Apple’s Mobile Me has gone through a roller coaster of unstable behavior in the last 72 hours. While Apple has surely done its best to stabilize the service, the launch did not go as smoothly as anticipated.
Although reports continued to come in from various sites that Mobile Me was “up and running,” most posts were followed with numerous updates claiming the service to be back down, and then up, and then down again. While this pattern continued for nearly 36 hours, some users were reporting issues of lost data while attempting to sync with Mobile Me. Users were also reporting that the entire operation was crashing and burning resulting in the need for an iPhone restore (which was unavailable through iTunes at the time). If you decided to wait for Apple to stabilize their iTunes servers before attempting to sync up your devices, you’ve saved yourself a lot of unnecessary troubles.
Currently, Apple’s servers seem to be stable enough to securely start and finish your syncing needs. So if you haven’t already gone through the process, the water is safe. Before attempting to sync your devices with Mobile Me, be sure to download version 1.1 of the Mobile Me updater for OS X, which Apple describes as follows:
Note: Be advised that the initial syncing process is fairly lengthy.
To avoid any potential data loss meltdowns, during the syncing process check in your Mac’s Address Book periodically. Once you notice your contacts on your hard drive (in your Address Book), export them as a VCard (or as an Address Book Archive). If anything happens during your Mobile Me setup process, simply restore your contacts to your Address Book, or import them into Mobile Me.
