The Adventures of AlisterComputeron

I’ll begin this post by saying that I love iDisk, and creating a photo web page with .Mac/MobileMe is a snap.  The MobileMe calendar and email experience, on the other hand, is far behind that of Google Calendar.  In fact, other than the Gallery and iDisk, the MobileMe site is a big disappointment.

I don’t have an iPhone, but if I did, maybe I’d find the calendar and email more useful.  But for those of us “unfortunate” not to be with AT&T, Google is a much better choice.  Let’s compare and contrast, shall we.

The features I want in a mobile, cloud-based, calendar and email solution include, in no particular order:

• Support for multiple calendars
• Ability to sync with Outlook
• Access from anywhere
• Offline access
• Support for tasks
• SMS notifications
• Access from mobile phones
• Ability to share calendars

I’m going to discuss calendar features in this post, and do another post about how the other features differ between MobileMe and Google Calendar.

I like the look and feel of the iCal application on the Mac.  And the calendar on MobileMe is very similar to iCal.  I was able to sync iCal with MobileMe; that was as simple as going to System Preferences, and selecting Calendar from the Sync tab.  You can sync tasks between MobileMe and iCal, too.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get MobileMe to sync with Outlook.  Okay, so perhaps I can live without with all my calendars in one place.  But here’s where I think Google trumps MobileMe for us non-iPhone carriers:  Google provides native support for SMS reminders of calendar items.  In my experience, calendars aren’t much help if you don’t get reminded of appointments, and the MobileMe calendar doesn’t offer reminders.  Sure, you can configure your Mac to send an email to your mobile phone, but the message will only get sent if the Mac is turned on.

Google also supports accessing your calendar and creating calendar items via SMS.  Again, probably not that cool for the iPhone crowd, but I find both features quite useful, and I don’t need a data plan.  Sidenote: Thanks to my two teenagers and teenagers’ preference to text rather than talk, I have the unlimited texting option on our wireless plan, so SMS access to Google Calendar doesn’t cost me anything extra.

So unless or until Apple makes some improvements to the MobileMe experience for non-iPhone users, I think I’ll stick with Google Calendar.