I’ve been investigating different hosted application sets as I look to move to some sort of cloud-based environment for my email, contacts, and document storage.  Right now I’m playing with Google Apps and just started experimenting a bit with Apple MobileMe (formerly .mac).

I have already run into a pretty big issue with MobileMe though…it doesn’t seem to support Firefox 3.0.5 on Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.6) even though they claim it does.

Below is the transcript from a live chat session I had this afternoon with a MobileMe Support Representative.  Starts of reasonably well, but boy does it tank at the end.  Come on Apple…you’re starting to sound more and more like Microsoft everyday.

Hi, my name is Eric S.  Welcome to Apple!

Eric S: Hi Nolin. I see from your note you are getting an error message on me.com using Firefox 3.05. Is that right?

Nolin : i’m getting the screen that says my browser is unsupported when i try to visit me.com

Nolin : so i can’t even login

Eric S: Sorry to hear that. I guess you just recently upgraded?

Nolin : nope. i haven’t really tried using my mobileme account since i signed up. was going to start playing with it today.

Nolin : i’ve been using firefox 3 since just after it was released

Nolin : i have safari installed too, but i rarely use it. and since i see firefox 3 is supported, i thought i could get that working since i’d prefer to use it.

Eric S: I’d be happy to assist you Nolin. First time chatting us about this issue?

Nolin : it is

Eric S: Okay, I have something I’d like to try.

Nolin : sure

Eric S: Let’s open up your Firefox preferences and then go to Privacy.

Nolin : got it up

Eric S: Okay, please remove only the me.com cookie from the list of cookies.

Eric S: Then please attempt to sign in.

Nolin : there is no me.com cookie

Nolin : there’s an ac_history and ac_search cookies that have mobileme in the content string

Eric S: Please click on Show Cookies.

Eric S: Then search for me.com

Nolin : i did

Nolin : there isn’t one

Nolin : like i said…there are a handful from apple.com. the two i mentioned contain ‘mobileme’ in the content. the others do not.

Eric S: Let’s delete all the MobileMe cookies and see if that allows you to log in.

Nolin : ok… there are 3. s_sq, ac_history, and ac_search

Nolin : no luck

Nolin : all three deleted, and still got the unsupp browser page

Eric S: Are you leaving off the @me.com part when you try to log in?

Nolin : i don’t get the login screen

Nolin : when i go to www.me.com i get redirected to http://www.me.com/unsupported_browser/en/

Eric S: No luck huh?

Nolin : me.com seems to be having trouble successfully identifying my browser as firefox 3.0.5

Nolin : i don’t even get to a page where i can attempt to login

Nolin : i can login with no problems using safari

Nolin : but i want to use firefox 3

Eric S: Thank you for contacting Apple about the unsupported message in Firefox. I’m sorry for any inconvenience this may be causing. I’ve provided the details of your report to the MobileMe Specialist team. As always, Apple appreciates your feedback as part of its efforts to resolve issues and improve the MobileMe experience. Apple won’t contact you again about this issue unless we have questions about the information you provided.

Nolin : is that your scripted way of telling me we can’t fix it?

Eric S: I have made this known and I apologize for the inconvenience. Please use your second favorite browser.

Eric S: Not yet anyway. We will look into Nolin.

Nolin : ok.

Nolin : will i be notified when the problem is resolved?

Eric S: Nope.

Eric S: I would try it again in the future though.

Nolin : ok

Eric S: I look forward to more info on this too but it’s brand new. Thanks for coming in though so we make it knowm.

Eric S: known*

Eric S: Thank you for contacting MobileMe support and have a nice day Nolin.