What is Digg?Sponsored by HowLifeWorks
New Food Sprinkle Convinces the Brain to Stop Over-Eating view!
howlifeworks.com - How sophisticated scents are helping people control their appetite and lose weight
100 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -13/+41.Mac is for newbies.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22As far as I can tell, the only thing .Mac really has going for it is the ability to synchronize Safari bookmarks across multiple Macs. However, since I use both Macs and PC's, I find that Google Browser Sync and Portable Firefox are much better solutions to the bookmarks problem.
http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable - littlebiker, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17I switched to a mac a year ago and before I moved i was using most of these services like gmail and del.icio.us. Now Eric on the board of directors for Apple, I wonder if it's going to give .Mac a new direction or maybe even apple has been thinking about it. If apple matches all these apps and does a little better, maybe I wouldn't mind paying for 1-stop-solution. If .MAC has to live - it has to improve sooner. Here is a quick on poll on how many ppl think .MAC is worth the money: http://www.tezaa.com/view/do_you_think_mac_account_is_worth_the_money
- Elfboy26, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I like being able to sync not only bookmarks but contacts, mail accounts and rules, and ical info across my three macs. Is there an alternative service that allows for this?
- randomgeek, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14..not leaving. :P
- threepio, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Easy one click photocasting, simple blogging, quick backup and syncing of my bookmarks makes .Mac a good value for me. The time and effort of trying to get half a dozen free services working together the same way .mac does is worth far more to me than the $100 I pay per year.
- umdigger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I'm ditching it when my year is up in December.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Staying, logically.
- jbklego, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11It's cheaper than WoW.
- ismith, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9.Mac is a great tool for people new to computers, since it does offer many services in one compact package. But after a couple months of using a Mac, you should get around great without it. I have a feeling there will be a great revamp in .Mac withing the next few months...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8del.icio.us is a better solution than any local bookmark plugin.
You can get to your bookmarks on any computer. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -14/+21It doesn't matter that Eric Schmidt is on the board of directors. Al Gore is also on the board of directors, and what influence on Apple products has he had? (Other than inventing the internet...)
- winmac96, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Who needs .mac when you can get most of these services for FREE from Google and Yahoo.
- Eccles, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Would that combination be called .Moogle or Gac?
- flarn2006, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4uggh...dot mac...I hate it when services that were previously free get prices! I'm a minor--it's hard to pay over the web, even a penny!
- airniqueel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5rover, Gmail scans your email for only keywords. It's done by a computer and no person has access to your email or its contents. However, it's significantly better than most other free email services since you don't have to put up with banners and images all over the page. I think Google's simple, clean adverts interface is much more discreet than flashing images and annoying ads with sound.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I got .mac this past march when I bought my mac mini. So far I've had no use for it. doesnt do anything for me so I wont be renewing it. It's tutorial blogs arent very clear either. It's hard to navigate and find stuff. I think the free alternatives are far better and easier to use.
~mario - jtwilkins, on 04/03/2009, -1/+5How did this link get 700+ diggs? Did anyone actualy read it? It says... Um use gmail. There is nothing new here, anyone reading digg knows what gmail is. There is a guy that hacked .mac in the settings so he could set up .mac on his own server now that is a dot mac solution not this crap.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE DIGG GAMERS AT WORK! - davepascoe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I'm planning not to renew too.
I like the features, but it does need updating and I don't feel I'm using it enough to justify the cost. - onestep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I won't say it's a rip off, but I will say, for most Mac users, I don't recommend it.
The biggest benefit to me would be the syncing between multiple macs, I think that is the most useful feature. In fact, I wish they would quit integrating the iLife apps so much with .Mac.
If you are an Apple fan, gotta have the latest.. you are paying a bunch of money each year. $99 .mac, $89 - iLife (which is usually worth the upgrade price), $129 for the new version of OS X every 18-24 months. It adds up over time.
If .Mac could be paid monthly, or let you pick/choose the services you wanted, it would be more useful to me. For example, I would pay $2.95 a month just for the syncing ability... so there is $36 a year they could make, and not even have to offer me everything else. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Would that combination be called .Moogle or Gac?"
.Gack - Raian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I am also considering leaving .mac-- The e-mail was really the only thing I was keeping it for... and since about 90% of the e-mails I get are merely spam, I think it would be safe to say bye bye to .mac.
- skellener, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Left Dot Mac years ago. Too little for too much money.
- ronaldpoi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Althought i love Apple stuff .Mac looks like crap to me. I would never pay that much for it. It MUST be free, come on, i paid $2600 for my Mac!...
- dineshbabu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Get .Mac and Google together and give us Mac users a one stop free service - Mail , Web page, Calendar, spreadsheet .... all that jazz. Come on Eric, you can make it happen
- sodypop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I cancelled my .mac years ago. It's worthless.
- zedwards, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Sadly, .Mac has NEVER been fixed. I still hear about the same mail and synching problems since I left a year ago.
- cobweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3offsite backups are great in case of fire, or other disaster
- aswitcher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yeah, the Spam is really getting to me as well. I like the Mac address and multiple computer syncing, but I think it needs more. Maybe they should give .Mac owners more benefits or discounts on ITMS.
- Linh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I would not pay $100/yr for what .mac gives me. I would want more storage space for that. encrypted storage space. Honestly, that's probably the only reason to use it. I would like a nice, secure, webDAV solution for remote storage. @mac.com emails.. meh, I doubt I can get my name. love my gmail account (just wish i got in before my name was taken)
- fakerjohn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@DeMoney
Like the article reports, dot mac is pretty worthless considering the free alternatives. Why would I try to rationalize paying for something that I could just replicate for free?
I switched to Mac three years ago. Personally, I'm not thrilled about it anymore. Stuff like dot mac should be free and a little more streamlined to justify the bonkers prices you pay for chic Apple products. Obviously Apple's doing well but I always think about how much better they could do if they didn't limit themselves to chasing the richest nerds of the lot. - drfranktm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Seriously, Apple needs to offer *some* form of free .mac, as komputes said. It *is* a useful service, but certainly not 100$-a-year useful to most people. Gmail serves me well for email, and I sync my Flock bookmarks using Shadows (which is similar to del.icio.us). I still haven't figured out a convenient way of syncing my contacts, but I'm pretty sure it's feasible.
Overall, I don't understand Apple's position on .mac, as it is a service that could sell a lot of hardware if it was free. Does anyone know how much each .mac account costs to Apple, i.e. how much Apple spends on bandwidth, servers and other things required to maintain the .mac service? I think they want .mac to pay for itself directly, but I'm not convinced it's in Apple's best interest. - matthorn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm surprised that nobody here defending .Mac has mentioned the fact that it uses IMAP for e-mail instead of POP.... Personally, I use a lot of features of .Mac, like the one-click iWeb publishing, the address book and bookmarks synching, photocasting, but I think my very favorite feature is IMAP e-mail and I know that Google can't offer me that. I don't know... I guess I just like the changes that I make in my mail to be reflected both in my e-mail client and my server automatically; it just seems easier.
- DonCarcharo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3When I purchased my new MacBook this year at an Apple store they tried to up sell me on .Mac. Apparently it's an item they have some leverage on and can cut you a deal if they're in the right mood. On top of this you have education discounts and some incentives when you purchase a new Mac.
The sales guy was quite surprised however when I told him that I'd rather just buy my account on eBay for $40. He said he'd never heard of such a thing so I went over to the nearest iMac, went to eBay and within seconds located a copy that was a "Buy it Now" for $40 shipped.
So while I agree that .Mac is sorely in need of an update, for under $50 it's not a bad deal. Just search eBay for .mac membership. It can be had for as little as $30-$50 depending on the week. - elroy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2as far as i'm concerned, my $100 a year is for address book sync. as far as i can tell, there's no way to do that without .mac
- xenonflash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow, what very productive comments. Only a total of 3 buried comments for an Apple story. That's gotta be some kind of record.
- anphanax, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"I just tell them about the massive 2 GB of storage"
That 'massive' part is a joke, right?
"They also get tons of tutorials on how to use the mac."
I thought you didn't need tutorials to use Macs because they were so easy compared to Windows and Linux...
I do congratulate you on your ability to sell .Mac accounts, though. Perhaps i'll pay a visit to the Apple section of my local CompUSA to see what all they try and sell me :P. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't have a .mac account anymore, but the one thing I miss is how easily you can share photos from iPhoto. Making albums is almost instantaneous.
- phronko, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I think the description meant to say "it's logical THAT users are leaving".
So the apostrophe is just fine where it is. You can all sleep well tonight. - lopresmb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3There really isn't as good an alternative to the syncing out there. I like the iWeb publishing because its incredibly easy and requires no time or thought (in essence giving me the ability to create a website that I otherwise would not bother with). And though I do have my gripes with the iDisk access, the ability to have an desktop access to internet storage that works seamlessly on Win XP, 2000 and Mac.
- dmoney06, on 10/12/2007, -12/+14dotmac really is not very expensive. It may be a little overprices compared to some of the options, but in itself it is not that bad.
When you break it down:
$99 per year,
$8.25 per month
$0.27 per day
8 and change per month is not much....
You can also get it cheaper on Amazon and such. - hbuswell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ditched about a month ago and have mixed feelings. I'm now paying Box.net $60 a year for webspace so haven't actually saved that much and things are certainly more annoying to keep up to date with gMail, Plaxo and del.icio.us all now in the mix.
Regardless though, I still resented having to pay such a high price for such an unworthy service. - komputes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I emember when .mac was annouced at a Stevenote as being free. It seemed that he meant it was gonna be free forever. I loved my @mac.com email address. Bad move making people pay for it. Seemed like a really bad move from Apple... it's gone downhill ever since. This article makes it seem that Google is the only place that gives out free stuff. These days there are many more free remote storage, web hosts. Apple is loosing their edge on the market. It's simple, offer something for free, limit it and make people pay if they want to exceed the limit. That or just offer it for free, unlimited and get ads to display. But to change service from free to paid is just bad publicity.
- kevinmotel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i plan on getting my first Macintosh computer (MBP) by the end of the year, if they combine .mac with the google suite of online apps AND make it free it will only sweeten the deal. you'll find more people A) switching to mac and B) switching to gmail, blogger, picasa, calender, ect, benefitting both companies.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Actually, I like iWeb. It's pretty fast and easy to use.
- kodek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@NtHammer:
I think it's the other way around. His time is more valuable than putting it all together. - chadu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2it was... before iWeb. the .mac homepage was much easier than this iWeb crap.
- no1nos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Did anyone notice that Google's CEO joined the Apple board of directors? It sounds to me it would be a good idea for Apple to sign a deal with Google to provide their services in an Apple branded .Mac 2.0 - They are probably in talks with them or other providers, which would explain the lack of active development on a system that is obviously outdated.
- SoyLocoMoco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I love dot mac. I use it to sync bookmarks, mail preferences, calendars, and address books between my desktop and laptop. I use it to make easy webpages in iWeb that I instantly share with my friends. I use it to automatically back up my computer every night. I use it to keep an updated calendar on the web that my partner can access from work. I wish it were cheaper, but that is solved by buying it on Amazon ($79) or ebay (I've seen it as low as $17). I definitely hope Apple keeps expanding it to make it even more valuable, but at this point I am getting my money's worth.
- webmacster87, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I completely agree with most of this article about .Mac, but what's its alternative for synchronizing computers? This is the only reason I still have .Mac: I don't know of any other feasible alternative for keeping my data synchronized between my computers.
-
Show 51 - 100 of 100 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is