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- KentuckyDawg, on 05/09/2008, -3/+21I hope they also make .mac price "included" with the purchase of an iPhone
- OdepiTy, on 05/09/2008, -2/+14I loooooooove the syncing between computers with .mac - that's the feature I use most.
- Scott31182, on 05/09/2008, -8/+20cant wait for iphone 2.0
- drlha, on 05/09/2008, -1/+11I hope your reply was "$0" because I can get all these features for free from Google/Yahoo etc.
- GCarden, on 05/09/2008, -3/+13Normally I don't go along with the Apple rumors, but just today I got a poll via email from Apple asking me, among other things, how much I'd pay for each individual feature of .Mac.
- tracydanger, on 05/09/2008, -0/+9Sorry for the typos. I ran out of 'edit' time, but mean to say: I'm one Apple user that would be fine with ads the way google does it if it meant a free .Mac.
- ryanmm, on 05/09/2008, -2/+11wont ever happen
- osage, on 05/09/2008, -0/+8how did u reply? And a link to that poll would be great!
- LOLIGATOR, on 05/09/2008, -2/+10is there any benefit to having a .mac account? seems pretty worthless as of right now which is disappointing but then again like i really need another monthly bill.
- ibeetle, on 05/09/2008, -1/+7.mac is O.K. While it is true that every feature of the service can be found elsewhere on the net for low or no cost one is paying for the connivence of everything in one place, and (somewhat) seamless integration with iLife.
It is all part of that total widget ***** that Steve loves to talk about.
As far as the cost. There are discounts. I have been .mac subscribers from day one and have only payed full renewal price twice. - BrendanSheehan, on 05/09/2008, -0/+5New .Mac = $29 please
- TheWorm, on 05/09/2008, -3/+8It's a bad value.
- mvanhorn, on 05/09/2008, -1/+6I pray they give me some value for .mac... I refuse to give up that email address, but they are certainly making a good case right now for me to phase it out..
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -0/+4It's not monthly. It's once a year. $49 for the first year, $99 every year after that. Included are some pretty cool features, such as being able to make a web gallery through iPhoto with the click of a button.
- insomniacal, on 05/09/2008, -2/+6Here's hoping for .Mac at reduced cost -- or even free? I'm a Mac fan but use Google's online tools simply because they're free. Apple can increase .Mac value for money through incrementally new features -- or they can slash the cost in half, thereby doubling value for money. Honestly, I'd take the latter.
- tracydanger, on 05/09/2008, -1/+5How strange that it won't ever happen since Steve Jobs said on stage (when introducing .Mac) that it will always be free. Maybe in June, if they re-vamp it, he could appologize for not keeping that promise & tell everyone it's free agian.
- ucg1, on 05/09/2008, -0/+4Wow.. dotMac might actually be worth something, but still not worth what you pay for. I hope you get this feature for free (at least as an subscriber to an official provider), but I don't expect that to happen. If they don't offer it for free, maybe the notMac project might make it possible in the future:
http://www.notmacchallenge.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/notmac/ - drlha, on 05/09/2008, -0/+4What google stuff is sketchy with Macs/Safari exactly? It all works perfectly on my Mac.
- LargeTrout, on 05/09/2008, -0/+4The problem with .Mac just now, for most users, is that it's so expensive and so little value for money. Online storage is cheap these days. Unless Apple vastly reduce the price of .Mac then there's no good reason to use the service. You can get better, faster service far far cheaper elsewhere.
- luchid, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3Exactly. Apple should ask google for help on that.
- meatmcguffin, on 05/09/2008, -1/+4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx3GkhvMY-k
I laughed at the 20 megs of storage part - johnpaul191, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3iTools was free when it was announced, and in the same speech mentioned something about getting a mac.com email address and you could keep it forever. they never said the email address would be free forever. that's just how everyone reported it, they were probably too giddy with their liveblogging to pay better attention. Apple/SJ never said .Mac they would be free. The shift of the name from iTools to .Mac was when it became a pay service.
go back and watch the full presentation and you can see how Apple presented it. Of course Apple knew somewhere that they may have to end the free service. it's unfortunate, but what made iTools cool and easy to use was also what made it so people were using it to store warez etc. The cross platform usability meant that it could be used by anyone, so it was not just Mac customers taking advantage of the service.
Trash talk Apple customers all you want but the fact is that there is evidence that they are more honest than their MS using counterparts. Before iTMS was cross platform, the small minority of computer users with Macs were buying significantly more digital music than every other digital music store combined. that's just a flat out fact. spin that how you want, but the sales numbers were the proof. - batmanz, on 05/09/2008, -1/+4.mac is Apple's worst rip off. I cant believe anyone subscribes to it. You can get as good or better features for free.
- Me1000, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3except when you have a couple Macs on different networks. (as in like different buildings)
Setting up a sync between those machine would be difficult for the average consumer without something like .Mac in between - saggygrandma, on 05/09/2008, -1/+4yeah im a subscriber and its has been wearing thin lately, especially with gmail etc getting imap support.
Looking forward to some improvements. - Altotus, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3Macs are fine and all, but .Mac has always been deficient: It's expensive -- for the space you get and the limitations placed on it, it's just pricey. They make it trivial to store content, present content, but they give you bupkis in storage, so forget about that video blog you've been working on. Apple's the only .Mac service provider -- it should be that they license the .Mac services to ISPs so you can use whoever you want and they get license income. You don't get much storage -- For 3/4 the price I get more than 100x the storage from my hosting provider. Also, hosting providers give you databases, scripting, shopping carts, etc. that Apple is not likely to want to bother with but their users would like. You can't register your own domain name for use with .Mac -- not a biggie for the target audience, but the Mac user base is increasingly composed of savvy computer types for whom it would be a big plus. Finally, .Mac references in the Apple environment can't be switched off -- that's annoying -- if you don't have a subscription, you shouldn't see references to it even if marketing tells you its a good idea.
I like the idea of .Mac. It's one of those things that's skirting the edge of greatness. But it's just not a really good product (the way it is now) for the type of people that actually want to do stuff on the web. - luchid, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3No, you're not being cheap. .Mac isn't really of much value. It was back when other webmail providers were offering a few measly megs of storage and had horrible interfaces, but now that Google is offering everything but the kitchen sink for free then Apple should adapt and maybe partner with them to revamp it and make it free. After all, they're making money hand over fist.
- akatsuki, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3I would skip it for now. Unless you are syncing files between different macs (and there are cheaper solutions for that, if not quite as seemless). It is slow, expensive, and really not worth it in any way.
Photos- use Flickr.
Blogging- choose a bunch
Online storage- other services will give you more for less money.
E-mail- gmail is still better. - PabloMac, on 05/09/2008, -1/+4.Mac is a lot more than an email address and calendar syncing tool. It would be great if it were free, but for those of us who use more than one or two of its features, and especially us who make money with it, $99 works just fine.
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -1/+4Well like everything from Apple, it works seemlessly with OS X and it just plain works.
There are free solutions for all of the stuff out there, but none of them work so flawless and easy. - Cyraq, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3As a .mac user I sure hope Apple adds new features soon.
- justinviger, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2That's why I keep .mac.
- Anevilweasel, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2That was just stupid...and boring. Let us not even go to inaccurate...
- VitriolAndAngst, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2I'm pretty sure it will become part of the iPhone package -- like visual voicemail. There is enough added benefit to having a reference platform and a new user that will subsidize any lost revenue from the normal fee.
I really hope Jobs open-sources the .mac platform for iPhone. What he will lose in copy-cats, he will gain in making the iPhone the NEW PLATFORM. Kind of how iTunes actually makes money from the iPod -- and not so much from selling music.
Looking at rumored new chips for full-speed dual channel video and the tri-fecta of components for making the next iPhone the most powerful hand-held gaming platform. Well -- I don't think it is hyperbole to say that this is just like the launch of the personal computer, and that Apple will be the next "Microsoft" of the new platform. In two years, they will be talking about "Apple's Monopoly on mobile communication/entertainment devices."
Steve Jobs is looking to make this device -- and the lack-luster but soon to be powerful AppleTV, THE place where you put your media, waste your time, and do your business.
It all depends on if the Phone Companies jump on board for a reasonable "unlimited access" plan -- probably with WiMax and not normal cell technology doing the heavy lifting in cities. Then you wouldn't need your home connection or your work connection. - scooterbaga, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2FYI- You can get .mac from amazon and pay like $70 every year.
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2The real problem with .mac is that Apple refuses to develop other ways to sync calenders, bookmarks, and mailboxes between computers. My Macs shouldn't have to connect to an outside server to share XML files with other Macs on the network. My iPhone should be able to connect to my home network directly to share XML files. Its annoying to have to move the files myself, but not so much so that its worth paying for a service that does it for me. Apple should have a free GUI program that takes care of this. They don't because Apple wants to push .mac
- Mossa, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2I think he was using a pejorative imperative or should I say u pejorative imperative in which case he's uslo missing u "!"
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2And that's exactly the feature that ought to be built into Apple software and NOT dependent on a fee-based service.
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2.Mac is already used as an excuse not to fix several glaring functional omissions from Apple software; for example, the inability to export E-mail filters in order to use them on multiple machines. Let's not encourage further use of this fee-based service as a crutch.
- johnpaul191, on 05/09/2008, -1/+3With Google you are subsidized by ads. Apple has kept away from that. Some people hate ads enough that they will pay $100/year or whatever it is. The google stuff is also sketchy with Macs/Safari. Obviously not an issue for everyone, but .Mac just works.
- ryanmm, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2I also would like to see that...
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2Yep, same here.
- Zippo, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2I sure hope so. I purchased one year of .Mac this December, mostly for the web gallery... but was kind of disappointed with the overall value. Hopefully Apple will beef up .Mac and make it worth renewing.
- deadbaby, on 05/09/2008, -1/+2I have it for iDisk which is a standard WebDAV server. It's 10GB of online disk space I can sue from OSX, Windows, Linux or via the web interface. I barely use any of the other features of .MAC.
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Yes, but there are glaring omissions from both the Mac's software suite and the iPhone. Notably the failure to deliver the functionality we enjoyed on 8 MB Palm devices in the '90s:
1. To-do lists, with categories.
2. Memos, with categories
3. Contacts, with categories
The calendar is the one thing that actually syncs properly and gives you nearly full functionality. Except, of course, the continued baffling failure to have a default alarm for new appointments on the phone (a feature it took years to get in iCal, and it still doesn't let you pick WHICH alarm is the default). And the hard-coded alarm lead-times (want an alarm 45 minutes before the appointment? Forget it.).
And using iTunes as the primary iPhone interface is simply stupid. Apple desperately needs to create something functionally equivalent to Outlook (minus E-mail). Really, how tough is it? - inactive, on 05/09/2008, -2/+3OK. "Mac" is short for Macintosh; it's not an acronym. So WTF is a "MAC"?
- HonoredMule, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1"In two years, they will be talking about "Apple's Monopoly on mobile communication/entertainment devices."
Microsoft gained their position in a complete absence of competition. There's no chance of that happening again, at least not in this particular situation. Many other companies already have a strong presence in the mobile market (RIM, Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, Microsoft) and many more have a strong interest in it (Google, Palm, etc.). Everyone knows what is at stake, and Apple's entry to the market is far from unopposed, nor is the iPhone that big a hitter in the grand scheme of things. For every iPhone fan anticipating Apple's next generation of innovation, there's a few people who would rather have the next generation of Blackberry, or an Android-based phone, or a more advanced Chocolate, or who wonder why gaming/applications on a phone is supposed to be so great when the nGage failed miserably, or who hold that anything superseding the phone's function as "a phone" makes it a really lousy phone.
To pull a Microsoft, you have to conquer a "surprise" market. Otherwise, you'll never reach a point far enough ahead where you can adequately hinder competition and maintain your position. - Chode2235, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1I would love the web hosting services to be able to host forums etc, and be a real web hosting solution. Right now, most of .mac is to dumbed down to be terribly useful or worth the price.
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