Steve Jobs cards MobileMe team.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has now expressed his unhappiness with the problematic launch of the £59 per year MobileMe service, which offers synchronisation, email, calendar, photo gallery and online iDisk storage. In an internal email, obtained by Ars Technica and sent to Apple employees, Jobs says MobileMe was launched too early and was "not up to Apple's standards". Discussion forums are still carrying scattered reports of problems with Apple's MobileMe internet service, even after the company had officially completed maintenance work.

Jobs continued, saying "It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store. We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence". He also questioned internal decision to release MobileMe as a "monolithic service"; for example MobileMe's iPhone syncing service could have gone on line initially and been followed by steady release of the web applications, one by one (mail, then calendar, then photo galleries and so on).

Jobs also announced the reorganisation of the MobileMe management with the appointment of Eddy Cue, formerly Vice President for iTunes, now also taking the control of the MobileMe division. According to John Gruber's Daring Fireball, his new title will be Vice President of Internet Services.

Jobs wrote, in his self critical email, that the MobileMe problems showed that Apple needed to "learn more about Internet services. And learn we will.", calling the MobileMe vision "exciting and ambitious" and setting the goal to make MobileMe "a service we are all proud of by the end of this year."

(djwm)