.Mac Subscriptions Extended

[arn]

Apple has offered an incentive for users to join .Mac earlier:

As a former iTools member, now when you convert from a trial to a paid .Mac membership before September 30, 2002, your first year of .Mac membership will automatically be extended to September 30, 2003.

[skunk]

Is this retrospective?

[arn]

Originally posted by skunk
Is this retrospective?

yes. (I updated the main page article)

[skunk]

Thanks, Arn.:)

[iJed]

I don't see how this is going to make anyone anymore interested in joining .Mac. All most of us care about is an email address and we are not ever going to pay $50/$100 for something that was free before.

[dotcomlarry]

I think the word you want is "retroactive"

[MikeH]

Are they still charging for the iTools e-mail addresses?

I thought they were letting people keep those after the bad responce Apple initially received - or have I got it all wrong?

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by MikeH
Are they still charging for the iTools e-mail addresses?

I thought they were letting people keep those after the bad responce Apple initially received - or have I got it all wrong?

You get to keep the address for free, but you lose the account (no e-mail). Just like if you quit AOL. The address is "yours for life", but the account is something that needs paying for...

[MikeH]

Thanks for the reply jayscheuerle.

No thanks to Apple...

[mangis]

this means that I get two free months of usage on my .mac account.

I am happy about this, but i would rather have $20 off of jaguar. The .mac seems like a good idea to me.

[skunk]

Retrospective, a: Of, in, proceeding by, retrospection; (of statutes etc.) not restricted to the future, licensing or punishing etc. past actions, having application to the past, retroactive (OED)

[Zaren]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle


You get to keep the address for free, but you lose the account (no e-mail). Just like if you quit AOL. The address is "yours for life", but the account is something that needs paying for...

A very accurate, while disappointing, statement... the devil being in the details, and all...

[skunk]

Why on earth don't they just make the $49 the annual rate?

[groovebuster]

... .mac sells so bad that they have to offer "specials" already! :D

I bet in a year they will

a) make it a free service again

or

b) .mac will be history.

It just doesn't work out for Apple, no matter what they'll do. Apple users may be fanatics and sometimes biased in their opinion about Macs <=> PCs, but they are not stupid.

groovebuster

[jayscheuerle]

Unfortunately for those of us who wish we'd get a free email account, those days are gone. Though Apple may rethink their pricing, .Mac made more money than iTools ever did the moment the first person signed up, so why would Apple ever want to go back to free?

Public image and publicity are possible motivations. It seems that Apple has gotten a lot of negative reaction to the value/pricing of .Mac services (bad thing). Having "mac.com" was subtle advertising on the end of a lot of free email accounts (good thing).

Extending the subscriptions is only doing what they should have done in the first place. It will give them a better idea as to the upgrade percentage instead of getting slammed on 9/30.

Personally, I'm undecided and very lazy. It's really a matter of whether I want to inform everyone that I'm changing email addresses, figuring out how much I use my iDisk, deciding how convenient HomePage and having a place for my website is, and speculating on the upcoming changes of .Mac.

It's lazy versus practical. I'm guessing I'll make up my mind somewhere around September 30th....

[woodsey]

Its one extra month!

This is insulting!

Are we that stupid that we all rush to join up because they are offering us 1 month longer?

If they offered and extra year, then (maybe) i would consider paying 100 bucks for two years. Even though my email address brobably only costs them 5 cents per year to manage at the moment.

[zedwards]

Yeah, thats just what apple is thinking. I cant wait til Sept 30 to nab an additional account of the username I REALLY want. :cool:

Oh yeah, and i found this:

Email-Only Accounts
You can purchase up to 10 additional email-only accounts. These Mac.com Email accounts contain the following:
-5MB of storage on Apple's servers
-Access from both the web and most email clients
-Support for both POP and IMAP
-Account auto-reply and forwarding
-Ability to add text email signature
-ISP independence
-No advertisements

[peterjhill]

I joined in the beginning of August, and am happy to get the extra two months. Maybe apple is listening to macrumors.com.

First they (half assed) bring out the family 5 pack
next they extend .mac service for an extra two months or more.

I remember someone asking why someone would join right away, instead of waiting till the end of the trial period, to get the extra months, and this is just what apple did. I think it is a pretty cool thing.

Most likely apple is doing all this to try to avoid potential lawsuits or to help curb customer complaints. They should have done this in the beginning, if they wanted to convert as many people as possible in the quickest amount of time. It gives people less reason to complain or to wait.

[jrbohorquezg]

I just wanted to say that even though at first I thoguht it would not, .Mac has resulted to be pretty valuable.

[drastik]

.mac is actually a very good value, anyway you look at it. For those of you who just want free email, go to yahoo and look at the ads all day, that's how they get paid. .mac doesn't have ads. For those who want srongly integrated web services, use .mac, its a steal.

For those who haven't noticed, web space is actually increasing in price.

My host charges $9.99 a month (more than .mac) I get a few emails and 500 mgs of space. Now that's more than .mac gives, but it costs more too. I don't get tight integration and automatic uploads from the desktop. I use fetch, which is funtional, but nothing like .mac's integration. You can buy doman names and forward them to .mac accounts.

Now, .mac is 99$ a yar for full price. I see hosting ads now that offer 50 megs of space, restricted bandwidth, and no doman registration for $8.95 a month ($107.40 a year) plus a $40 set up fee (one time.)

Face it, .mac is a good deal for the services you get. There is no more free email anywhere. even free services make you see ads which are apying for it.

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by jrbohorquezg
I just wanted to say that even though at first I thoguht it would not, .Mac has resulted to be pretty valuable.

Care to explain how it's more valuable now than when it was free?

Is it the 15 megs of spam you can hold onto forever or the 100 megs of virtual disk-space you can upload over a weekend on a dial-up connection? Perhaps the Virus software Macs have never needed?

What made you change your mind?

[ImAlwaysRight]

When I got that email from Apple I was sooooo excited that I immediately signed up for .Mac! Yeah! Woo-hooo! What a deal! A whole extra month for FREE! Now you're talking.

(At least, that's how Apple is hoping users will respond. And, I'm sure, some will...)

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
...or the 100 megs of virtual disk-space you can upload over a weekend on a dial-up connection?
Not all of us are stuck on dial-up, iDisk speeds on my 1024k downstream, 256k upstream line are very good and make the iDisk a practical way to share documents between home and work.

[macsurfer]

I don't think .mac email should be free. I DO think they should allow a .mac email ONLY *subscription*. 24.95 or something per year, for .mac IMAP email. I would definitely pay for that. People who think they should keep the email account for *free* are living in a dream world.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by macsurfer
People who think they should keep the email account for *free* are living in a dream world.
Not really, hotmail is still FREE, has millions of users, and I can't see that ever changing.

[Gus]

Originally posted by zedwards
Oh yeah, and i found this:

Email-Only Accounts
You can purchase up to 10 additional email-only accounts. These Mac.com Email accounts contain the following:
-5MB of storage on Apple's servers
-Access from both the web and most email clients
-Support for both POP and IMAP
-Account auto-reply and forwarding
-Ability to add text email signature
-ISP independence
-No advertisements

What advertisements? Is this something that is happening now? I don't get it.
Gus

[skunk]

No ads as in Yahoo etc, I guess...

[peterjhill]

Originally posted by verbose101

Not really, hotmail is still FREE, has millions of users, and I can't see that ever changing.

yes, but it is not free imap access to that email. I don't want to use a web browser to access my email. I want to pick from all the MTAs available out there, and pick the one that is right for me.

[BobVB]

Originally posted by zedwards
Yeah, thats just what apple is thinking. I cant wait til Sept 30 to nab an additional account of the username I REALLY want. :cool:) If you are thinking you can get an address someone else had then you're going to be disappointed. Apple has already said they will not be re-issuing any account names, probably for the obvious email security reasons that would cause.

[skunk]

I think perhaps that's not what he meant....:rolleyes:

[mox358]

Originally posted by verbose101

Not really, hotmail is still FREE, has millions of users, and I can't see that ever changing.

I can see Hotmail going to a subscription route (tied in with dot-net) and not being free. I'm not sure how much bandwidth gets paid for by all the ads, but not even MS can keep eating those costs forever, or atleast they won't, they are the original money hungry greedy computer company. :D I think the entire MS landscape will change when .Net arrives, and I can see hotmail and msn being rolled into .Net.

Of course, thats a long time away since MS themselves are still unsure of what .Net actually is.

[mgroup]

Does anyone know how I can sign up for the.MAC without using a credit card?

[skunk]

I think they're selling boxed .Mac packs at AppleStores. Cash is good...

[macsurfer]

Originally posted by verbose101

Not really, hotmail is still FREE, has millions of users, and I can't see that ever changing.

Is Hotmail IMAP? NO. Does Hotmail synchronize between your mail app on your computer and the web interface? NO. Do you get inundated with SPAM on Hotmail? YES. Do banner ads run in your Hotmail account?. YES. Do banner ads run in your .mac email account web interface? NO.

Pray tell, how does Hotmail even BEGIN to compare with the outstanding product that is .mac email? It's not even CLOSE.

[Gelfin]

Originally posted by verbose101
Not really, hotmail is still FREE, has millions of users, and I can't see that ever changing.

Microsoft also has enough liquid cash lying around to run such a service probably for a few hundred years before they started to feel the pinch. Most companies (including Apple) don't have that luxury.

My response to that is, if Hotmail gives you what you're looking for, then what are you complaining about? Use Hotmail.

[drastik]

I find it hard top believe that everyone is complaining about an email address. I'm sorry you're too lazy to change yours, thats what adress books are for, anyway.

You want unfair, I used to have a free email account, it was great, but they shutdown, whole thing is gone, mail locked in there, or so I thought.

Meanwhile, I recently recieved a forwarded email from a friend I have who's traveling in India right now. I noticed in the address list that he had this old address of mine still listed. I wrote him and asked, and lo and behold, they are not being sent back to him. Those emails are going somewhere, and I can't get to them.

That just sucks.

[zimv20]

Originally posted by verbose101

Not really, hotmail is still FREE, has millions of users, and I can't see that ever changing.

most emails that bounce back to me are from hotmail: "Mailbox full." full of spam, no doubt.

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by drastik

Meanwhile, I recently recieved a forwarded email from a friend I have who's traveling in India right now. I noticed in the address list that he had this old address of mine still listed. I wrote him and asked, and lo and behold, they are not being sent back to him. Those emails are going somewhere, and I can't get to them.

That is pretty crappy, sorry to hear that.

But just to chime in here, if the price of a .mac account was $20/year or maybe even $25, I might go and get it. I don't use it for email anyway, its just very convenient for working with iPhoto. When I have some images I want to share, they go directly up to the iTools folder. And I know I can export html, which is what I'll have to when I load it up to my home page now. Its just not as simple.

It basically boils down to how much I would pay for that convenience - $100 is way too much.

D

[gotohamish]

Hi

having never used the Homepage feature, can it be used to serve all web pages - ie the ones i make in Dremaweaver, or do you have to use the Homepage feature on the website?

Cheers
Hamish

[zimv20]

Originally posted by gotohamish
Hi

having never used the Homepage feature, can it be used to serve all web pages - ie the ones i make in Dremaweaver, or do you have to use the Homepage feature on the website?


in itools, using Homepage Builder was optional. there was a way for you to dump pre-existing html et. al. up there.

i can't imagine them changing that.

[gotohamish]

Originally posted by zimv20


in itools, using Homepage Builder was optional. there was a way for you to dump pre-existing html et. al. up there.

i can't imagine them changing that.

What? is it not anymore? Do you remember the way to do it! Much appreciated.

Hamish

[edesignuk]

For anyone who hasn't allready got the mail (I only JUST recieved mine), this is what your waiting for...

[zimv20]

Originally posted by gotohamish


What? is it not anymore? Do you remember the way to do it! Much appreciated.


disclaimer 1: this is from memory
disclaimer 2: i never tried this
disclaimer 3: i was born in indiana

don't bother w/ homepage. go straight to idisk. once it's mounted, browse around and you'll see where it sticks the homepage. just copy your .html et. al. into the right spot.

[onemoof]

I just got Mac OS X 10.2 (installed on my Dual 867), it comes with a 60 day trial of .Mac. I assume this will also come with the 10.2 boxed version, but I'm not sure.

[eric_n_dfw]

Originally posted by drastik
...You can buy doman names and forward them to .mac accounts.
You can? How?
I didn't think .mac supported domain hosting.

Are you talking about another server just forwarding the browser to the homepage site? If so, what would end up showing in the browser's URL field? Your domain name or the homepage.mac.com one?

[MacArtist]

Originally posted by gotohamish
Hi

having never used the Homepage feature, can it be used to serve all web pages - ie the ones i make in Dremaweaver, or do you have to use the Homepage feature on the website?

Cheers
Hamish

You can use any web editor you want. Homepage is an easy to use tool for the consumer. You can use BBedit, Golive, Dreamweaver, or anything else you want.

Steps invovled in using your own editor:
1.design your site (flat layout or organised in folders doesn't matter.)
2.name your main page Index.html
3.mount your idisk to your desktop
4.drag your site to the Sites folder
your website is now online

[MacArtist]

Originally posted by eric_n_dfw

You can? How?
I didn't think .mac supported domain hosting.

Are you talking about another server just forwarding the browser to the homepage site? If so, what would end up showing in the browser's URL field? Your domain name or the homepage.mac.com one?

At one time I had a domain name registered through Verisign and was able to foward it to my itools/.mac site. When the site got fowarded from www.mydomain.com to homepage.mac.com/username/, homepage.mac.com/username/ was the url that visitors saw. I think that other registrars have the ability to foward www.mydomain.com to homepage.mac.com/username/ and the visitor will still see www.mydomain.com.

[trilogic]

my girlfriend is using the homepage feature alot. mostly sharing pictures with iPhoto. So to keep that service she just updated from iTools to .mac

At the moment her iBook is beeing scaned from virex. later she'll do a backup. I have to say that what you get is worth the money. If you use all the features.

i'm thinking about that iCal publishing feature. Isn't that great for everybody who wants to share or publish calendar information for school, clubs or whatever?

of course the membership is too expensive for only the .mac email - but, if you not allready have virus protection .... want to share fotos ... etc.

I think I'll upgrade myself. the first year is only $49

[zedwards]

Hmm... last time I checked my "Free" Hotmail account I noted at least 155 spam messages (with spam filter on) and a nice banner ad for debt management. What a deal.

[erik1975]

I am shocked that I am the first person to spot this on the email I got from Apple today. Check this out!

In the right side of the email I got from Apple has a button labeled 'Join Now' with the following text below it:

"Ready to Join?
Get everything you need to extend your digital life for just $49.95 a year."

Maybe I'm just the dumb new guy, but that statement sounds like they might be rethinking their yearly rate for .mac. It doesn't say:
"Ready to Join?
Get everything you need to extend your digital life for just $49.95 for the first year, and $99.95 each additional year."

I'll try to attach a pdf of the message as well.

[skunk]

I haven't had that e-mail, for the simple reason that I already ponied up. Very interesting. Only trouble is that everyone will moan all the louder now they can see it having an effect. I'm going to get some ear-plugs! :)

[skunk]

Read the above post by Erik 1975 and attachment. Could this be a response from Apple?:) :)

[saint]

I doubt it.
The .Mac site still says that $50 is only for the first year.
I think that Apple would have thought out their pricing carefully, and it is not going to change.

[skunk]

It would be an unusually careless piece of wording then. Look how hard - and unsuccessfully - everyone was trying to find a quote which said iTools was "free for life". "$49.50 a year" is pretty plain wording, and if it's known to be double in the second year, this is plain old misleading advertising, which in this country at least is illegal. This is either a serious and uncharacteristic mistake, or it's the beginning of a change. The family pack deal still hasn't been fully absorbed on the Apple site even now: it's evidently a slow process over there.

[saint]

I know, it is a bad choice of words to say "$49.50 a year", they are just asking for more trouble with that line. But if they were going to halve the price I think they would announce it and change their website.

Someone mentioned earlier about .Mac being available in a box from Apple Stores, does that mean people will be able to buy it with an edu discount??

[AssassinOfGates]

Personally, I dont mind changing email addresses, although my other one has a huge tag. What I do care about is the fact that I still use my mac.com email, and they throw in ads. Here, Apple is trying to stop spam with the new Mail in Jaguar, yet they send spam themselves. Now THAT'S low. :rolleyes:

[bidge]

Just looked at my idisk and to my surprise I now have a Gig of space. I didn't pay for the extra space but I did pay for .Mac. What's happening here???

i've checked it again back to 95MB. Ohh.. was getting excited

[MacArtist]

Originally posted by saint
I know, it is a bad choice of words to say "$49.50 a year", they are just asking for more trouble with that line. But if they were going to halve the price I think they would announce it and change their website.

Someone mentioned earlier about .Mac being available in a box from Apple Stores, does that mean people will be able to buy it with an edu discount??

It's still the same price on the edu store

[MacArtist]

Originally posted by AssassinOfGates
Personally, I dont mind changing email addresses, although my other one has a huge tag. What I do care about is the fact that I still use my mac.com email, and they throw in ads. Here, Apple is trying to stop spam with the new Mail in Jaguar, yet they send spam themselves. Now THAT'S low. :rolleyes:

You don't have to receive the "spam" from Apple. At some point in time you must have checked the little box to receive e-news or other communications from apple. I've had my mac.com email pretty much since the begining and I never receive spam from apple.

[MacArtist]

Originally posted by skunk
It would be an unusually careless piece of wording then. Look how hard - and unsuccessfully - everyone was trying to find a quote which said iTools was "free for life". "$49.50 a year" is pretty plain wording, and if it's known to be double in the second year, this is plain old misleading advertising, which in this country at least is illegal. This is either a serious and uncharacteristic mistake, or it's the beginning of a change. The family pack deal still hasn't been fully absorbed on the Apple site even now: it's evidently a slow process over there.

The $99.95 price is very known and clear as is the $49.95 price for existing itools subcribers. This email shouldn't be going out to everyone, just the previous itools subscribers, so it really isn't misguided advertising. While I admit that should've put the disclaimer on just to cover all of the bases, unless you haven't touched your mac in years, you know your second year is going to cost you $99.95.

[bretm]

Originally posted by drastik
.mac is actually a very good value, anyway you look at it. For those of you who just want free email, go to yahoo and look at the ads all day, that's how they get paid. .mac doesn't have ads. For those who want srongly integrated web services, use .mac, its a steal.

For those who haven't noticed, web space is actually increasing in price.

My host charges $9.99 a month (more than .mac) I get a few emails and 500 mgs of space. Now that's more than .mac gives, but it costs more too. I don't get tight integration and automatic uploads from the desktop. I use fetch, which is funtional, but nothing like .mac's integration. You can buy doman names and forward them to .mac accounts.

Now, .mac is 99$ a yar for full price. I see hosting ads now that offer 50 megs of space, restricted bandwidth, and no doman registration for $8.95 a month ($107.40 a year) plus a $40 set up fee (one time.)

Face it, .mac is a good deal for the services you get. There is no more free email anywhere. even free services make you see ads which are apying for it.

Did you say 500 megs? That's like 20 times as much space! Surely you meant 50megs. A website with 500megs is just insane unless it's a streaming server or something.

Unless a site has quicktime, it will easily fall under 20megs.

Anyway, I recommend arishost.com to everyone. Not huge space, not huge bandwidth, but more than 90% of the people need. They have webmail, ftp, mysql (extra) php4, etc. They give you free hosting when you register your domain through them, or transfer your domian. No ads. True web hosting. $30 a YEAR. Not month. $30 a year. Your email will be an ad for yourself... bob@bobsmith.com or whatever your domain is. They have webmail. Not as pretty as apple's, but hey... it's webmail.

Getting people to quit .mac is starting to feel like trying to get my parents to quit AOL.

And as far as uploading your site goes... why aren't you using the integrated site management in your web design software? If you're not using any, buy that instead of .mac

[bretm]

Originally posted by macsurfer


Is Hotmail IMAP? NO. Does Hotmail synchronize between your mail app on your computer and the web interface? NO. Do you get inundated with SPAM on Hotmail? YES. Do banner ads run in your Hotmail account?. YES. Do banner ads run in your .mac email account web interface? NO.

Pray tell, how does Hotmail even BEGIN to compare with the outstanding product that is .mac email? It's not even CLOSE.

Uhhhh.... unless hotmail has changed recently, I use it in IMAP mode for free on Outlook express. You can have 3 types of accounts... POP, IMAP, or Hotmail.

Ditto with macmail. POP, IMAP, or .MAC

I've never looked at my hotmail on the hotmail site. But all the mail exists on both computers until I delete it. It's not pop. It syncs. However, it's been months since I looked at it. So they may have done away with it for all I know.

[senjaz]

Well I am happy about this. I was going to wait until closer to the expiry date of the offer before signing up to get the most benefit.

I think it's good of Apple to do this small thing. Anyone who signed up right away must be feeling somewhat better now.

Since this change I signed up last night. No reason to wait anymore.

I do sympathise with those that only used iTools for the email. You really do need broadband access for iDisk to be truely useful. Having said that I believe the package is a good deal. They should just offer a cheaper email only account instead of all or nothing.

Apple has shown that they listen to us users in the past. Anyone remember the user response to the AppleShareIP upgrade costs a few years back? That got changed.

I'm confident Apple will fix this problem too.

[ImAlwaysRight]

Originally posted by senjaz
I do sympathise with those that only used iTools for the email. You really do need broadband access for iDisk to be truely useful. Having said that I believe the package is a good deal. They should just offer a cheaper email only account instead of all or nothing.

Apple has shown that they listen to us users in the past. Anyone remember the user response to the AppleShareIP upgrade costs a few years back? That got changed.

I'm confident Apple will fix this problem too.

Thanks for being sympathetic. But I doubt Apple will offer an email only account at a reduced rate in the future. If Apple was going to do that, they would/should have done that by now. Many users have already switched to other email accounts (either hotmail or the ones given by their current provider), or else they will do so soon. I plan to make the full switch in mid-September to my provider's email by notifying contacts, forwarding my mac.com email to my new one, and putting an automatic reply in my mac.com email of my new address. If in October or November Apple now offers an "email only" account for, say, $20/year, it will be too late as users will already have switched emails and notified all their contacts of the change. Personally, once I make the switch to my provider I'll stay there, as I'm not going to switch back one month later after I've gone through the hassle of notifying dozens of contacts and online retailers (I'm not looking forward to that).

Mac.com has served me well the past couple years as I've switched providers 3 times, so that was two times I didn't have to notify friends/online retailers of a new email address. I guess I can be thankful for Apple and iTools for that. But I plan to keep my current Roadrunner account for a long, long time, so switching my email to them is just fine. I'll now be advertising for roadrunner broadband service when I send out emails instead of Apple. I understand Apple needs to charge for .Mac, and people just need to decide if it is worth it to them. Hopefully after September Apple will NOT put out separate pricing for parts of its services like "email only" or "iPhoto only" as then we'll just hear more bitching from Mac users saying "Aww, man, here I paid $50 for email when I could have paid $20" and all kinds of other crap like that. I think moving the .mac expiration date to Sept 30, 2003 is a good move, and now Apple should just stick with what they've got and not make any more changes. At least this way come October hopefully this .mac griping and complaining can be put to rest.

[MidnightRambler]

In addition to all the ill will Apple has generated by the transformation of the free iTools into the fee-based .mac, Apple is creating a situation where they stand to lose future revenue from potential customers.

I hardly ever used iTools. Once in a while I'd download software for OS X that Apple had shoved into my iDisk, and most of the time I'd have my @mac.com e-mail forwarded to one of my ISP accounts. It cost Apple virtually NOTHING for my iTools account.

BUT, ...that server space that Apple made available tempted me several times, as there are a couple of bound photo books I have been meaning to create with iPhoto and order. Without the access to the Apple servers, that I would normally only use to place an order for hardcopy photo products, ...they've lost me as a potential customer.



Gesturing in the general direction of Cupertino,
the Midnight Rambler