iCloud, iOS5 and the iRabbi

An odd snippet: opening calendar on the iPad (original) sometimes produces an empty month view for the current month. It's not that there aren't any appointments, just that the iPad doesn't remember them. Tapping calendars and re-syncing doesn't help either. But changing to another month does; then all the appointments return!

Another odd snippet: I think I've now got iMessage coordinated across my iPad and iPhone. Previously the devices were using different Apple IDs (I have two, like most Apple devotees) so there was no coordination between the two loves of my life. Logging out of my iTunes ID on my iPhone and logging back in using my me.com ID in the message settings pane seemed to work.

Most people I know who have moved to iOS5 have had problems. Some so bad they're cursing Apple publicly. This isn't the Apple we used to know that's done this, that has abused its 'It just works' philosophy. Something has changed. And not for the better.

I say bring back Steve Jobs, never mind the wrath of the Rabbi: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/steve-jobs/8899737/Chief-Rabbi-blames-Apple-for-helping-create-selfish-society.html.

Paying for nothing

Internet service outage again today. Branson's name means nothing to this customer any more. I wonder if a business school thesis has yet been written about the brand value ups and downs of a now elderly Virgin.

I also wonder why an Internet provider has not arisen that stops charging its customers when its service fails? With only one realistic provider to my house, the one with a fibre optic cable to the door has an effective monopoly, capitalism can't really be expected to work, I suppose.

Is Merv in charge of the NHS, too?

Doctors appointment this morning. A Text arrived at 4pm yesterday confirming it. Wow! The NHS is arriving in the twenty first century, thought I.

I was wrong, of course.

This morning the receptionist told me they'd been trying to contact me all yesterday to say the appointment was cancelled.

Err, No, says I. You confirmed the appointment by SMS late yesterday afternoon.

They squeezed me in, I'm glad to say, but the learning point was missed: confidence in their systems had taken another little knock.

In a complex society, if people don't have confidence in the mechanisms that keep it going - monetary systems, justice systems, health systems, taxation systems, defence systems etc. - then they won't abide by those mechanisms, and those who do will quickly become disadvantaged.

It's like with money, Merv. If you just print it whenever it suits you then people will lose confidence in it. It will become increasingly worthless.

Confidence. It matters. It really matters.

iCloud conversion

Yes it's in Beta, yes it's a risk, but I jumped into iCloud over the weekend. And without suitable wet weather gear, it turned out.

It meant purchasing OSX Lion for an old MBP, a RAM upgrade to cope (well done, Crucial) and transferring HMRC's Basic PAYE onto a Windows 7 PC, but otherwise it went ok. Not the smooth transition Apple's prices should facilitate, but better than the average Windows upgrade.

The main problem? Intermittent calendar entries on my iPad. Sometimes ok, sometimes nothing. WTF?

Google: no help.
Apple website: no help.

The reason I eventually sussed: my iTunes account is not my MobileMe account. The emails IDs they use are different.

Apple says this is ok, but doesn't explain what might happen. In my case my iPad had set up its iCloud account (in Settings) with my iTunes account email, rather than my MobileMe account. It recognised my MobileMe account, though, via my email settings, and this was also set to sync calendar items. This was probably the cause of the iPad calendar app behaving erratically.

The solution? Delete the 'iTunes' iCloud account in the iPad's 'Settings' and create a new one with my MobileMe email address.

I can't be the only person this has happened to. Can I?