WHAT was Google THINKING?

Like some others, when I saw the new look my first thought was something didn't load right. My second thought was my gosh what have they done! Google Reader was very nice looking before. Now it looks... not nice. I'm trying to be nice.

I think the guy that picked the name for Apple MobileMe moved on over to Google and helped them with their design. Both very bad ideas. The color scheme for Google Reader really is a pain on the eyes.

I hope the protests will reach Google. They seem to be many. I hope Google listens and returns the look to the way it was. I know someone somewhere thought this was a great idea. Glad they put in some hard work. But I wish it had not been approved in the end. This is just a big step backward.

Studying the Comic book about Chrome reveals a few interesting ideas about tab management. Giving each tab its own process certainly won't go easy on memory but it will make the whole thing much more stable and will help isolate different browsing tasks from each other. Though that is a nice idea and seems to be a good implementation, the browser on the whole is a little limited. Options are few, leaving very little that can be customized. There may be some advanced interface (sort of like Firefox's about:config) but I haven't seen it yet.

One thing I want to say to everyone who has ever complained about IE7's hidden menus: if you like Chrome I never again want to hear you say anything about IE7. Chrome didn't just hide menus, menus do not exist. There are two drop-downs next to the location bar that let you access any tools and features in the browser, similar to the five or so IE7 has. There is nothing that enables a File, Edit, etc menubar. Because of this bookmarks are also a little tricky to access. You can turn on a bookmark bar which includes an Other bookmarks link but this is a little clunky. I'm also surprised that they put this below the tabs. They want nothing above the tabs in their interface.

I also haven't figured out how to access RSS feeds. If they are implemented in this version then they are hidden. I am sure Google will include this in a future release but I am a bit surprised it didn't make it early on.

The initial tab page looks like it might be interesting and useful. When you open a new tab the default action is for Chrome to show you your 9 most visited sites along with some additional info on the side. This might be useful, particularly since bookmarks aren't as easy to access, but who spends much time on a page like this? It isn't a compelling reason to switch.

So I don't think Google is trying to win anyone over yet. I am tempted to say they are not even off to a good start. The interface strikes me as a little too clunky (color scheme included) and even a tad sluggish at places despite their claims of fast and slick. Things will improve but I don't know how long until it becomes a serious contender against IE7, Firefox or Safari.

The MobileMess has been picked up by a few media outlets out there. Today David Pogue of the New York Times added his contribution: Apple's MobileMess.

In it he hit on what has been the most frustrating and unbelievable part of this whole thing:

But the real problem is how Apple is responding. For a company that’s so brilliant at marketing, it seems to have absolutely no clue about crisis management.

One of my correspondents put it like this: “I love Apple. My first computer ever was a 128K Macintosh. But the lack of explanation and communication on the MobileMe problem is outrageous. Why not update the status message? Why not give us some indication of what’s going on?”

Companies make mistakes. Tech companies have problems. But when some 20,000+ people are affected - and affected for a week - and when by affected we mean absolutely no email service - the company involved should release *some* sort of information. So far absolutely nothing useful has come out of Apple. The most they have said was insulting at best, a status message (which only showed up several days after the problem began and hasn't been updated since) along the lines of, "We know things aren't working. We're sorry. We're working on it."

Come on Apple. Get us the information, and get this fixed.

Google: Continues to refer to these products as Beta
Apple: Refers to these products as complete and ready for use

Google: All services work well and users experience few if any reliability issues
Apple: Seven days, no email. The other services appear to work fine but users have reported a host of problems.

Google releases a beta and it works flawlessly. Apple releases a finished product only to have to go back and fix a lot of problems.

This is very unusual for Apple. I love my Apple products and have had good experiences with them. This MobileMe stuff, though, has been crazy. As I've mentioned before, once they work out the kinks it will be a great product (except for the name - who came up with that?). They probably should have waited a little longer to release it, however.

Update:
Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has a good overview of MobileMe, including a look at all of the problems that have been present with the service. His conclusion? MobileMe is a great idea but too flawed to be recommended.

Now a new Me has joined The Me Club. MobileMe, the badly named, horribly performing package from Apple.

So when Apple released the new iPhone 3g they also released a new service called MobileMe. The service would take the place of their .Mac service and would essentially provide all the same features in shiny new packaging.

Reading about MobileMe I was excited. It finally gives me the holy grail: an easy way to keep mail, calendar, and contacts on my computer, my mobile device (1st gen iPhone), and access it all from the web. I already had a .Mac account so I was looking forward to the new service rolling out.

MobileMe had some pretty rough spots as it was rolled out but that's to be expected with any new service. A few days in and it looked like they had things under control. Until around 11:00 PM CST on Thursday, July 17. At that time email ground to a halt for me and thousands of others.

Apple's support page says 1% of users are affected (a lot of users in the discussion site think the number is probably much higher but I'll give Apple the benefit of the doubt.). That may not sound like a lot until you consider that .Mac/MobileMe has around 2 million subscribers (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/technology/personaltech/17pogue.html?scp=1&sq=mobileme&st=cse) which means some 20,000 people have been without email.

For.Four.Days. Browse the discussion site and you will find a lot of upset people. Stories of people who use their .Mac mail for business contacts and have lost a lot of work as a result. One guy that was waiting for papers he was to print and fax back to sell his house. A mom waiting for important email from her daughter.

I had just switched to using the .Mac account as my primary email so I haven't been too badly affected but I had already used the account to send some important messages and have had the joy of having to go back and re-email the people, asking them to please email me again at a reliable (gmail hosted) email.

The thing that makes all of this so aggravating is Apple has released no information. The MobileMe support page tells me what I already know - 1% of users are without email. I talked with someone on chat support and they have no info either, they just say to watch the support page. I can understand technical trouble. I cannot understand a company that will not tell 20,000 customers why they cannot access their email.

Here's a suspicion. Probably not true, but as I say, I'm ranting. I'll be cynical for a moment. Apple has an investor meeting planned for this afternoon. It is possible they don't want to release information about the problem until the meeting is over rather than let investors get wind of how serious the problem might be. They had so many bumps with the MobileMe rollout more bad news would only hurt them.

On a slightly amusing note, MobileMe chat support is being overwhelmed. Apple's response has been to temporarily disable chat support so new people cannot enter the queue. Instead of being able to chat here is what they see: "Due to the overwhelming interest in MobileMe, all chat support agents are currently busy. Please try again later." Overwhelming interest? Talk about putting a positive spin on things. More like, due to overwhelming outrage...

Come on Apple, give us some information! I know I will forgive you guys for this huge blunder, MobileMe appeals to me too much. But I know lots of other people will not be so forgiving.