If you're a Dot Mac subscriber, what are you planning to do when it's time to renew?
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Showing messages 1 through 59 of 59.

• $99.00 is WAY too expensive.
  2003-08-07 02:30:06  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  For an email account, $99.00 is WAY too expensive, and that's really all I've used this past year. Got the $49.00 iTools conversion offer, and I really had to work hard to sell myself on it at that price. If you used most of the available features it'd probably be worth it, but I'm on a 56k dialup connection at home, so using iDisk as a backup is a joke.
  
  What I really don't understand is why they won't offer two-tier pricing for those of us who want to keep our .mac email accounts (a stable email account is what I thought I was getting with iTools) with maybe a bit of server space.
  
  I had a free email account for years, and just this year they've started to charge if you don't use them for your ISP. They're charging me the big $10.00 a year.
  
  The thing is I had used my .mac email as my professional email and I really don't want to lose it, but it's not worth $99.
  
  And another thing I don't hear people talking about with the iSync stuff is: Who wants their personal info out there on some server? I don't want to keep my calendar or address book online, even if I did have another mac to sync them up with.
  
  And now with Panther, iDisk is going to take up space on my mac. I don't want my Powerbook to "host" a copy of my iDisk; that is definitely NOT the way I would want to have it work. You immediately lose all benefit of iDisk as being a storage site for things you don't want to have resident on your mac all the time.
  
  Apple: PLEASE give us some way to keep our .mac email addresses without charging us through the nose!

• Why I am renewing .Mac
  2003-08-06 12:40:56  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  One of the most important things for me is saving time. As an iTools, then .Mac subscriber, I found that setting up a webpage is quick and easy.
  
  The one thing I almost never hear mentioned is how easy it is to set up an iMovie video clip on Homepage. I am the only one among all of my friends and relatives who has this feature, and I keep having people ask me how it is done. I don't know of any other service where it is as quick and easy.

• Have not subscribed, let alone renewed
  2003-08-05 03:02:00  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  As I'm not a mobile user, these .Mac advantages are of no use to me. I have a direct subscription for Virex so I'd be paying twice for the same software. I have my own domain so do not need a .Mac website. I have Retrospect and an external FW drive so do not need .Mac backup. The only improvement in .Mac that will change my mind is if .Mac would host my domain and domain email, for which I'd even be willing to pay extra.
• Have not subscribed, let alone renewed
  2003-09-16 18:53:21  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  You can have your .mac account host your email and website(s) using Zone Edit's Email and Web Forwarding (cloaked) features.
  
  You can point your www.mydomain.com to your .mac account URL and Zone Edit will cloak and forward the email via DNS.
• Have not subscribed, let alone renewed
  2006-11-02 03:28:58  Ruthie [Reply | View]
  
  
  I need my .mac account to host my domain email address. You mention Zone Edit's Email and Web Forwarding. Where do I get this from? How do I do it?

• ldot mac renewal
  2003-07-27 06:25:48  rogervg [Reply | View]
  
  
  I have three dot mac accounts with several additional email addresses. I and plan to renew all of them. The ability to have a constant email address even when I change service providers or computers is an overriding benefit. It disconnects the email account from the performance of an ISP.
  The backup, synchronization and web publishing facilities all make the .mac product extremely valuable. Being able to backup my most critical files and information is invaluable. Of course, most users don't backup anything. They don't know how valuable the Backup and iSync can be until they lose something.
  I look forward to the Panther changes.
  
  Roger

• Web-based .Mac Bookmarks Works
  2003-07-21 22:13:19  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Now you can use your Safari bookmarks via a web interface. I use mine daily at work on a Windows PC!

• email-only folks miss the point.
  2003-07-21 09:19:06  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Apple is NOT interested in being another low-cost email provider. Yahoo! and Hotmail and all the rest to cheap/free email already.
  
  Apple is betting that once you use .Mac, you will begin to see that it is far more than an email service – it is a tool for system-wide integration of your personal data. It detaches you from the single computer paradigm, and from the walls that separate you from others. No more “address book apps” “no more “I bookmarked that at home, I’ll have to look it up later” it’s you, communicating with others from anywhere.
  
  Please remember, that you get all this for $8.25/month!
  
  What is frustrating, however, is that I already have an established email adress at my own domain, and I can’t integrate that with .Mac. I also can’t use services like Movable Type on a .Mac account. I’d be willing to pay another $20-40/year for such services, but until .Mac can serve *all* of my web hosting needs, I’m not sold.
• email-only folks miss the point.
  2003-09-16 18:54:59  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  See my post above about how to use .mac with your own domain.

• Discounts offered by Apple
  2003-07-19 18:53:52  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  The fact that Apple is offering a discount to me if my friends sign up, I think it's a heavy weight toward renewel.
  Also, the use of my .Mac email address has saved me hours of wasted time self-filtering spam.
  
  I'm a go.

• Discounts offered by Apple
  2003-07-19 18:49:13  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  The fact that Apple is offering a discount to me if my friends sign up, I think it's a heavy weight toward renewel.
  Also, the use of my .Mac email address has saved me hours of wasted time self-filtering spam.
  
  I'm a go.

• I renewed
  2003-07-19 01:53:48  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  So I can keep my Email address as I just went through
  a change. That really is a nasty job.
  The one thing that worries me thouhg, is that Apple
  has decided to bill me in Euro's. As I used my VISA to
  pay the bill there is no need at all for that, $99 is easily
  converted to Euro's by VISA.
  Now if the use their own bloated conversion rate (even
  though the Euro has been over $ 1.10 for some time
  now, while Apple still thinks it is $0.90), if they use
  any other than normal rates, I will never deal with .Mac
  or Apple for that matter again.
  --
  Klaas.
  will be

• i dot Renewal >
  2003-07-18 22:43:20  bunyip [Reply | View]
  
  
  As an Australian member We can't use much of imac or Sherlock "goodie's". On Country Modem connection use of idisk is just to slow. On currancy conversion A$ price virtually doubles. Apple are concentrating on their main & local market but ther is a considerable Overseas(Foreign) customer base feeling badly discriminated against.Ciao > Bunyip.

• won't renew
  2003-07-17 14:04:39  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  There are too few features for the price. Now if Apple were to provide 10 email addresses along with access to mysql and php I might reconsider.

• I'll renew
  2003-07-16 13:54:52  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I though at the beginning of the year that I would loose my favorite email address, but all the great stuff already in .Mac and the advance with iDisk in Panther means I'll renew my subscription.
  
  I do have a web-server and hard disk space, but none that can sync, access my email AND bookmark on the web in only one step as as easily :-) The back-up is also nice but it's only my second back-up just in case.
  
  I also don't have all the problem that people seem to talk about, sometime a couple of minute of downtime but since it's my personal stuff only, no biggie.
• I'll renew
  2003-09-16 18:59:06  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I'm using .mac for the same reason. I also have some power issues in our neighborhood that takes my email/sites down and has caused me issues in the past. Now, if my power isout, I still get my emails.
  
  The onyl thing I would recommend is that Apple make .mac more of a "portal" style site, rather than one-off page by page templates.
  
  Heck, if they just took something like Xoops and integrated Gallery (to work with photos and video). it would probably satisfy 99.9% of what people want.

• Can pay, can't pay...
  2003-07-15 02:35:17  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Last week I tried to pay for a one year subscription to .mac but here in the UK it is only possible to pay for the service by credit card (Apple won't accept a cheque for an order worth less than £500). I don't have a credit card---so no .mac for me. This is my first experience of a company that can't be bothered to take my money.
• Can pay, can't pay...
  2003-07-15 06:58:40  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  It doesn't surprise me too much - handling physical checks, plus international transfer fees, costs a good bit of money.
  
  I am surprised you don't have a "debit" credit card - I've been using a mastercard that connects to my checking account for years now; I can't remember the last time I wrote a check.

• Renewing .Mac
  2003-07-14 08:49:13  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I'm going to renew .Mac only, and only, if I get some kind of deal that pulls the price down somehow to a reasonable $50 or so. $99 is too much for too little.
  
  I happen to be integrated into other workflows with Office using Entourage, so a lot of the address book and synching capabilities of .Mac are irrelevant to me since there are no conduits to synch my Entourage information with .Mac. If that capability existed, combined with increased iDisk speed, then and only then would I conider a full-price renewal.
  
  I also wish there were some kind of data backup guarantee--if I store backup files on .Mac, I'd like to know someone guarantees they'll survive earthquake, fire, and hackers alike. Until then, I don't see the advantage to the iDisk over, say, Yahoo! briefcase.

• Renwe
  2003-07-13 12:56:33  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  

• Will not be renewing.
  2003-07-11 20:15:11  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I like the convenience of dragging my iPhoto-created albums to my iDisk, but I can use an ftp client to copy them to m other web hosting company that provides 500 MB of space, unlimited pop e-mail, PHP, MySQL, mail forwarding, and more... for $5 a month.
  
  I just can't justify the $100/year, when .Mac gives so little. I still need the other host for server-side web deployment, so it's costing WAY too much for me.
  
  It was barely a good deal when it was iTools and free.
• Will not be renewing.
  2003-07-29 08:29:04  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I would love to know who this other company is? $5/month sounds like a great price for all of that...

• Probably won't renew
  2003-07-11 11:26:18  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Don't get me wrong, .Mac is a great service, with loads of interesting and unheard of features. But I have DSL, so I might as well host my website on my Mac at home, and it would have less downtime. Email and Web services are often offline, sometimes for large periods of time and with no notice or confirmation of inaccessability. And .Mac Bookmarks and Address Book I don't really need. I'm not going to ever get a virus, so I don't need McAfee Virex. And additionally, the Backup tool is a bad idea: My iDisk is WAY too small and slow to backup to, instead I use a program that backs up to DV tape: Much more economical. Everything .Mac does that I need I can do myself or do for free.
• Web serving from Mac (Probably won't renew)
  2003-07-17 13:46:53  sbj [Reply | View]
  
  
  You still need to worry about infected data on your web server - for the sake of the visiting Wintel browsers!
  
  I had set up the web server on my mac for one project. We had many files meant for Wintel PCs. The first day that the server was up for the folks in the project, someone called to say that his anti-virus program had caught a virus in the data I was serving.
  
  My mac was not affected, but I could infect the unprotected PC visitors. I had to take down the server, download Virex, and clean the data, before I could go online again!
  
  All anti-virus programs rely on pattern matching of the data. So the nice thing is that running Virex on Mac takes
  care of other platforms as well.
  

• Will not renew
  2003-07-11 10:39:49  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  .mac is horribly broken. The most important feature, e-mail, is abysmal. Mail has regular downtime. Valid e-mails are shredded by the .mac spam filter. The end user can't choose which mails to keep and which to discard. I paid for .mac in part so I could have a reliable e-mail address for job hunting. I now wonder if potential employers were blocked by Apple's half-baked filters.

• I will renew
  2003-07-10 14:10:23  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I will renew. I like iCal, Backup and Webmail very much. Happy to have .MAC after the @ in my email address. I used another email address for a few years and it was free. About a year or so ago it became a pay service for $50 per email address...and it was just an email address and a place to receive faxes via email. Since I have 2 email addresses, there's very little difference in price, and with .MAC I get a TON more. Relative to comparable services (and no one else can offer this sort of seemless integration) this is a very decent value. Oh yeah, publishing to the web by clicking a button in iPhoto.....outstanding!

• I will renew
  2003-07-10 14:04:48  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I will renew. I like iCal, Backup and Webmail very much. Happy to have .MAC after the @ in my email address. I used another email address for a few years and it was free. About a year or so ago it became a pay service for $50 per email address...and it was just an email address and a place to receive faxes via email. Since I have 2 email addresses, there's very little difference in price, and with .MAC I get a TON more. Relative to comparable services (and no one else can offer this sort of seemless integration) this is a very decent value.

• Definitely will renew
  2003-07-09 21:33:22  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Note that there is a recently added web service that let's you edit, add, manage bookmarks on .Mac via the web: http://bookmarks.mac.com
  
  I use the backup feature to always backup my current "hot" project.
  
  I use the instant picture publishing feature of iPhoto. Huge time saver that. Upload images to iPhoto; select images; publish. Done. Pictures available on the Internet.
  
  I use HomePage to edit my movies and photos pages. I have gobs of these and HomePage helps me easily keep these pages organized quickly w/o any manual file editing. Perfect when you have baby and grandparents.
  
  I use iSync to sync my Address book, Calendars, and Bookmarks
  
  I find the iDisk plenty fast enough; maybe this is because I have solid broadband service through RoadRunner. I routinely share files by dropping them in my Sites folder and emailing URLs. I could have done this w/o iDisk, but I've found before it was just tedious enough that I would use MIME attachments instead. Now instead of sending big files to dozens of people, I always send URLs. It's just as easy to drop a file in Sites as it is to drop it in my email message; but much less download pain for my email receivers many of whom still use POP.
  
  I love having IMAP mail! And The .mac email client just blows away the HotMail web client that I had been using (in terms of clean design and ease of use).
  
  Finally I use the Sites folder on my iDisk to host my own web sites.
  
  So I guess I use enough of .mac to make the 8 bucks a month a very good value. I think if people really valued their time, they would easily come to the same conclusion.

• Probably not renewing
  2003-07-09 15:46:57  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  If there were a tier system, simple email and maybe some small webspace for 20 bucks a year, I would do it no problem. As it is the services they offer don't really do much for me.
  I don't have more than one machine so what do I care if my bookmarks are/aren't synched by their server?
  The thing that I though would be really interesting would be the idea mentioned by another poster about a service similar to what dyndns offered. One of hte marketing points was the ability to have Apache on the machine and to easily host a website from your computer. But I don't have a static IP so it doesn't really do me much good to have a site on a machine no one can reach.
  If Apple provided something like that I would definitely renew. In a heartbeat. I figure then it would all add up to something that I would be interested in for a 99 dollar package.

• I will DEFINITELY renew
  2003-07-09 14:44:12  gforce [Reply | View]
  
  
  I too wanted to justify the expense of a .Mac account. So, I decided to do a little exercise to determine it's worth (at least to me). Here's what I found...
  
  What .Mac gives me for $99.95/year or $8.33/month:
  -100MB of server space including FTP and WebDAV access
  -Access to an IMAP email account (or POP if you prefer)
  -A ".mac" email account that's not tied directly to my ISP
  
  hmmm... doesn't sound like much, but wait there's more.
  
  Let's look at what .Mac combined with OS X allows me to do with relatively minimal effort.
  
  The ability to EASILY...
  -Access my Address Book online
  -Create web photo albums with iPhoto or other 3rd party software
  -Create file sharing web pages with Apple Homepage
  -Create iCards from any photo stored on my iDisk
  -Backup important files to a non-local storage area maintained by Apple
  -Synchronize files between work and home, including Address Book, iCal, bookmarks, PDA and Cell Phone
  -Utilize McAfee anti-virus software that is updated automatically
  -Post and share Calendars through iCal
  -Share personal photo slideshows (as a screensaver) with other Mac OS X users through .Mac Slides. If you have kids this is amazing.
  -Share files across the internet with other Mac OS X and Windows users through a public folder on your iDisk.
  -Post your own Blog with 3rd party software such as iBlog
  
  Wow, not too shabby.
  
  Now what would it take, in terms of time and effort to be able to do all of this without a .Mac account. It's all definitely possible to do for free, but personally I'd much rather be spending time with my family than trying to develop all of these features on my own.
  
  Of course, this does not apply to the hard-core developer who revels in his own ability to create the same functionality from scratch. Again, these are mainly features of convenience that are designed to increase the usefullness of your Mac with little impact on your time and effort.
  
  $99 a year? I think it's worth it.
  
• I will DEFINITELY renew
  2003-07-09 15:51:08  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  That's all fine and dandy for people who actually use all that stuff. The problem is that the service isn't compelling enough for people with either simple or advanced needs.
  
  For those people who just want an email account, have no need to sync to other computers/cell phones/PDAs/Internet/Space Station/Pets/etc, and have no interest in making their own website, the $99 service is complete overkill.
  
  On the other hand, people who need to build their own sites with their own domain name will find that the .Mac offering a quant little subset of the tools and resources they are already using. Why spend another $99 on top of what you're already spending for what you already have?
  
  I'm not saying .Mac isn't a great service with some fabulous features. My problem is that it's trying to be a one-size-fits-all solution to a problem that many people either don't have, or have more than overcome.
  
  
• I will DEFINITELY renew
  2003-09-16 19:06:42  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I think they (Apple) would get more customers to try .mac if they offered just email for a nominal fee, then, if you want to upgrade to each of the other features, you could pick the ones you want to use and purchase just those.
  
  So if someone just wanted Backup and email, they could get those without Homepage, Virus, etc.
• I will DEFINITELY renew
  2003-07-09 16:06:02  gforce [Reply | View]
  
  
  I absolutely agree. If you have the expertise to build and maintain your own site and you have the time to do so, then by all means that's the way to go. Especially if you already pay for your own domain name. But I think the target is for people that are going to opt for convenience over customization/functionality.
  
  I think it's important for people to weigh their options. And decide if any of the features I've listed above are of any value to them. And don't forget that there is almost no setup for these features. You don't have to build anything and configuration is a matter of a few simple steps.
  
  Again, as you stated above, if all you need is an email account then there's no reason to spend $99 bucks for a bunch of features that you won't use.
  
  Personally, I'm surprised at how many of these features I've actually ended up using.

• There already is iBlog
  2003-07-09 13:21:20  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  There already is software called iBlog that works w/.Mac. It's on Apple's Web site, and the Beta is free.

• Web-based bookmarks in OmniWeb
  2003-07-09 13:18:40  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  You can't do it through iSync, but you can still get something pretty similar in OmniWeb 4.5 beta. The current betas include an early-adopter version of a feature that'll be fleshed out post-4.5: WebDAV-based bookmarks. The implementation is quite different from Safari/iSync, but the result is the same: your bookmarks can "live" on the web, and all the machines you use them from can share them.
  
  To enable this feature:
  1. Copy your bookmarks file (by default it's in ~/Library/Application Support/OmniWeb/Bookmarks.html) to your iDisk or another WebDAV server.
  2. In OmniWeb's Bookmarks preferences, set the Personal Bookmarks URL to the URL of the file on the WebDAV server. (e.g., if you put it on your iDisk, it'd be something like http://idisk.mac.com/username/Documents/Bookmarks.html)
  3. Quit and restart OmniWeb.
  
  Again, this is an early-adopter preview... before you rush to send us feedback on how unfinished it is, let me remind you that we know it's unfinished. :) A better setup UI, better timing for synchronization, and a UI for conflict resolution are all planned.

• .mac renewal
  2003-07-09 13:11:21  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  these would definetly be nice features to have:
  
  - abilityti have my own domain
  - make blogging available **this is a winner*
  - more advanced homepage templates
  
  But i will renew anyways
• .mac renewal
  2003-07-09 16:54:30  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I think you may be missing some of .Mac's more compelling features. Specifically the tight integration with Mac OS X and the iApps.
  
  All of the features you mention above are available for much cheaper (in some cases for free) if you just want to spend a little "hands-on" time with some code.
  
  Where .Mac exels is in it's ability to work seamlessly with iPhoto, iCal, iSync and iTunes. Not to mention Address Book and Backup.
  
  I can post a password protected web page of photos in a couple of minutes and still have the ability to update it from any web browser without having to open a single html file. I can also easily share a calendar either online or directly with another OS X user as well as access my address book online. And I can have all of this synchronized between work and home on a regular basis using iSync.
  
  I do agree that the above features would add nicely to .Mac's current feature set, but i think that Apple's original intention may have been to focus on some features that weren't available elsewhere and would complement the current set of iApps.

• Future Feature Ideas
  2003-07-09 13:08:41  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I think that .Mac is still very expensive for the features that it provides. $99 a year is not outrageous, if Apple could provide a unique, reliable and useful service.
  
  Here is a list of features that I would like to see incorporated into future versions of .Mac:
  
  
  - .Mac Home: Type in a web address to find your computer on the web. Automatic DNS forwarding for your computer. ex. http://username.mac.com or a custom domain. It would be very cool to be able to have direct access to your computer from anywhere in the world. Integration with Apple Remote Desktop would also be very cool.
  
  - .Mac Mobile: With new cell phones having internet capabilities, .Mac should allow a custom WAP interface to your computer. It would allow you to use Sherlock as an internet services guide, remotely run custom applescripts, view iCal information(if it's not already synched with your handset, or maybe someone else's published ical info.), control iTunes, run backup utilities, system tools or anti-virus software, check your mail, grab a bookmark or an address, check on the status of your file render for DVD Studio Pro or FCP or AfterEffects, or check a TV guide. Just point your cellphone to your .Mac Home address and go.
  
  - iCards should get better and be able to be sent through a web interface in mail.app. Aside from regularly adding more free generic cards, I think that Apple should get Halmark to provide a catalog of high-quality cards for $0.99 a pop. There should also be a printable option for iCards -- they should add a link to a print and fold PDF version of the card.
  
  - iTunes Music Store Support. If you buy a track from Apple's store, you should be able to listen to your music through your .Mac account.. It should also provide a backup service for the music that you purchased through the service.
  
  - iDisk Extras: Apple should provide some new goodies every month like icon sets, wallpapers, system sounds, and screensavers that are exclusive to .Mac. There is a wealth of this stuff available for free online, but with a good one click interface more non-techies would be able to install a new look for their computer easily.
  
  - .Mac Templates: A collection of templates for the Homepage, Keynote, iApps, etc. This would be a resource to help .Mac users finish their tasks more easily and quickly.
  
  - .Mac Cloning: Using fast user switching in 10.3, .Mac could clone your "theme" and settings onto any mac where you sit down as a guest. This would go a long way to make people feel "at home" when using someone elses computer. People who are nervous about computers would appreciate this, since it makes your computer experience more consistent anywhere you find a mac. (iDisk could sync your settings in the background automagically).
  
  - iBlog: Weblogging Software. Blogging is very popular and .Mac should ride the wave. iBlog could be very cool if Apple designed some slick zero-configuration software.
  
  - More freebies and bonuses to Subscribers, like offering Panther for $99 to subscribers. Maybe a yearly .Mac sale or a closeout section on the Apple Store. Add an express till at Apple stores for .Mac subscribers. Also, getting a free year of .Mac service with the purchase of a new computer should be standard.
  
  It is features like these that would make .Mac a very usefull service for $99 a year. .Mac could be a killer app for the Apple platform if it is done right.
  
  Superchan.
• Future Feature Ideas - Blogging
  2003-07-10 17:00:03  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  For blogging you can checkout iBlog from Lifli Software http://www.lifli.com/Products/iBlog/main.htm
  
  It is steadily growing in features and will hopefully have iSync like integration soon.
• Future Feature Ideas
  2003-07-10 11:20:16  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Excellent suggestions. I'm sure Apple is already working on some of them. I especially like .Mac Home and .Mac Mobile.
• Future Feature Ideas
  2003-07-09 13:23:03  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  most of that stuff exists, if you look for it
• Future Feature Ideas
  2003-07-09 13:20:52  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I can hear the developers whining already - if it's all part of the service there's no revenue opp for the small fries...
  If someone wants it, someone will build it.

• .mac renewal
  2003-07-09 11:49:59  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I probably won't renew unless they offer more free photo prints or one of those kodak iPhoto books; that's what hooked me last time. I already have an email address, the backup over a dialup connection is too slow, and I don't use the other features.
  
  here's an idea that would probably make money for apple: include .mac free for the length of your AppleCare contract if you sign up for it. They're both overpriced, but getting both for one price would almost make them worth it.

• Dot Mac Bookmarks
  2003-07-09 10:17:19  Michael Brewer | [Reply | View]
  
  
  Well, I guess the timing on this article was a bit off. There is a new feature today for Dot Mac that I had wished for in this article. We've seen a screenshot of this feature before if you keep track of the rumor sites. Here's what Apple has to say about it:
  
  Take your bookmarks with you wherever you go. With new .Mac Bookmarks, a handy surfer window with your favorite bookmarks opens on any Internet-connected computer, providing instant access to your favorite places on the web. Use it on your home or work computer, even at an Internet cafe.
  
  Use iSync 1.1 to combine your .Mac Bookmarks with your Safari bookmarks for a complete library of your bookmarks. And no matter where you are when you change your bookmarks, they'll be synchronized and up-to-date across multiple Macs and on the web.

• If you use all the features, It's probably worth it.
  2003-07-09 10:01:07  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  If you don't use many of the features, however, $99 is simply way too much. Between my ISP and my Web Host, I have all the .Mac features I would otherwise need. My broadband provider gives me 7 email accounts and 70MBs of webspace. My Web Host provides me with 500MB of space and unlimited bandwidth - AND I can use my own domain name. Until I get one of those new G5 towers, my Pismo is my only Mac - so I don't need to sync it with anything. I don't worry about Mac viruses (and the Virex app is actually more annoying than useful). I haven't been particularly interested in any of the other free software gifts, and I don't send email cards... In short, .Mac offers me nothing I'm not already paying for anyway.
  
  I would stick with .Mac if it allowed me to save on other expenses. For example, If I could use my Domain Name in conjunction with the service, then I could possibly drop my Web Host. If the OS X updates (such as Panther) were also included as 'free gifts', then that too would be worth it (and a little more). However as it stands $99 is simply way too much just for the coolness factor of having an @mac.com email suffix - as much as I'm going to miss it. I'm hoping to avoid the bulk email steering everyone clear of my @mac.com address, but I just can't justify the price.

• .mac is nice, but not $99 nice
  2003-07-09 09:22:33  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  When I'm on my fast connection at work and at school, I like .mac a lot. IDisk works swiftly even on my Dell machine. But I have dial-up at home, and iDisk is tedious. The improvements you write of are in Jaguar, another $129 away. All this really adds up...and for what, really? I can use my $13 pen drive in much the same way.
  
  If there were "giveaways" like last year's free prints, I might re-up. Why not a free tune or two (or 25) at the Apple Music Store? To get $99, Apple will have to offer something more enticing.

• convenience vs cost...
  2003-07-09 08:20:31  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I'm having a hard time deciding. I've had trouble with Backup (periodically decides not to recognize my .mac password, resulting in scheduled backups not being run) and email reliability (frequent downtime, plus very often my incoming or outgoing messages will be delayed by as much as 6 hours!).
  
  In the end I probably will end up renewing, just because it would be a pain to switch email addresses and not have the convenience of iDisk when I need to transfer files around. But $100 is really steep for that, I think, especially considering the features are not 100% reliable. If it were half the price, I'd renew without even thinking twice.
  
  

• feature rich-just not the right ones
  2003-07-09 07:59:49  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I am on the freebie I got for being an Apple Consultant Network member, but am probably not going to renew. Here's why:
  - can't have my own domain
  - no blogging available
  - already have NAV and don't need virex.
  - homepage templates aren't compelling.

• Other features
  2003-07-09 06:36:20  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  .Mac also offers Virus protection (yes, I hear 'but we don't get viruses' - but it's there, and it'd cost about $80/year from Norton). You get a HomePage, which works for quick-n-basic pages of images OR you can create your own (and it's great w/iPhoto); there have been sporadic free software items (some games, StuffIt, etc.), training materials, your account works with iChat (versus getting some 'xgy452289' account w/AIM), and they add services all the time. I do think it'd be nice to 'tier' the services, but at the price of a couple of coffees a month, it's worth it and keeps getting better.
• Other features
  2003-07-09 08:36:39  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  
  For me, there is a third party software called Filechute that I use with my .Mac account to send large files (think files too big to email).
  
  Other service-based solutions charge several hundred dollars a year. In this context, Filechute + .Mac is a pretty inexpensive solution.
  
  That said, I can see that for many, $99/year is too much.

• Disc Copy?
  2003-07-09 04:13:49  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Disc Copy does not exist in Panther. .dmg files are mounted directly in the Finder and are created using the improved Disc Utility which handles all disk related activities.
• Disc Copy?
  2003-07-09 20:16:45  Michael Brewer | [Reply | View]
  
  
  That's true, Disk Copy has been rolled into Disk Utility and Finder also provides some of its functionality directly. However, most people don't have access to Panther right now, so I used Disk Copy to illustrate how it would be handled now under Jaguar -- and people could follow along.
  
  Still, I should have mentioned that it would change in Panther.
• Disc Copy?
  2003-07-09 06:54:20  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Disk Copy does exist. It's functionality was rolled into Disk Utility. Apple seems to have combined a number of apps in Panther to reduce the number of icons the use sees.

• I'm still not sure what shoul I do
  2003-07-09 01:57:04  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I subscribed last year for the "potential" of the service, thinking the year after I'll renew for the best online service for me.
  
  At that time US$49 for Apple's promises was correct to me.
  
  How has it turned ?
  
  I can't send personnalized iCards with my browser of choice.
  
  The online addressbook is not usable to me: no groups, no address selection while sending iCards, no LDAP access.
  
  Synching Safari bookmarks ? I do not use Safari
  
  Yes, .Mac is not software agnostic, I have the right to think Apple's apps are not always the best for me.
  
  To summarize, I'm asked to renew a service that doesn't fullfill my expectations, that doesn't work with my applications of choice.
  
  I'm a bit reluctant to pay US$99 a service that 's generating frustrations in me.
  
  In the other hand there are parts of the service that I find useful and I'll lose them if I don't renew unless there's alternative...
  
  I'm about to test drive this service:
  homebase.oeone.net
  
  I hope I can make an informed decision after that.

• still deciding...
  2003-07-09 00:55:33  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  i'm on Apple's 60 day trial at the moment...and so far, i haven't seen what all the benefits are. IMAP email? free using fastmail...iDisk really is too slow, so not very useful. i'm running an apache webserver from home off an old iMac, so i have all my files backed up and accessible. i guess the ease of .Mac is what's attractive, but maybe not for $99.

• I'll renew
  2003-07-08 19:18:54  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I'll renew, because so far it all "just works" and for a little over $8 a month I have a little extra peace of mind.
• I'll renew
  2003-07-09 07:47:46  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Same here.
  
  The speed of iDisk is the the only issue for me so far, but we that will be resolved with Panther. Everything else just works. The email is excellent, and I particularly like the .mac home page builder and the one-click web publishing from iPhoto.
  
  The price is a little high, but there is nothing on the market that is remotely close to .mac.

• I will renew
  2003-07-08 17:04:02  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I anticipate more benefits for .Mac users. I smell a new rumor building: web-based 'blog software available only if you have .Mac
  
  Steve
  
  srk at mac dot com
• I will renew
  2003-07-08 23:09:52  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  iDisk, iCal, iPhoto, iMovie and iSync have been working great for me and my family. Without .Mac, I could not have shared anything memories with friends and family. It worth the money...I'll take the free game.