George Durzi
in

MobileMe: Internet Explorer 7 is not fully supported

As of this past Friday, the line to buy an iPhone 3G at Apple's Michigan Ave. store in Chicago was still almost a block long - apparently, the same scene is repeating itself across the country. For the most part, this isn't because of low inventory, but because of the ridiculous in-store activation process every customer has to go through.

A group of us on the way to lunch were joking about the iPhone 3G's (I refuse to refer to it as just "iPhone", it's the iPhone) successful but frustrating launch, when the conversation turned to Apple's new service MobileMe.

It's amusing how people are so willing to forgive Apple when they fumble something. MobileMe wasn't even working for a few days after its launch. Even funnier, Apple had to clarify what what they really meant by "push", and that some of MobileMe's services didn't actually use "push" technology.

Someone then mentioned that if you browsed MobileMe in IE7, you would get warned that you wouldn't enjoy the full experience because of IE7's compatibility issues with web standards.

I had to see this for myself ...

Let me say this up front, I am not an Apple basher ... As a matter of fact, I am writing this on a Macbook Pro, my wife and I stood in line and bought our iPhone 3Gs last weekend, and our place is littered with various generation iPods.

Maybe Apple is making a statement; that they're sick of having to program around IE's non-compliance with web standards? I commend that - I'm having to deal with some cross-browser JavaScript issues on a project, and let me tell you, it ain't fun.

Did Apple somehow forget though that the overwhelming majority of iPod and iPhone users will connect them to XP and Vista machines running IE6 or IE7?

Do they think that Joe-web-surfer understands the first thing about web standards compliance?

I guess somebody eventually has to draw a line in the sand when it comes to this. Just found it funny that Apple would call out IE7 like this, when as of June 2008 IE7 and IE6 combined still account for over 50% of the browser market share.

Getting called out for using IE7 is bad enough, I wouldn't want to see what MobileMe says if you browse it using IE6 :)

Posted: Jul 19 2008, 07:51 PM by gdurzi | with 3 comment(s)

Comments

Mike Yeaney said:

I agree completely - I, too, am by no means an Apple basher.  As we speak, I am waiting for my 24" iMac to be delivered, and am shifting my entire development environment over to it.  I really do like thier products.  But it is amazing to me how quickly they're forgiven for normally "offensive" blunders....mistakes that would normally get companies like MS bashed for months on end.  Amazing...

# July 20, 2008 6:30 AM

Andy Amiri said:

I don't see what the big deal is. Outlook Web Access was never fully supported on any non-IE browser. Why should this be any different? In fact, I would commend Apple for actually putting links to two browsers that are fully supported, not just their brainchild, Safari. With OWA you were not only locked into Internet Explorer, but by extension Windows, too. But in the end I would argue, this isn't even an issue of spite on Apple's part, Safari does after all run on Windows. I think the issue is to follow the rules set by various communities, including open-source, instead of making up your own. Really good post, George.

# July 24, 2008 2:15 PM

gdurzi said:

I agree, but OWA just gives you the reduced experience instead of specifically calling out your browser ...

# July 24, 2008 3:33 PM