Chicago (IL) - If you have been using the MobileMe free trial or paid membership since day one, then you know that the service did not have an exactly stellar launch. Now that the most annoying service issues have been resolved, we were able to take a closer look at what is missing, what is not working and which features we can hope to see with future service updates.

Following a rocky launch, MobileMe is now usable up to the point that we can actually start testing service features to get first impressions about Apple’s shiny new service. The worst issues affecting service availability, reliability and performance now seem resolved, but it is clear that the service is still work in progress, prompting Apple to offer an apology and give away 30-days worth of free service to people who already have signed up for MobileMe.

We just hope that this extension does not mean we are will have to live with service issues for the next 30 days. That may easily be the case as less important and less hyped components of MobileMe are still not functional. Even worse, the company is still transitioning .Mac users to MobileMe and will be doing so throughout the week. By the way, you can always check the recent service status history here or login to the MobileMe web interface and check the Service Status under the Account tab.

Here is a list of features that are yet to be released:

- Contacts unavailable in MobileMe Mail: Users are reporting their contacts database is unavailable when they create a new email message in the web interface. Apple’s statement: "MobileMe members are currently unable to use Contacts with MobileMe Mail on the web. Accessing MobileMe Contacts directly, by visiting me.com/contacts, is not affected."

- Gallery photo upload not working: It is currently not possible to upload pictures to the MobileMe Gallery application using the web interface, although this feature seemed to have worked briefly before. When users create a new gallery and try to upload a picture, the web interface does not react to a click on the "Choose..." button, which should open your operating systems’ file dialog to select pictures for upload.

- Groups are inaccessible: MobileMe members may be unable to access service previously known as .Mac Groups available at groups.mac.com. It enables users to create their own closed groups or join other users’ groups to discuss various topics, post their content etc. Apple said that Groups is not part of MobileMe, meaning you can no longer create new groups but the company is working to enable the service for transitioned .Mac users.

- Homepage is not available: A .Mac feature that enables creation of simple home pages using web interface is not accessible at this time. Homepage is phased out in MobileMe, but Apple said that ex-.Mac users can still manage and edit web pages with the Homepage application.

- Changes made on a PC or Mac are not pushed to the cloud instantaneously: MobileMe synchronizes email, contact or calendar changes immediately between the iPhone and the cloud. However, Apple now admits that "changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices." The issue is explained in details in this support article from Apple. The company promises it is "going to stop using the word ’push’ until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too." The company already updated description on its MobileMe page for Mac, which now correctly reads that "changes you make in Address Book and iCal are synced with MobileMe every 15 minutes, then pushed to your iPhone or iPod touch." Of course, users can always trigger a sync at any time by choosing the "Sync" menu option on Mac or a PC (available in MobileMe Preferences in the Control Panel)

- MobileMe does not run on Internet Explorer and Opera: If you try to login to the MobileMe web interface using either of these browsers, you are greeted with the following message: "To make use of rich web applications in MobileMe, we recommend one of the following supported browsers: Safari 3 or later, Firefox 2 or later." Some believe that it is no accident that Apple is not supporting IE, claiming there are no technical obstacles that would prevent Microsoft’s browser to run the MobileMe web interface. We expect that MobileMe extends browser support in the near future and include at least IE - the browser that still dominates the market by a large margin.

- iCards are gone: Many are disappointed by Apple’s decision to kill .Mac’s iCards feature that numerous users obviously liked. The feature enabled users to send Apple-designed e-cards to their contacts or create their own personalized e-card using their own pictures. However, given the popularity of iCards, we would expect that Apple will re-introduce the feature in MobileMe down the road.

- iDisk not available as network drive in Windows: With .Mac, Apple provided Windows users with the .Mac iDisk Utility application that enabled users to mount their own iDisk or other users’ public folders as network drives in Windows, with the usual drive letter assigned to them. This enabled the content of iDisk to be available in Windows Explorer and open/save dialogs for easy drag-and-drop file copying between a local computer and online storage. This feature is now gone, which means that you can access your MobileMe iDisk content on a PC only using the new web interface. The Windows iDisk may resurface in the future.

- Lack of iDisk sharing: Previously, .Mac allowed users to share the content of the public folder with other people. It is not available at this time in MobileMe, but the MobileMe iDisk page states that file sharing is "coming soon."

- No Calendar sync with Vista Calendar: On a PC, MobileMe can currently sync calendars from the cloud to the Outlook calendars only. There is no information on an extension of this feature.

- No Contacts sync in Windows Live Mail: Microsoft’s free email client integrates nicely with other Windows Live services, especially Windows Live Contacts. It certainly would be useful to be able to sync MobileMe and Windows Live Contacts directly, but we doubt this will come anytime soon since the two services directly compete with each other.

- No photo sync for Windows: MobileMe supports two-way photo syncing between the cloud and iPhoto on a Mac or Photos application on the iPhone/iPod touch. Since Apple does not offer a photo application for Windows, there is no way to sync galleries in the cloud with Windows machines. However, it is obvious that Apple has to fix this issue may offer compatibility with the Windows My Pictures folder or Photoshop Albums in the future.

- No Firefox bookmarks sync: You can choose to sync you bookmarks from the Internet Explorer (PC only) or Safari (Mac or PC). It is a bit strange that MobileMe does not support Firefox bookmark syncing since its web interface is specifically optimized for Firefox and Safari. It is another feature that should become available soon.