.mac.....Worth it?

[t300]

.mac
http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/2041/532/store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/itools_125.jpg
How many people bought it? Is it worth it? I am getting my PB in a few weeks and am not sure if .Mac would be worth investing in right off the bat? What are some of your favorite features and what are some of them that totally justify the price for you?

[flyfish29]

.mac
http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/2041/532/store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/itools_125.jpg
How many people bought it? Is it worth it? I am getting my PB in a few weeks and am not sure if .Mac would be worth investing in right off the bat? What are some of your favorite features and what are some of them that totally justify the price for you?

I started a thread a while back...if the link below doesn't work for you search forums for " .Mac? Love it or hate it? " and you should find lots of info. There have been several other threads lately about .mac...one problem with mail which hasn't affected me much but some others have been bothered by it. I would say spend the $69 the first year and try it out. If nothing, you get free software for virus and other free goodies on line not to mention free back up space for a year.
I am definately renewing again next year. Oh yeah, if you sign up if you put me as a referral then I get 20% off my subscription price...which is a great deal...if you get five people to do this for you when they sign up then your year is free. My email is flyfish29@mac.com

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=66313

Good luck deciding.

[entropy1980]

.mac
http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/2041/532/store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/itools_125.jpg
How many people bought it? Is it worth it? I am getting my PB in a few weeks and am not sure if .Mac would be worth investing in right off the bat? What are some of your favorite features and what are some of them that totally justify the price for you?
I love it for the iDisk... i work on three machines throughout my day and it's nice to be able to work on a document ( 2 of the machines are windows BTW) and save it the iDisk no matter which machine i am working on then access it on the others at anytime without having to burn it to a disk or email myself the file.

[adamjay]

i think its a good deal for consumers who don't want to fuss with the details of setting up their own server. but with a little more knowledge of doing your own site (or even just research).. you can get all that .mac has to offer (sans Virex) in a good webhosting package.

www.powweb.com has a great package for $7.77/month ($93.24/year)
650 Pop3/imap/SMTP email accounts. 1,000 MB storage. 5GB a DAY data transfer allowance
includes your own domain name. you could use an FTP for iDisk-like features. and the ability to host other people on your space (an opportunity to make money, an offset your costs) by hosting your friends with subdomains (yourfriends.yourname.com)

[t300]

Thanks flyfish29! If I get it, I will certainly refer you.

One more question...When did Apple release .mac and more importantly why? Were these things available seperately and Apple marketed them as a group, much like iLife or what?

[flyfish29]

Thanks flyfish29! If I get it, I will certainly refer you.

One more question...When did Apple release .mac and more importantly why? Were these things available seperately and Apple marketed them as a group, much like iLife or what?

Originally some of the features were online features and not build into the os per se. Don't remember the name of the program but didn't work well as far as I can tell. The backup which is thoughtless is awesome. I have all my appleworks, word, etc. documents backed up weekly automatically so I don't ever have to worry about losing data!

Mail has worked virtually flawlessly for me and it is my only email account now for 9 months. .Mac came out a couple of years ago and was rough from the start, but they have worked out most of the bugs.

I use homepage, mail, and backup the most. got some free photo software comparable to Photo elements from it last winter. still available I think. It has been awhile since they updated the .Mac offerings so I would expect they will do again soon There is a place where they list past offerings like dozens of free photo prints, free software, etc. These offers seem to be getting better all the time.

syncing the book marks is great too.

[JFreak]

i could imagine paying $5/year for 100MB online storage / backup space and absolutely nothing about the email system. for me the dotmac is severely overpriced. for that price i'd expect having UNLIMITED idisk space, and even then i'd think twice before i'd possibly buy it.

get real apple. a dollar a year a megabyte? maybe in the 80's, but not today.

[rdowns]

i could imagine paying $5/year for 100MB online storage / backup space and absolutely nothing about the email system. for me the dotmac is severely overpriced. for that price i'd expect having UNLIMITED idisk space, and even then i'd think twice before i'd possibly buy it.

get real apple. a dollar a year a megabyte? maybe in the 80's, but not today.

There's a lot more to .mac than the 100MB iDisk. For me, it's a good value. Aside of the storage space, the bookmark syncing is invaluable to me, being able to slap together a web site quickly (I hardly want to deal with web hosting and dicking around with some other more complicated solution), email account, Backup, the Quicktime trainings have been great for training my mother and father to use their Mac and a lot more. Here's what I've got since they launched:

$30 off FireWire drive - very happy with it
PhotoStudio software free- does the job for me
$30 off Keynote
Free Kodak prints
Virex
Cool jigsaw puzzle software
A few Apple Store coupons- only used 1

That's all I can think of at the moment.Formany, it provides an excellent value. Geez, it's a lousy 8 bucks a month or less.

[JFreak]

glad you're happy with your subscription, but i guess you also have wondered if the price could have been a lot smaller. after all, more than half of the value ($60) you mentioned were discounts of other purchases - and i got that same discount simply by not buying the dotmac! if more than half of the dotmac value is indeed in discounts, then the dotmac would be far better product if it only cost a fraction of the current price and not offer the discounts.

think about it.

apple charges you $99 for dotmac and says you can have $60 off from purchases in the apple store. that means you pay $39 for dotmac and pay $60 in advance for the other products you may or may not buy later - and that actually forces you psychologically to buy the products you have already paid for a little, making you give more money to apple. if dotmac would have cost you $39 and you would not have that $60 discount at hand, then you probably wouldn't even consider buying those items.

i know, that's the marketing point, and it works. my friend came to me some time ago and said how good deal he made by buying the dotmac for full price and getting the sims game for free. he thought that he had 50% off the dotmac price, but when i asked him was he planning on buying the game before he bought the dotmac, he said no and realized that the dotmac purchase forced him to purchase the game as well. because, as they say, there's no such thing as free lunch.

[TheT]

Before i start, read this (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=68221) :)
I am in my second year of membership right now, and I think I'll not renew. I have only one computer, so I don't need iSync to .Mac. Backups can be easly transfered to my iPod, so I don't need my iDisk for that. You can get free/cheap webspace at other places. Same goes for eMail. Most rebates are US-only, but I wouldn't use them anyways. The games are crap. Did I miss anything? The seemless integration with MacOS X is nice, but Apple is starting to think like Microsoft: "Let's put it in our OS, so people will only use our stuff. Oh, and we could charge them $99 for it!". If I was you, I'd wait if they introduce something that's really special.

[tristan]

Don't have it, don't miss it, don't see the value.

[aswitcher]

I am getting it with a new Mac.

The way I see it is that I'll see how well they develop it over the next 12 months for foreigners, and if they don't do much then I'll probably let it go.

For the time being it has value from all the quicktime vids for Panther and other iLife apps that will be good for me and my parents (they are getting a Mac as well when the new iMacs appear) so I dont have to run over to their place all the time to help them out.

[flyfish29]

think about it.

apple charges you $99 for dotmac and says you can have $60 off from purchases in the apple store. that means you pay $39 for dotmac and pay $60 in advance for the other products you may or may not buy later - and that actually forces you psychologically to buy the products you have already paid for a little, making you give more money to apple. if dotmac would have cost you $39 and you would not have that $60 discount at hand, then you probably wouldn't even consider buying those items.

i know, that's the marketing point, and it works. my friend came to me some time ago and said how good deal he made by buying the dotmac for full price and getting the sims game for free. he thought that he had 50% off the dotmac price, but when i asked him was he planning on buying the game before he bought the dotmac, he said no and realized that the dotmac purchase forced him to purchase the game as well. because, as they say, there's no such thing as free lunch.

Lets get real. I know quite a bit about marketing and I can tell you pretty confidently that Apple pays nothing for the .Mac deals they offer. Kodak gave .Mac members free prints to get them hooked into using Kodak (or who ever it was), the fire wire drive discount cost Apple nothing, etc. Virex would be the only thing they pay for I would think. The other free software is always linked somehow to another for purchase software...I think the photo one was free, but they were offering another title that did panoramic and other stuff for sale...the free puzzle thing got you to know a certain company so they could sell you other I think. this is marketing and most all marketing costs each individual user very very little if nothing. The major costs to all marketing is advertising and promotion, not products give aways. If things are bought, they are bought in bulk for next to nothing.

I would guess that they might be able to decrease .Mac by a few dollars at most if they didn't offer these things.

[flyfish29]

Before i start, read this (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=68221) :)
I am in my second year of membership right now, and I think I'll not renew. I have only one computer, so I don't need iSync to .Mac. Backups can be easly transfered to my iPod, so I don't need my iDisk for that. You can get free/cheap webspace at other places. Same goes for eMail. Most rebates are US-only, but I wouldn't use them anyways. The games are crap. Did I miss anything? The seemless integration with MacOS X is nice, but Apple is starting to think like Microsoft: "Let's put it in our OS, so people will only use our stuff. Oh, and we could charge them $99 for it!". If I was you, I'd wait if they introduce something that's really special.

I don't have two computers either :mad: but I enjoy having all my bookmarks synced online so when I am at any other computer mac or not I can use my own bookmarks from home. I like having my address book on line as well. I use homepage at least twice a month to post family pics for relatives. I use iDisk to backup (no iPod here :mad: ) I post iCal calendars for my wife to view at work, and .mac mail account which has worked flawlessly for me as my only account. It is not the best value unless you use quite a bit of it, but overall a decent value and getting better each year from what I can tell.

Oh yeah, I have used many of the free music and sound effects they offer in your iDisk folders for my iMovies...an often overlooked benefit!!!

[wrldwzrd89]

I don't have two computers either :mad: but I enjoy having all my bookmarks synced online so when I am at any other computer mac or not I can use my own bookmarks from home. I like having my address book on line as well. I use homepage at least twice a month to post family pics for relatives. I use iDisk to backup (no iPod here :mad: ) I post iCal calendars for my wife to view at work, and .mac mail account which has worked flawlessly for me as my only account. It is not the best value unless you use quite a bit of it, but overall a decent value and getting better each year from what I can tell.

Oh yeah, I have used many of the free music and sound effects they offer in your iDisk folders for my iMovies...an often overlooked benefit!!!
My favorite features are the Virex software, the Backup software, .Mac email, iDisk, and iSync to .Mac for when I'm on the go and want to access my bookmarks. I also use .Mac to publish my iCal calendar online for others to view. Don't forget that Apple provides software downloads through your iDisk, too. If you use all the Apple components like I do, .Mac makes a whole lot of sense.

[rdowns]

glad you're happy with your subscription, but i guess you also have wondered if the price could have been a lot smaller. after all, more than half of the value ($60) you mentioned were discounts of other purchases - and i got that same discount simply by not buying the dotmac! if more than half of the dotmac value is indeed in discounts, then the dotmac would be far better product if it only cost a fraction of the current price and not offer the discounts.

think about it.

apple charges you $99 for dotmac and says you can have $60 off from purchases in the apple store. that means you pay $39 for dotmac and pay $60 in advance for the other products you may or may not buy later - and that actually forces you psychologically to buy the products you have already paid for a little, making you give more money to apple. if dotmac would have cost you $39 and you would not have that $60 discount at hand, then you probably wouldn't even consider buying those items.

i know, that's the marketing point, and it works. my friend came to me some time ago and said how good deal he made by buying the dotmac for full price and getting the sims game for free. he thought that he had 50% off the dotmac price, but when i asked him was he planning on buying the game before he bought the dotmac, he said no and realized that the dotmac purchase forced him to purchase the game as well. because, as they say, there's no such thing as free lunch.

Sure it's marketing but I bought Keynote becasue I wanted/needed it, not becaseu I could get $30 off. I bought an external FireWire drive not becasue of a rebate but because I needed one for backup and to store music files. These rebates added value to ME. I would hardly buy something because Apple is offering a rebate.

[TheT]

My favorite features are the Virex software, the Backup software, .Mac email, iDisk, and iSync to .Mac for when I'm on the go and want to access my bookmarks. I also use .Mac to publish my iCal calendar online for others to view. Don't forget that Apple provides software downloads through your iDisk, too. If you use all the Apple components like I do, .Mac makes a whole lot of sense.
:eek: Someone who uses Virex! Wow, I never thought I'd meet someone ;)

[numediaman]

If you don't have your own web site, would like a new e-mail address, and need someplace to backup files, and don't think blowing $100 is a big deal -- go for it.

I have an old Earthlink account where a lot of e-mail heads. I am slowly getting rid of it, so I thought I'd try .mac for a year. Will I renew? I don't know. The marketing folk at Apple need to continue to push the advantages of .mac in order to convince me.

[t300]

Virex? Is it really needed? Do you use it often?

[TheT]

Virex? Is it really needed? Do you use it often?
No offense, wrldwzrd89, but IMHO, this software is the biggest crap ever developed. No true automatic scanning, it is painfully slow, the reports are helpless... this is defenately no reason to buy .Mac.

[JFreak]

Apple pays nothing for the .Mac deals they offer.

that just proves my point; apple decides to make profit from the discounts. for the customer it doesn't matter if apple pays or doesn't pay for the package it's selling, but the price the customer is paying ($99) can IN CUSTOMER'S POINT OF VIEW be split to $39 of dotmac and $60 of discounts, and even the $39 would be quite much for the package they are selling.

if apple marketing dept would really WANT to make dotmac sales aggressively grow - and if you indeed are correct about apple paying nothing about the discount deals - they would sell it for $49ish and advertise that the price includes membership discounts worth more than that. they would that way sell dotmac for almost every mac user out there.

so let's get real, dotmac offers nothing worth a hundred. keeping the price up apple chooses not to serve most of its user base. remember itools? when it was free (and i think apple did promise itools will stay free), it was widely used. now that it costs too much, only few actually use it. of course there are costs for apple in server maintenance and such, but a hundred a year is not reasonable. one can have full domain hosting for $50ish/year - that includes yourowndomain.com and much more online storage than idisk. and $10ish/year comes from the domain registration, so that in mind i might be quite close in saying that reasonable price for dotmac would be $39/year.

[realityisterror]

don't forget about the free spymac (http://www.spymac.com)!
They offer 1GB of POP email, 100MB SpyDisk, and other things for free! you lose some of the selling points of .mac such as iPhoto and iMovie integration. but the worst thing is that you lose that great iDisk integration... however it is free.

and you have ads on the top of your webpage (hosted from your SpyDisk)

reality

[TheT]

don't forget about the free spymac (http://www.spymac.com)!
They offer 1GB of POP email, 100MB SpyDisk, and other things for free! you lose some of the selling points of .mac such as iPhoto and iMovie integration. but the worst thing is that you lose that great iDisk integration... however it is free.

and you have ads on the top of your webpage (hosted from your SpyDisk)

reality
I didn't want to say that because I don't like Spymac, but I admit that I am a registered user a well. And you can get even more (250MB) ad-free web space for just a couple of bucks per month... a fragment of what Apple charges you. iPhoto integration? Spymac has a great gallery system for that; if someone doesn't like it, he can probably design his own pages. iMovie? Export that movie, put it on your webspace, done.

[JFreak]

you lose some of the selling points of .mac such as iDisk integration...

yep. that's THE major selling point of dotmac, along with isync capabilities. dotmac idisk is just too small for that price.

i have a linux server online and can easily put in few hundred gigabytes of storage for the price of one year dotmac subscription, but i can't currently use those gigabytes as idisk (because i haven't so far had the time to figure out how to config the webdav). for now i access the storage space via (s)ftp, but idisk would just be so much easier.

apple promised itools would stay free. they just forgot to promise itools would stay online ;)

[flyfish29]

that just proves my point; apple decides to make profit from the discounts. for the customer it doesn't matter if apple pays or doesn't pay for the package it's selling, but the price the customer is paying ($99) can IN CUSTOMER'S POINT OF VIEW be split to $39 of dotmac and $60 of discounts, and even the $39 would be quite much for the package they are selling.

if apple marketing dept would really WANT to make dotmac sales aggressively grow - and if you indeed are correct about apple paying nothing about the discount deals - they would sell it for $49ish and advertise that the price includes membership discounts worth more than that. they would that way sell dotmac for almost every mac user out there.

so let's get real, dotmac offers nothing worth a hundred. keeping the price up apple chooses not to serve most of its user base. remember itools? when it was free (and i think apple did promise itools will stay free), it was widely used. now that it costs too much, only few actually use it. of course there are costs for apple in server maintenance and such, but a hundred a year is not reasonable. one can have full domain hosting for $50ish/year - that includes yourowndomain.com and much more online storage than idisk. and $10ish/year comes from the domain registration, so that in mind i might be quite close in saying that reasonable price for dotmac would be $39/year.

HOW DARE APPLE TRY TO MAKE A PROFIT OFF OF SOMETHING THAT TAKES SOME OF THEIR RESOURCES AND TIME TO CREATE AND UPKEEP! The nerve of them. :D

This may be your opinion and you are more than entitled, but there have been many more than have said it IS worth it to them. I have never tried to say it is for everyone and never will. I don't see anyone else saying that either. Everyone has different needs and don't try to tell others what their needs are and if something is worth it. That is what the marketplace is for. If it is overpriced it won't sell and they would either need to lower the price or raise the value, convience or product offering. So far I have paid only $69 for my first year, am aready looking at less than that with discounts for referrals for next year and even if I had to pay the $100 I would be more than happy right now to continue as I love the email and the CONVIENCE and EASE OF USE of .Mac tools. Remember, Apple prides itself on these two fact with their computers and that is why they tend to go for a little more of a premium...people are willing to pay for them. If you are so down on Apple them move on.

There are two different marketing methods going on right now with .Mac and spymac. spymac is trying for bulk, but limited services. .Mac is a premium service. There is a market for both, and if there wasn't then one would leave the marketplace or have to change. Free market. Great system...most of the time.

Costs for apple would include designe, printing and packaging for the .Mac boxes, development of backup, sync, ability to post iCal calendars though iCal software, Virex software, home page space and someone to make all the templates for it, idisk space, mail servers, people to coordinate all this (not only their salaries but benefits and office space too) as well as many other costs. Get over the fact that they are not offeing it for free. BUy it or don't. but don't tell other not to buy. INstead tell them why YOU are not buying and have them decide for themselves if it is worth it to them.

[flyfish29]

i have a linux server online and can easily put in few hundred gigabytes of storage for the price of one year dotmac subscription, but i can't currently use those gigabytes as idisk (because i haven't so far had the time to figure out how to config the webdav). for now i access the storage space via (s)ftp, but idisk would just be so much easier.

apple promised itools would stay free. they just forgot to promise itools would stay online ;)

I never remember hearing that iTools would be free forever. I don't see the benefit of a company making a claim like that anyway.

wow, you can't figure out your server yet...guess that takes time and time is money now a days huh. :D

You also say that you could easily put a few hundred gigabytes of storage for the price of a .Mac subscription...well are you also for that price of .Mac able to support my email account, provide me with proprietary software for syncing bookmarks, address books, homepages, iCal calendars, public folders with password protection, and able to offer me free or discounted products like free photo prints, free photo software, etc. I doubt it.

[denm316]

I bought .Mac when I originally bought my iBook, I also have a PowerMac and I dont really care all that much about syncing both machines. My favorite part is the hoepage for iPhoto and iMovie. It works great when I take a bunch of photos at a party or something, come home plug in the camera, import to iPhoto and then click homepage.

I know how to do web pages, this just makes it easier so that all my friends can see the photos. The price for the service is high but it makes my life a little easier, which is the whole point of my Apple computers.

[trianglejuice]

I think .Mac is great! I first used the free iTools version, and now I don't regret that I pay $100,00 a year.

This is why I use .Mac:

- It syncs everything! Three monthgs ago, my girlfriend spilled Coke on my iBook G4 and the hard disk data was totally lost. BUT: with .Mac I still had all my Safari Bookmarks and my iCal Calenders.

- Since that incident, I immediately downloaded Backup, which let me backup my most important data. Backup isn't for free when you aren't a .Mac subscriber (and it's really better than all those freeware backup apps).

- When you have movies you want to publish on your .Mac, iMovie provides the best compressing for it (you just have to choose ".Mac" from the compress menu; no further preferences (which can be difficult for video editing newbies).

- When you want to publish your photos from iPhoto, .Mac is also a handy tool.

- And finally... every x months you get free stuff via the .Mac main page. Cool games, tutorials for Apple apps (personally I don't need these, but they might help other people).

It's really worth your $100,00!
TriangleJuice.

[t300]

Riddle me this...

iSync...Would I use this if I wanted to sync my calendar, contacts, etc. with my cell and my Palm, or is that something entirely different?

[TheT]

Riddle me this...

iSync...Would I use this if I wanted to sync my calendar, contacts, etc. with my cell and my Palm, or is that something entirely different?
Yes, that is iSync. :) But you can additionally use it to sync two computers via .Mac...
Cell is free, for the two (or more) Mac-syncing you need to pay for .Mac.

[TheT]

How many people bought it? Is it worth it? I am getting my PB in a few weeks and am not sure if .Mac would be worth investing in right off the bat? What are some of your favorite features and what are some of them that totally justify the price for you?
BUy it or don't. but don't tell other not to buy. INstead tell them why YOU are not buying and have them decide for themselves if it is worth it to them.
You know, if someone asks me what others think, he probably wants to know what others think. Still following me? Good, because I think I just stated my opinion and t300 is smart enough to decide whether he'll buy or not. :rolleyes:

[rinseout]

One thing I've always wondered about .mac is how secure it is. I'd love some of the features it provides like iDisk and whatever, but really don't like the idea of unencrypted personal files sitting around on Apple's (or anybody's) servers. Is there any kind of encryption to ensure that only the .mac subscriber is the one able to read non-public files? Or are the files stored unencrypted, with only password protection?

I'm sure Apple's servers are as hardened against attack as possible, but I'm wondering if they were ever compromised (from within or without) whether the data I stored over there would be safe. Any answers?

[realityisterror]

apple promised itools would stay free.

that's probably exactly why they had to change the name... unfortunately i was still in the medieval times (aka windows) in the itools era...

reality

[flyfish29]

You know, if someone asks me what others think, he probably wants to know what others think. Still following me? Good, because I think I just stated my opinion and t300 is smart enough to decide whether he'll buy or not. :rolleyes:

If you look at my quote in my post it was not directed in any way towards you TheT...you did just state your opinions and very well based on your expereinces...JFreak was quoted in my post that had the comment about not making judgements about .Mac for others.

[TheT]

If you look at my quote in my post it was not directed in any way towards you TheT...you did just state your opinions and very well based on your expereinces...JFreak was quoted in my post that had the comment about not making judgements about .Mac for others.
Well, I got that wrong I guess :)