14 DAY TRIAL // European .Mac users will now be getting a better bang for their buck, as Apple has addressed the problems that were causing some areas of the service be overly slow. Now users in Europe can enjoy the same speed that those in the US had been experiencing.
The throttling of transfer speeds for European users of the .Mac service was a serious concern, that many complained about after experimenting with proxies and getting reports from users in the US who were experiencing no transfer limitation whatsoever. Apple has now addressed the issue and has issued a statement to users of the service, thanking the people on the .Mac Web Gallery discussions forum for bringing the issue to their attention. "The info and feedback we've received has been invaluable to us in diagnosing and developing an action plan for addressing performance issues reported by some members," the company said.
The fixes implemented by Apple will make a users Web Gallery load "noticeably faster." Of course, the transfer speed will depend on the user's connection speed, but now all of the available bandwidth can be put to use. While this is certainly a development in the right direction, there is still more to be done as this was the only area addressed by the company. Presently, iDisk and all other components of the service remain unaltered, but the company's wording of "at this time" is a strong hint that this will change in the future.
If users keep the pressure on the company, the rest of the fixes should not be far behind, provided their causes are not more complicated than what was throttling the Web Gallery. In the meantime, Apple continues listening to customer's complaints and fixing what it can. "We are aware that some customers are still reporting issues and are continuing to investigate concerns on a case by case basis. Performance improvement is an ongoing process and we are working to make sure we provide a world class level of service to all our customers in the weeks and months to come."