Apple apologizes to MobileMe subscribers with free 30-day extension

"The transition from .Mac to MobileMe was a lot rockier than we had hoped," the company said on its website. "We will be extending subscriptions by 30 days to customers free of charge to express our appreciation for their patience during the transition period."

In an email to subscribers, Apple noted that although the launch of core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications "had lots of problems."

"Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running," the company said.

In the same email, the iPhone maker also acknowledge that its use of the word "push" in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella proved to be misleading.

"While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe 'cloud,' changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices," the company said. "So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word 'push' until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too."

MobileMe subscribers should look for their automatic 30-day extension to be reflected in their account settings within the next few weeks.