As part of the Mac OS X 10.5.6 upgrade released today, Apple included fixes to MobileMe, the company's online synchronization, storage and Web application service. "Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on a Mac automatically sync within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or the web at me.com," Apple said in the it posted online Monday morning.

MobileMe -- the successor to Apple's earlier.Mac service -- was plagued by problems and knocked by users from the start. Almost immediately, that information they entered on their Mac and PC calendars and address books wasn't pushed instantly to the MobileMe servers, even though Apple had marketed the $99-per-year service as synchronizing "automatically, instantly and continuously."

In July, Apple confirmed that upstream synchronization from Macs to MobileMe was done only once every 15 minutes in Leopard and only once per hour in Tiger, aka . Several days later, and added 30 days of service to all MobileMe users' accounts.

At the time, the company specifically called out the slow sync problem. "Another snag we have run into is our use of the word 'push' in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella," Apple told subscribers. "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."

Although Mac OS X 10.5 MobileMe users should now see data synchronized every minute, subscribers running or remain on the slow train. "Windows XP and Vista (with MobileMe Control Panel 1.2): Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks changes sync every 15 minutes" when the setting is on "Automatically," a on Apple's site now reads.