Time to let go of .Mac?

[Superdrive]

After all the reminder emails to renew .Mac, I still haven't paid up. Just a few days ago, my time ran up and I'm in the two week period to "save everything". I'm posting here to get the opinion of the community towards the .Mac services and what you did if you discontinued your service.

Just a little background, I've been on the .Mac bandwagon since it was known as iTools. I used to host two websites off my iDisk, both of which expired this last year. I used to sync my T608 with the internet address book until it broke. Now, my iMacs are hardly used due to kernal panic issues and my PowerBook has been sold leaving me to my school PC. I'll probably buy a Santa Rosa MacBook this summer, but as far as primary computers go, I am Macless. I really do not use the service anymore, and I certainly do not see $99 going to a good use anymore. Anyways, I'm just looking for some help to transition off .Mac. Thanks for reading.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

After all the reminder emails to renew .Mac, I still haven't paid up. Just a few days ago, my time ran up and I'm in the two week period to "save everything". I'm posting here to get the opinion of the community towards the .Mac services and what you did if you discontinued your service.

Just a little background, I've been on the .Mac bandwagon since it was known as iTools. I used to host two websites off my iDisk, both of which expired this last year. I used to sync my T608 with the internet address book until it broke. Now, my iMacs are hardly used due to kernal panic issues and my PowerBook has been sold leaving me to my school PC. I'll probably buy a Santa Rosa MacBook this summer, but as far as primary computers go, I am Macless. I really do not use the service anymore, and I certainly do not see $99 going to a good use anymore. Anyways, I'm just looking for some help to transition off .Mac. Thanks for reading.

The only issue you might have is letting people know that they need to send email elsewhere if they've been using your .Mac address. Other than that, you seem to be fully prepared for the transition.

I am discontinuing .Mac service myself, choosing instead to use a "real" web hosting provider that provides scripting support and suchlike.

 

[EGT]

I'm not sure if I can justify the price either, I really only use .Mac as an email account.

I've only used the sync features recently because I bought a new computer and wanted all that information brought across to it but now that's done, I'll soon be back to one machine. I suppose it's always another backup but I carry everything on my iPod and make DVD backups quite frequently, so ...

If I do discontinue it, is it easy enough transferring all my .Mac emails to another account such as Gmail?

 

[captoats85]

.mac has always seemed like an incredible rip-off to me.....

 

[Superdrive]

Thanks for the replies. I am also wondering about moving emails. I'm guessing that I can probably use Mail on one of my iMacs to download it and forget it. My other primary emails are university ones, so those won't serve me for too long. Did anyone use that email as their Apple id for iTunes and such? Does getting rid of that email have an effect on things? Thanks again.

 

[Diatribe]

Thanks for the replies. I am also wondering about moving emails. I'm guessing that I can probably use Mail on one of my iMacs to download it and forget it. My other primary emails are university ones, so those won't serve me for too long. Did anyone use that email as their Apple id for iTunes and such? Does getting rid of that email have an effect on things? Thanks again.

No, it has no effect. You just need to change your email address (not your store account) in the preferences so you get the receipts to the right mail address.

 

[Diatribe]

I was in the same situation a month ago and I renewed. I don't know but it might be the last time I did. For me it is still a great idea but it is severly lacking in terms of functionality. And I am not talking about space.

If they could get the following things in, I'd not even think about not renewing.

- fully editable synced web calendar
- fully editable address book with notes field and custom naming
- web editable and syncable stickies/notes
- server side spam filter
- iCard sending with Mail.app
- 2GB space

Well good luck to you and good luck to those, like me, still hoping that the interns in charge of .mac get replaced soon.

 

[925AS]

I renewed last year for some reason, but this year I will let it go. The only thing I use it for besides email is to sync my calendar and address book.

I already backed up my emails so im ready to move on.

 

[netdog]

I sync my iMac and Laptop.

My mail is all synced (from all my domains) via IMAP at .Mac

It's still worth the discounted eBay prices to me.

I also foolishly hope that Leopard and iLife will roll out more useful tools for .Mac - they are certainly overdue to address this black sheep of the Apple family.

 

[twoodcc]

yeah i really think that it will get updated soon, hopefully with leopard. we'll see though