google Calendar is the master calendar. The calendars on your iPhone and Mac are beholden to that Google Calendar. If it goes away from Google, it will be gone from your iPhone as well as from your Mac.

Bonus! Moving iCal Calendars to Google
“Well,” you might ask, “what if I’ve already added a bunch of dates to my local iCal calendar and now I want to migrate to the Google Calendar sharing system without having to redo all my events?” That’s a great question.

Fortunately, both iCal and Google Calendar can take advantage of a common calendar format know as ICS. So all you have to do is export your iCal calendar to the ICS format, and then import it into Google Calendar. Sound simple? It is.

1. Select a local calendar (under “ON MY MAC”) from iCal.

 

2. Under the File menu select Export…->Export… (no, this is not a typo).
3. Name the calendar and save it somewhere handy. This is your ICS file, a single file with all that calendar’s info, that you can import into Google Calendar.
4. Open a web browser and go to your Google Calendar account.
5. Click Settings->Calendar Settings (upper right corner).

 

6. Click the “Calendars” tab. Here you should see all your calendars listed. Be sure you have a calendar to put all the imported calendar’s events into. It can be your main calendar, or you can make a new one. Once you’re ready, click Import.
7. In the popup, select the ICS file you just made, and choose the Google Calendar where you want to put the imported events.

 

8. Click the Import button.
9. The calendar events should now be available to you in Google Calendar. You should also see them on your iPhone and in iCal on your Mac. If you don’t, and you added them to a new calendar, be sure that new calendar is among your visible Delegates in the Accounts preference pane in iCal.

So that’s it! I hope people find this useful. I certainly have!

The Mobile Situation
I had initially found MobileMe problematic, especially compared to Dropbox, and especially when dealing with, of all things, Mac-specific metadata. But it turns out that Dropbox is not without its own problems either. In fact, after looking more closely at my Dropbox data, not only are my custom icons and labels missing on one of my computer’s Dropbox folders, but a good many of my image files, for some reason, don’t display properly on my iPhone (or, for that matter, on an iPad I’ve had the good fortune to test out — more on that later) when viewed from the mobile Dropbox app.

Dropbox: Corrupted Image

The images seem fine on my computer, and when viewed from the web, but when viewed or downloaded to my iPhone they are corrupted, so it would seem to be a problem with how they’re downloaded to the mobile app only, not corrupt data per se. Nevertheless, it’s a problem.

Moreover, it’s problem I don’t have with MobileMe. The same images viewed on my iDisk app look fantastic.

iDisk: Beautiful Images Every Time

Behavior-wise, though, I much prefer the Dropbox app. As I’d mentioned in my last post, it’s capable of displaying text files with the .sh extension. But it’s also a lot more friendly when it comes to viewing and managing images. Dropbox, for instance, allows you to use the swipe gesture to flip between images that are in the same folder, much like you can do in the native Photos app; iDisk doesn’t. It also has a gallery view for image folders that iDisk lacks.

Dropbox: Image Gallery

Dropbox allows you to create folders and add photos from your phone to your Dropbox; iDisk doesn’t. iDisk, on the other hand, does allow you to share a file right from the mobile app, but this is something I never do, so it’s not particularly useful to me. Dropbox’s features are useful, and are ones I use all the time.

The Dropbox app is the clear winner in terms of behavior; I much prefer it. But it doesn’t do me much good if my images don’t display properly. Dropbox fails on a core piece of functionality, and that makes it hard to fully recommend if photos are your game.

Decisions, Decisions
I find myself ping-ponging between MobileMe and Dropbox: Dropbox is simple and easy to use, but MobileMe includes more features; Dropbox lets me read my shell scripts from it’s mobile app, but MobileMe lets me view my photos more reliably. Overall, I like Dropbox better, but the image issue is quite possibly a deal killer.

Find My iPhone
Apple recently announced that iOS 4.2 will include the Find My iPhone service for free with the current crop of hardware. Though I’m still using an iPhone 3GS, I will almost certainly purchase the next revision of the phone, and that will probably be right around the time that my MobileMe subscription is set to expire. Since Find My iPhone is one of the few reasons I’ve continued to hang on to my MobileMe subscription, I’m seriously debating not renewing it when the time comes. My foray into Apple’s cloud services has been largely disappointing. If Dropbox can fix this image issue by that time, it will make this decision a no-brainer.

It’s a shame, really. Everywhere the iPhone shines, MobileMe falls down. Where my iPhone instantly allowed me to consolidate my Mac and mobile data (remember when your Address Book and phone contacts were completely separate?) MobileMe seems to offer a Mac-specific service that’s easily replaced by free and more cross-platform solutions. Mail, contacts and calendar can all be provided better and for free by Google. And there are much better, faster and cheaper ways to get synchronized data storage and backup. What’s more, I already give Apple most of the money in my technology budget, so I can’t help feeling cheated when I have to fork over additional green for these services.

So, while not perfect in some really key areas, I will likely end up giving my money, this time, to Dropbox. Here’s hoping they continue to improve their excellent, if not quite perfect, service.

UPDATE:
One other admittedly very minor beef I have with Dropbox that I just have to get off my chest: if you want gallery functionality, the folder used for images must be called “Photos.” As a person who uses this folder almost exculsively for either drawings or computer graphics, I’d prefer something more neutral. iDisk uses the word “Pictures” which I much prefer.