More .Mac Incentives...

[MacRumors]

Beyond the Referral Bonuses (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/07/20030702020213.shtml) to increase signups to .Mac, MacMinute.com (http://www.macminute.com/2003/07/02/macgifts) reports that Apple is also providing some extra incentives for current subscribers to renew for the next year.

Your choice of (one of) three free gifts (http://www.mac.com/1/renew.html) is being offered.

- The Sims ($49.95 Retail Value)
- EverQuest ($49.95 Retail Value)
- $20 off your Next Purchase of More than $20 at the online Apple Store

[iJon]

come one apple, is that the best of games you could do. you give the old game sims away. or you can the game that is useless to you without a subscribtion.

iJon

[8thDegreeSavage]

Yes those games are total kife, I suppose Apple cant sell them, and needs to shed some stock.

[Mudbug]

well, the inclusion of UT2K3 might be a little more of a draw than these titles, but I'm sure they've got their reasons.

[Nebrie]

Apple was able to get those titles for cheap because any new sales wouldn't eat into potential sales like UT would.

[mymemory]

I couldn't care less:D

RT

[Veldek]

And why does Apple give away games for almost 50$, but just a rebate for 20$. Ok, it's probably their value for this, but I think the three choices should be equal.

[ozubahn]

I expect Apple will get a good deal more desperate as the renewal time approaches. I'll wait. With all the email issues lately, I'm not feeling as charitable about .Mac as I used to. It may be worth the $50 I paid last year, but $100 is a little steep.

[Freg3000]

Originally posted by Veldek
And why does Apple give away games for almost 50$, but just a rebate for 20$. Ok, it's probably their value for this, but I think the three choices should be equal.

The REAL value of these games is closer to $20, although they sell at $50 according to Apple. So they kinda are equal in a way.

Originally posted by ozubahn
It may be worth the $50 I paid last year, but $100 is a little steep.

Yes, that is a big difference. $50 vs. $100. I am still thinking about signing up again.

Even thought these first two efforts by Apple to get me to renew have been lackluster, I hope they keep spewing them out, as one is bound to be good. :)

[BWhaler]

Apple should fix .Mac before I will think about renewing. Backup to iDisk does not work for mail. Mail is sporadic.

100 bucks for everything is probably a fair deal. It becomes a rip-off when Apple cannot provide a quality service as promised.

[providence]

I run my business email via .Mac but with all the trouble I've been having I'm moving it to my DSL carrier and to AOL.

They are much more reliable!

I can understand an outage once in a while but not being able to send or receive mail for a couple days when your paying 500 an hour in a post house.

Jesus, hotmail works better!

Providence

[DreaminDirector]

I wonder if I get the Sims I can go to the store and return it for something better. The title is 50 bucks.

Why don't they just knock off 50 bucks? I'd rather have that than pay 100 bucks and have a lackluster game....

[arnette]

Originally posted by mymemory
I couldn't care less:D

RT

THANK YOU for someone finally getting that phrase right.


And for the rest of you.... frickin' proofread!!! For the love of GOD!!

[MhzDoesMatter]

Here's a tip. Don't expect it to work. That's how I get the best service from .Mac. I make it clear that I don't expect much from the service and that I think it's a complete waste of money. That way, it works extra hard to prove me wrong. Proof: I have never been affected by these .Mac outages. No matter what. And I think my iDisk is stealing space, adding only 1MB a day so not to arouse suspicion. Eh, but I'm not sure. Ask when exams are over.

-Hertz

So tired and sleep deprived that I actually believed I could TiVo the world and wake up old and rich..... Will be better soon..... BizSchool is where optimists go to commit suicide.

[noverflow]

Originally posted by arnette
[B]THANK YOU for someone finally getting that phrase right.

Seriously, that is one of my major pet peeves. "i could care less" Meaning you do care, and you have the ability to care less than you currently do.

I could not care less = You lack the ability to care any less than you currently do.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by noverflow
Seriously, that is one of my major pet peeves. "i could care less" Meaning you do care, and you have the ability to care less than you currently do.

I could not care less = You lack the ability to care any less than you currently do.


How about my enthusiasm for this promotion is lower then whale ****.

[dobbin]

Originally posted by arnette
THANK YOU for someone finally getting that phrase right.


I find this strange too - using a phrase to mean something that is actually the complete opposite! There is a thread on it here (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30538).

Back on topic, I will probably renew just for the ease of having .mac. I don't think I get $100 worth but I do really like it. Last year I resented paying the $50 but I now think that is actually a fair price. I wonder if I can use the $20 rebate at the UK Apple Store. I don't understand why Apple still only sells .mac is $$$ rather than £££. I think its just a lazy or under-resourced sales team. I guess they're trying to squeeze as much profit as possible from this.

[iJed]

I payed the $50 price for my .Mac last year and simply have no intention of paying $100 this year. I was willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt last year but, since next to nothing has really happened to .Mac, I'm just going to get an account with a proper web-space provider. One that can offer me good PHP/MySQL support or JSP.

Also if this forum represents the general reaction of Mac users then .Mac is finished.

[jayscheuerle]

Gee, is Apple starting to realize that maybe .Mac is...

ONLY WORTH $50!!!

I had it when it was free and don't miss it now that it's been gone.

[morlium]

Originally posted by arnette
THANK YOU for someone finally getting that phrase right.


And for the rest of you.... frickin' proofread!!! For the love of GOD!!

For all "intensive purposes" .... that's another one that drives me nuts!

[Jerry Spoon]

I think I'd pay $100 if they gave away another $50 worth of iPhoto prints. I used those and basically felt like I got .mac for free. Now I'd feel like I paid just $50 for it, which I'm willing to do.

By the way, my mother always says "That's part for the course." which I believe should be "That's par for the course" as in golf. What that means, I don't know. Can anyone shed some light?

EDIT: Found out the meaning here if anyone's interested: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/MED-Magazine/Sample-Issue/01-language-awareness-pragmatics-UK.htm
Guess I never bothered to look before.

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by morlium
For all "intensive purposes" .... that's another one that drives me nuts!

Yeah, isn't is supposed to be "For all in tents and porpoises", meaning for those who are not in the know?

:rolleyes:

FYI (I'm being facetious)!

[bbarnhart]

There is no way that this service is work $100. You don't get even half what you get from a real host provider and I don't think that the iApps that use .Mac are valuable enough to make up for these short comings. And, to top it all off, the service has been intermittent and slow.

[jayscheuerle]

In all fairness, I can say it's not worth $100 to me (or even $50) and you can say so as well, but if someone thinks it's a good deal for them, then bless them for putting money in Apple's pocket to pay for R&D and Steve's $10 million in perks each year...

[Sonofhaig]

Originally posted by BWhaler
Apple should fix .Mac before I will think about renewing. Backup to iDisk does not work for mail. Mail is sporadic.

100 bucks for everything is probably a fair deal. It becomes a rip-off when Apple cannot provide a quality service as promised.

I'm always surprised to hear that some folks are having problems.
I think the service has been great. I've never had a problem with any
of the .mac services. I must be one of the lucky ones.

[Sonofhaig]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
Yeah, isn't is supposed to be "For all in tents and porpoises", meaning for those who are not in the know?

:rolleyes:

Actually its..... "to / for all intents and purposes"

This cliche (meaning "practically") is a shortening of the legal
phrase "to all intents, constructions, and purposes" (found in an
act adopted under Henry VIII in 1547). The corruption "for all
intensive purposes" is frequently reported.

[snahabed]

I also am disappointed at the lack of development with .mac.

The service is reliable enough for me, and I like having it, but I was under the impression that there were going to be cool new things added to it throughout the year. All their freebies mean nothing to me since I don't play games or print iPhotos.

I have really been hoping there would be at least one new killer .mac service to get me to renew.

[iJon]

Originally posted by DreaminDirector
I wonder if I get the Sims I can go to the store and return it for something better. The title is 50 bucks.

Why don't they just knock off 50 bucks? I'd rather have that than pay 100 bucks and have a lackluster game....
no because i bet you anything apple will send it to you in a brown NFR envelope with no pretty box. maybe on ebay you could.

iJon

[kishba]

i've been having horrible issues with the webmail system... it was the webmail system that convinced me to spend $50 for the first year. if i could login and check email without being logged out, i'd subscribe for the next year.

everquest is a good deal, though :-p

[iLilana]

Originally posted by iJon
no because i bet you anything apple will send it to you in a brown NFR envelope with no pretty box. maybe on ebay you could.

iJon

Keeping in mind, the cost of these games for apple are next to nothing.

Evercrack is NOT worth 50 (canadian) and Sims is worth 25 (Cdn) new at the best of times. Most game retailers stock them both for a significantly reduced price because they are OLD.

.Mac was worth it when it was free but its something I will never pay for. Its why I have a cd burner. As far as webspace goes I have apache. .Mac is .Useless.

[kosibar]

Originally posted by arnette
THANK YOU for someone finally getting that phrase right.


And for the rest of you.... frickin' proofread!!! For the love of GOD!!

I thought I was the only one driven crazy by people saying that they could care less when they really mean that they couldn't. I guess most people don't think about the meaning of what they're saying.

For those who are without a clue... if you COULD care less, then you must care at least a little bit. If you didn't care at all, then you couldn't care less. So by saying, "I could care less," you are telling me that you do care.

Drives me nuts.

Rich

[DreaminDirector]

Well, I glad to heard that there are others out there that thought .Mac was going to get many more features this past year. I could swear that something was said like "This is only the beginning of many new features to come" when I bought into it. Does anyone else find that the most of the little perks were crap (Jag-wire training?!?! What the hell am I going to do with that?!).

I dunno. If Apple doesn't pull out something extraordinary at the last minute, I highly doubt I'm going to buy in again. It's almost worth the hassle of changing email addresses and/or getting a real web server....

[kenaustus]

I've been using my .mac e-mail address for limited business purposes, plus close friends - leaving the old address for junk mail and secondary contacts. Going into Mail is a hell of a lot better for me than the AOL alternative. (Got AOL when I started traveling international on business and needed a local dial up account in Australia and the UK - .mac shines in comparison!)

I'll use the $20 when 10.3 comes out as I have a feeling that is where the .mac improvements will be - especially in iDisk. Steve J also indicated a significant improvement in mail under Panther so I'm going to give it a try.

[jocknerd]

$50 for .mac was marginally acceptable. But $100? Forget it. Too many times where I couldn't get my email. No features that are worth the $100.

Lets see, Apple wants me to spend $129 on Panther and $100 on .mac when just 10 months ago I spent $129 on Jaguar and $50 on .mac?

How the hell can I afford the G5 if I keep paying for these yearly dues?

[jayscheuerle]

Seems to me that last year a lot more people were fawning over .Mac and all it was going to offer. Apple had bribed them with $50 worth of prints or whatever and they wanted the convenience of carrying over their free mail accounts.

Now they're not so sure they got their $50 worth and are absolutely sure they didn't get $100 worth.

This year's bribes aren't up to snuff, are they?

Go ahead, buy into .Crap. It's your money.

It will either rise to be worth $100 or the price will drop to $50 because it hasn't been even remotely successful.

Heck, I'll even bet that the iTunes store drops their per track price to 79¢.

[goofbutt]

What do you mean Macminute.com reported this, I brought it up in a post the other day. Oh well. The only thing that would make me renew my .mac account is the ability to change the reply-to address in web mail. I have 1 email address and I don't need any more.

[OnaMacSince1989]

I don't blame Apple for no longer giving away .mac email addreses for free anymore, but $100 a year is pretty steep for the average Joe to pay on top of regular ISP charges. I like having the .mac address, and have used a few of the .mac services - like the free games downloads and the OSX training videos, but I don't really have any need for iDisk or most of the other services. I've not had any problems with the email and have used it for a year - in fact, I loved how all my older saved emails automatically loaded up to my new eMac the first time I logged in. I think $49 a year would be a fairer price more reflective of the service's true value. But hey, we've all gotten used to paying more for Apple products over the years...I guess if you average it out by factoring in the Free iLife applications, I'm happy to give Apple a little more money to help keep their R&D operations running at full speed!:rolleyes:

[peterjhill]

I haven't received this offer. I turned off auto-renew to see if I can get it. I was going to renew anyway, and would sure appreciate a free game.

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by iLilana
Evercrack is NOT worth 50 (canadian)...

Mac EQ contains the original game plus 4 expansion packs and one month of free play. It also comes on a DVD - the version you'll buy in the stores does not. If you're at all interested in EverQuest, this is the best way to get it.

[leicaman]

Originally posted by morlium
For all "intensive purposes" .... that's another one that drives me nuts!

Or how about songs:

Remember that oldie goldie from Creedence Clearwater Revival: "There's a bathroom on the right?"

I could care less, but it would be difficult.

:D

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by leicaman
I could care less, but it would be difficult.

:D

My personal line is:

I could care less, but I'd have to change some laws of physics to do so....

[SwitchMonkey]

The only reason i'd host my pages on .MAC is if I got confirmation that those pages were served up by the Akamai network. If that was the case, $100 a year is a bargain for fairly heavy traffic'd sites.

But if .MAC doesn't use Akamai, then it's just another hohum, over price service, duplicating many free ones.

I think APPLE should hype AKAMAI or chop their fees.

I would pay MAX $49 a year, but NEVER $99. .MAC is just not compelling enough.

[billyboy]

The email I got from Apple with this $20 discount sounded like it only applied if I was more than 31 days to re-signing time. If I get the $20 off by letting my trial account die and opening a new $100 account then fire the marketing guru making life too complicated for someone who would like to continue with the current address. If I missed something in translation please put me right.

I would like to help Apple spread the word of a service that has worked faultlessly for me - albeit after two complete reinstallations to clear out $$it accumulated from 2 freebie trials.

[kevin73]

I paid $99 for .mac for a few reasons. #1 was for backups of my calendar, contacts, and preference files. This is worth about, oh, $15. Virex is worth about $30. The webspace is worthless to me, as is iDisk (except for the backups). So I'm using about $50 worth of what I paid for, and I probably won't renew. Instead, I'll get a cheap DLT drive off of Ebay for $200 and use DLT tapes to backup my data.... Unless they drop the price to $49.

[cyberddot]

Originally posted by arnette:

THANK YOU for someone finally getting that phrase right.

Irregardless of how you say it, .Mac and a deal on "game" software could be considered a double-negative.

As with the above, .Mac has actually made its (not it's) way into some English language dictionaries.

.Mac adj. (dot' mac') - Lacking many positive or constructive features.

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by kevin73
Virex is worth about $30.

Has it ever caught anything?

Mac virus's are so rare that I end up turning virus apps off because of the delay they cause.

[kevin73]

actually, yes it has caught a few things. Nothing that would harm my mac, but windoze email viruses that helped me alert a friend who is still in windoze-land so she could get her machine cleaned up. I've also gotten junkmail with virii attached to them as well, but nothing that would harm my mac. But my home network has an XP and a 2000 machine on it, so I have to keep a "sterile" environment so nothing happens to those machines (even though they are primarily used for games and work)

[zim]

I know that I will be renewing, simply because I have been fortunate to have never had any major problems with my account or I should say any more problems then I have had with my ISP, att now comcast.

I would like to see them offer the 100 free prints offer again, them even mentioning it in the renewal perk as a past offer is just is wrong because it reminds me that I got something more in the past.. who needs a game?... What would have been an even better perk is, 100 free songs from iTMS or even the repeat of the 100 prints offer, something more practical then a game, did I mention the free prints idea? I just think that the games are silly and not worth the offer, too bad the 20 bucks could not be used with iTMS or even iPhoto, or could it... humm either way I will be renewing just because it has been good to me.... There are others in the household that have the email only option, so we will be splitting the fee.

[D*I*S_Frontman]

Hey--

The "Holy Place" from the Tabernacle from the Old Testament was said to be covered with porpoise hide. That would make it a tent of porpoises, right?

Would that mean the expression "for all in tents of porpoises" refers to Levites? So would a phrase like "for all in tents of porpoises, x is true" mean x is true from the perspective of Hebrew priests?

Just asking. I'm sure you all couldn't care less...

[leicaman]

Originally posted by cyberddot
Originally posted by arnette:



Irregardless of how you say it, .Mac and a deal on "game" software could be considered a double-negative.


That would mean WITH regard.:D