Apples APP Store and Music (What a Mess)

**DAB** · 07-11-2008, 12:59 AM

I downloaded iTunes 7.7 tonight and the Apple APP stores is there.

I do not see uSirius or uXM available at this time. However, I do see Pandora and AOL Radio both with free application downloads for the iPhone and iPod Touch!

This will be interesting! Seems to me XM and SIRIUS better get on the ball and get an application up of some sort to compete in this arena.

I know I am totally excited about the prospects of being able to use my iPod Touch to stream music and having both my XM and SIRIUS online programming available to me without having to lug around another tuner to get it would be GREAT! I still need a subscription, but why would XM or SIRIUS care what hardware I used to pick it up?

AOL and Pandor both offer great FREE music services!

dantodd · 07-11-2008, 04:40 AM

Give it a couple days
http://windows-mobiles.com/?p=309

**DAB** · 07-11-2008, 03:42 PM

Well so far this has been a big ole fat disaster. I have a buddy of mine that works at an AT&T Store and he said they have yet to get a single G3 iPhone actually activated and working.

Tons of threads on the Apple forum about this, along with the fact that iPod Touch and existing iPhone users have been locked out of upgrading to the 2.0 software.

Seems like when their system fell apart everything went down. They had weeks to get their servers prepared for this. So folks are saying they should be using Windows servers instead of their own Mac Software and this wouldn't have happened. That is debatable!

I am still trying to get my iPod Touch updated, but it doesn't look like it is going to happen today.

**Michigan Made** · 07-11-2008, 10:11 PM

They just weren't ready. I have been trying to get my MobileMe working since the 9th. It's finally up now and working....slowly.

It took almost 1.5 hours for me to get the 2.0 software for my "old" iPhone. I cannot believe that Apple was not ready for this. They new millions of people would be trying to update at the same time.

I love the Apps and all the new toys.

DAB, nice car BTW.

Evil_Ernie · 07-12-2008, 12:15 AM

It took me about an hour to get my iPhone all updated and re-activated. I figured something like this was going to happen (since various phone providers across the globe and Apple Stores were trying to activate at the same time), but I said what the hell. After a few refresh attempts in iTunes, my phone was ready to go with 2.0.

I will agree that a ball was dropped somewhere. They should have either offered the 2.0 update earlier in the week for original iPhone/iPod touch users or waited until next week after the 3G release to offer it in iTunes, but with the latter you would have a lot of people bitching that they want it now.

The App Store is killer...a lot of tempting things to download/buy.

I went to my local Apple Store around 2:30 Friday afternoon to see how long the line was for the iPhone 3G. There were about 150-200 people still in line waiting to get into the store. Last year when the original iPhone was released, they had moved over 500 people in and out of the store within an hour. It was insane!! I wasn't going to get one anyway as I'm waiting until next year when the 3rd generation iPhone will be available...possibly with 32GB storage and other goodies.

I almost bet that Apple will raise a stink about this to AT&T and next year's iPhone revision will probably be "buy in store/activate at home" like it was last year.

SatRadioRules · 07-12-2008, 07:15 AM

DAB - I share the frustration, but early AM Sat morning and I was able to download 2.0. Hopefully you and the rest can do so today without a problem. Monkeyball on the iTouch is difficult, but really cool. ALso, download the free NYTimes...pretty cool.

Enjoy...

edweird · 07-12-2008, 03:44 PM

Can you imagine waiting in line to get a new Sirius portable, and it was supposed to work when you left the store, but instead you have to try, and re-try over the next few hours when you get home, in order to download and activate it's service?

That's pretty much how my Friday went, after I bought a new iPhone 3G. I was home at about 10:30a and got it working at 2pm.

SatRadioRules · 07-12-2008, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edweird

Can you imagine waiting in line to get a new Sirius portable, and it was supposed to work when you left the store, but instead you have to try, and re-try over the next few hours when you get home, in order to download and activate it's service?

That's pretty much how my Friday went, after I bought a new iPhone 3G. I was home at about 10:30a and got it working at 2pm.

Now that you are past the nightmare, how is it? Did you have the first iPhone or is this your first?

**DAB** · 07-12-2008, 09:46 PM

I've just had time to post again. But I actually did finally get the 2.0 software installed about 11:30 PM last night. It all worked just like it was suppose to, including the backing up and then restoring of the iPod contents and settings. I did have to actually do a hard shut down before my music files showed up, but that was no biggie. It appears they really should have forced the iPod to do a hard shut down as many folks are having problems that are often fixed my just doing that shut down and restart.

I've downloaded several applications. Some of which I am impressed with and others not so much. Pandora is really cool, thus far my favorite. AOL music, I find the volume is to low, but the mix of stations is excellent. AIM works good, I've had no problems with it. A sports and news gathering program both of which work good. A video news program, but it seems to freeze up a lot so I deleted it.

The 2.0 software supports my head unit in my car, so that is good.

My only disappointment with the radio programs this far is that they don't play in the background. So, if you go to check your email, it just shuts the music off. Hopefully they will update these things to give you a configuration setting to fix that.

I also tried the Mobile Me for push email, but thus far I've not been impressed. I think the web user interface is terrible compared to the web interface that I currently use for my business email through Mailtrust. No ability to tie domains to the service except if you want to use some software for uploading your web pages. I found that often times my Mailtrust account which are in fetch mode actually notified me that I had mail sooner than the push service on Mobile Me. There method of deleting email makes no sense to me either. For example I delete multiple email messages via the iPod Touch, then when I log into Web Mobile Me, the messages are in the trash, but also in the inbox as if they were never deleted. I don't get it. Unlike any imap service I've used. I've got 60 days to play, but at this point, I don't think Mobile Me is for me! No pun intended.

I am really happy with the 2.0 software and what it offers, along with the applications. Wish they had a better weather application, but I am sure The Weather Channel or Accuweather will come up with one soon. Weather Bug Sucks!

Update:
I just found out through Mailtrust that they actually do push their email to users. I am not sure how that works, but they say it does on the iPhone/iPod, I get my email from them quicker than I do Mobile Me. There are times that it takes Mobile Me up to 5 minutes to notify me of an email after my Domain Mailtrust account. I do love being able to download and save pictures sent through email, though you don't need Mobile Me for that.

XMECUTIONER · 07-13-2008, 05:25 PM

How long did it take for you to get your upgrade? I wasn't able to download it until midnight o the 12th due to the iTunes activation servers being down.

**DAB** · 07-13-2008, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XMECUTIONER

How long did it take for you to get your upgrade? I wasn't able to download it until midnight o the 12th due to the iTunes activation servers being down.

The actual 266mb download took me about 5 minutes to download. The update took much longer. It backs up your content and settings, which takes awhile. Then finally installed the OS and Firmware, then goes though a verification. Once that is complete it then restores your backed up setting and finally your content. The whole process took about an hour and half for me with my 32gb. Though I had actually removed about 8gb of content a few days prior as I had a lot of SIRIUS Replay AV recordings on there that was old.

It seems that many that have had failed back-ups of content apparently had totally full iPods. This is what I get from reading the Apple Support Forums. I guess I was lucky mine went off without a hitch.

Update on Mobile Me, I did find some issues on my end. I couldn't for the life of me understand why my Outlook contacts where not being updated and come to find out I didn't have the Mobile Me sync program set for Outlook, but my Windows Calander. Duh! This seems to have also impacted mail being pushed as well. It now appears that Push is working as advertised in terms of pushing it to the cloud and then out to everywhere else. Its really nice having my iPod in sleep mode and when I turn it on my email is waiting on me and I don't have to wait for it to check. With most mail you have to watch for it to go through the fetch process and if servers are busy or the net connection is congested it can sometimes a take awhile. This is much better. One thing I did notice is that I had a mess on my contacts. Every computer seem to have a different list of contacts with varying information. I got that cleaned up last night and now from the cloud all my PC and iPod are the same. I am still not impressed with the Web Interface of Mobile Me, but we'll see. One thing I am disapointed with is no ability to use a domain email address as your actual address when sending from Mobile Me. How Apple could have overlooked this is amazing to me. This is a key feature of Blackberry's.

In my opinion even if you just have an iPod Touch this update is worth it. But I guess it all depends on how you use it. If you are just going to use it as an iPod with no consideration of applications, email, web, etc, then you'd probably do best just avoiding the update.

XMECUTIONER · 07-15-2008, 12:09 AM

An hour is how long it took me. I too had a lot of files to back up (only 1.4 GB remaining on my 16 GB unit) and that's what held it up. But since then everything has been running great, and on my Soloist dock sounds just as amazing.

**Michigan Made** · 07-15-2008, 12:20 AM

My iPhone didn't take that long to update. The longest issue I had was waiting for the iTunes store to finish the process. By 10:30 am on the 11th I was ready to go.

I like MobileMe. I actually signed up for .Mac before the switch so I could preserve a .Mac email address. Most everything works for me. I have my contacts and calendars set to Push and my email addresses set up to Fetch for now.

It will take a little more time for MobileMe to become completely functional.

hexonxonx · 07-15-2008, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michigan Made

My iPhone didn't take that long to update. The longest issue I had was waiting for the iTunes store to finish the process. By 10:30 am on the 11th I was ready to go.

I like MobileMe. I actually signed up for .Mac before the switch so I could preserve a .Mac email address. Most everything works for me. I have my contacts and calendars set to Push and my email addresses set up to Fetch for now.

It will take a little more time for MobileMe to become completely functional.

Same here. I like the way Mobile Me push email works. Also editing contacts and calendars get pushed back and forth. Apple had a huge task last week and though it wasn't anywhere as smooth as I'm sure they expected it to be, it's mostly functional now.

I ended up waiting nearly five hours last Friday at my Apple store. It was extremely hot, near 100 degrees and a few times I felt very sick. Many times it seemed as though the line didn't much an inch in 30 minutes but at about 2 PM, I walked out with a white 16GB all activated and ready to go.

I like the way that I can buy apps for my phone no matter where I am. We have nearly perfect 3G here in Denver at least in my general area.

Very happy.

**DAB** · 07-16-2008, 01:22 AM

I certainly like the premise of Mobile Me, but that web interface is down right terrible when you compare it to like Outlook Web or Noteworthy by Mailtrust. Apple certainly could have come up with a better interface.

I am still not able to access calanders via the web interface, but strangly the cloud is working because if I make changes on my desktop they show up on my iPod. I can't see them on the cloud because it gives me an error when I try to open calendars.

I do think they will eventually get all this worked out. I hope they also allow us to at least do a spoof or add on email identity so that those of us that have domains can actually make use of them.

I wanna love it, I wanna keep it, but Apple is going to have to throw me a bone because like it is, I'd be settling for a hell of a lot less than I got now.