Mobileme, iTunes and backing up...

Question

My brother who is dubious of the mac ecosystem but was impressed enough with his orginal iPhone to buy a 13 macbook pro the other day.
And MobileMe in the process in large part for the iPhone backup options.
He has been calling me confused about setting it up. I suggested he call AppleCare, which he did and they asked if he wanted to set up his iPhone to sync with MobileMe or iTune, via chat since he was told to use that and NOT AppleCare, what a bad set up honestly imho. And his connection was dropped. Angry he stopped trying and went to bed.
I am well versed in Apple products but I don't have an iPhone so I wasn't helpful but it seems to be it shouldn't be an either/or option or is it?
I would think that if you have an iPhone you are using your computer for the backup and access the App store etc. and that the benefit of the MobileMe is that it being out there in in the cloud its there for safety incase your computer is lost, stolen or otherwise ruined.
So are you NOT able to use both iTunes for your physical on the spot backup and syncing and the MobileMe in the event your iTunes or computer no longer wants to play nice?
Any help or insight would be great. I am hoping to give him some info by the morning.
Thanks.

Answer 1

You're welcome.
Apps and pics on an iPhone are not backed up to the cloud with a MobileMe account. When accessing a MobileMe account with the iPhone's Mail application, you can sync Contacts, Calendars, and Safari Bookmarks over the air with the same being kept synchronized between a Mac or Windows PC and the iPhone, or between a Mac and a Windows PC and the iPhone, or between more than one Mac and the iPhone, or between more than one PC and the iPhone.
And there is the MobileMe "Find My iPhone" feature in the event your iPhone is lost or stolen.
Apple provides a free Gallery app for viewing your MobileMe photo galleries which also allows for adding MobileMe photo galleries for other MobileMe users, and Apple provides a free iDisk app for accessing your MobileMe iDisk.
And it seems MobileMe and iTunes don't work together since you can end up duplicating the info by using both?
Completely separate functions, and there is no reason to do both. iTunes provides a notice/warning under the Info tab for your iPhone sync preferences with iTunes that you are syncing contacts and calendar events over the air with your MobileMe account on your iPhone.
Prior to firmware version 3.0, you could sync contacts and calendar events over the air with a MobileMe account and/or with an Exchange account, or you could sync contacts and calendar events direct with a supported application on your computer via the iTunes sync process. You could do one or the other, not both at the same time.
The ability to do both at the same time was added beginning with firmware version 3.0 primarily for those accessing a business Exchange account on their iPhone that also wanted to sync personal contacts and calendar events direct with a supported application via the iTunes sync process on a personal computer at home. This way someone accessing a company Exchange account can access and sync their business Exchange contacts and calendar events over the air with their iPhone and access and sync their personal contacts and calendar events. When doing so, you can view business and personal contacts and calendar events combined or separately on the iPhone with business and personal contacts and calendar events kept completely separate and synced separately.
When doing both with a MobileMe account, this does nothing but duplicate the MobileMe contacts and calendar events on the iPhone.
I presumed apple being ad smart as it is would be making MobileMe to work in concert with iTunes but it doesn't really seem to be the case is it?
Yes it is the case with a notice/warning provided under the Info tab for your iPhone sync preferences with iTunes when syncing contacts and calendar events over the air with a MobileMe account on your iPhone. You must manually select sync contacts and calendar events under the Info tab for your iPhone sync preferences with iTunes and I'm not sure why anyone would want to do both with a MobileMe account when their contacts and calendar events are already being kept synced over the air with their MobileMe account on their iPhone.
With apps, Sync Apps should be selected under the Apps tab for your iPhone sync preferences with iTunes. With this selected, after downloading an app with your iPhone, the app will be copied to your iTunes library on your computer the first time you sync your iPhone with iTunes after doing so. And you can re-download an app with iTunes on your computer or with your iPhone and you won't be charged again for a purchased app as long as you use the same iTunes account to re-download the app that was used to purchase the app originally, so there is no reason for apps on your iPhone to be synced with the "cloud" since there would be no benefit when doing so.
Photos in your iPhone's Camera Roll should be imported by your computer as with any other digital camera. There is a Sent to MobileMe option for photos on your iPhone to send a selected photo or photos to one of your available MobileMe photo galleries.