Apple sales soar, problems loom

It seems as though other mobile telephones have ceased to exist since the advent of the iPhone. You could have the newest, most hi tech, up to date phone, and you would still not be the coolest one in the room if there was anyone with an iPhone.

So what could possibly be wrong? What with a 41% increase in sales everything should be fine and dandy at Apple. And yet, problems seem to be looming, problems concerning MobileMe, their service that synchronises all your Mac devices. Basically it stores all your contacts, emails, etc. in an online server - a "cloud" - and then forwards the information to your Mac computer, iPhone and iPod so you can have the same updated information on all machines.

Or at least that was the plan. What has really happened is that a number of features that were advertised in connection with this product don't work exactly as planned. As of last week the HomePage application could not be accessed and certain users were also facing problems with Me.com, which stopped them from accessing their mail.

Also, the "push" technology that forwards information updates to your other devices does not do so immediately, but rather synchronises devices up every 15 minutes. There has also been a delay in the introduction of iDisk File Sharing, but Apple has come out and apologized for some these delays.

But that is where the statements end, and there is something more, something that adds insult to injury, and that is the fact that customers who signed on for a trial account have been charged the full membership fee, according to claims made last week .

So not all going exactly as planned then... but for some strange reason I feel confident that they will repair all these problems quickly and will get back on track. I don't know exactly why I feel so confident, it might be because all my other Mac gear has always worked fine. Still, I'm going to wait a while before I join the cool iPhone crowd.