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Gmail vs. .Mac

B

badlydrawnboy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 20, 2003
1,531
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I've been a .Mac user for a few years now, and with the exception of a few major outages, I've been more or less happy with the service.

However, with the availability of GMail IMAP, I'm considering ditching my .Mac account and switching to Gmail. I don't tend to use the .Mac services other than email, and it has obviously occurred to me that I'm paying $100/year for a service I could get for free from Google.

Before I go ahead and do the switch, I just wanted to get your opinions on Gmail vs. .Mac for the iPhone. Also, is there any .Mac service you use that you find invaluable? Perhaps I'm not using it to its full potential.

Thanks for your thoughts.
 
badlydrawnboy said:
I've been a .Mac user for a few years now, and with the exception of a few major outages, I've been more or less happy with the service.

However, with the availability of GMail IMAP, I'm considering ditching my .Mac account and switching to Gmail. I don't tend to use the .Mac services other than email, and it has obviously occurred to me that I'm paying $100/year for a service I could get for free from Google.

Before I go ahead and do the switch, I just wanted to get your opinions on Gmail vs. .Mac for the iPhone. Also, is there any .Mac service you use that you find invaluable? Perhaps I'm not using it to its full potential.

Thanks for your thoughts.
Click to expand...

As you said - putting aside the web and feature aspect of .Mac versus GMail...

...I have both running on my iPhone and from an iPhone perspective they both function exactly the same. There really isn't any difference from an iPhone usability standpoint between my .Mac email account and my GMail account.

So it really boils down to if the other .Mac stuff makes sense for you for $99/yr.

SCR
 
I don't use Gmail, but I have used .Mac and Yahoo! Mail with the iPhone. Between Yahoo! and .Mac, .Mac was by far the better mail client for use with iPhone. I had 0 problems with .Mac, but I have had numerous problems with Yahoo! One thing I liked about .Mac was the ability to sync the To Do folder from .Mac. That is something that I don't think can be done with any other mail service. I also like the send to web gallery option for pictures taken on the phone, but this might not be important to you. Just thought I would throw in my opinion of .Mac, even though it wasn't the comparison you wanted.
 
I had .Mac and switched to GMail due to the same reason you stated... $100 for the same thing...

I think .Mac has potential but here is a list that I think made me switch:

-Calender just backs up, you can't view your calender on .Mac webpage.
-iDisk feature is free with other services
-Web Gallery= Photobucket, iflicker, many other services for free
-No "push" email on the iPhone w/ a PAID .mac email account. Should at least be push if you're paying for it.
-Implementation/GUI for .Mac in Leopard AND the .Mac website could be better.

If Apple fixed those things, offered more services, I'd consider going back.

Hope that helps...
 
legaleye3000 said:
I had .Mac and switched to GMail due to the same reason you stated... $100 for the same thing...

I think .Mac has potential but here is a list that I think made me switch:

-Calender just backs up, you can't view your calender on .Mac webpage.
-iDisk feature is free with other services
-Web Gallery= Photobucket, iflicker, many other services for free
-No "push" email on the iPhone w/ a PAID .mac email account. Should at least be push if you're paying for it.
-Implementation/GUI for .Mac in Leopard AND the .Mac website could be better.

If Apple fixed those things, offered more services, I'd consider going back.

Hope that helps...
Click to expand...

Thanks, that is very helpful.

Does Google Calendar sync with iCal? If not, how is it useful for you? Do you not use iCal at all?

Where can I get the free iDisk feature you refer to?

Since those are the only two .Mac features I've used on occasion, if I could replace them I'd definitely say goodbye to .Mac. I don't use web gallery, backup, Back to My Mac, or anything else really.

Thanks.
 
Oh yea... Back to my Mac is cool... when it works (rarely)....

Google Calender will manually sync with iCal. I'm sure there are programs will automatically sync it for you, but I only know of the export feature in iCal and then import into Google, manually...

If you google-search "online hard drive" or something to that effect, you'll find a bunch of services. Off the top of my head, I think there is one called XDrive... I'm assuming xdrive.com is the site. (Its actually run by AOL).

Hope that helps!
 
legaleye3000 said:
Oh yea... Back to my Mac is cool... when it works (rarely)....

Google Calender will manually sync with iCal. I'm sure there are programs will automatically sync it for you, but I only know of the export feature in iCal and then import into Google, manually...

If you google-search "online hard drive" or something to that effect, you'll find a bunch of services. Off the top of my head, I think there is one called XDrive... I'm assuming xdrive.com is the site. (Its actually run by AOL).

Hope that helps!
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks. Yeah, I thought BTMM was pretty cool too... the ONE time it worked (first time I used it). I could never get it to work after that.
 
I'm a huge Apple fan and I'm trying to be "all-Apple" and I tried Apple's .Mac service, but it just doesn't seem as mature as the other services out, eventhough Google's Gmail and Calender are newer than .Mac......
 
Supposedly with the release of the 3G iphone, .mac will undergo a revision and will be more similar to exchange. Meaning email, calendar, to-do's will all sync wirelessly.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

rksprst said:
Supposedly with the release of the 3G iphone, .mac will undergo a revision and will be more similar to exchange. Meaning email, calendar, to-do's will all sync wirelessly.
Click to expand...

This revision is whats keeping me with dot mac. Plus I like seeing @mac.com on my email address. It makes me feel professional like a suit.
 
I use 3 e mails. Comcast is my main, Gmail is my secondary, and .Mac my third.
Truthfuly my main reasion for .Mac is for iWeb publishing, and iPhoto web galery. I know that their are other free services for both of these, but I love how well they work. I think it is because of my lasyness. But I am also hopful that the rumored .Mac revision will be a big one.
I would have to say, if your only reasion for having .Mac is for e mail, and if losing it wont be a big pain (getting everyone to change their address books) then I would make the switch to g mail.
 
As a windows user (my new Area-51 m9750 is on its way...don't be haters...lol) I was using izymail.com to run my msn mail and paying a yearly fee. I have not renewed my izymail, now I have all of my msn mail sent forward to my Gmail account and it forwards ALL email to my iPhone without flaw.

With my Gmail account, not only does it handle my email, but it backs up all of my contacts, is my RSS reader w/the Web App on my home page. Stores all of my bookmarks and also takes care of photo's. With a gmail account I can access ALL of my important whatever from any computer in the world, wheather it be a mac, pc or iPhone.....and, its all FREE!

Can't compare to the mac side but I would highly recommend Gmail...you cant loose.
 
To me, .Mac is part of the beautifully integrated features of using OS X. Web galleries are perfect, especially if you are an Apple TV user as well. I have never hesitated to consider it a good value at $100 per year. The mail has always been good, idisk is handy. I don't doubt that there are a collection of free services that can replicate it, but that begins to feel like a kludgy Microsoft way of living. I always recommend any switcher friends of mine to get it immediately. To me it is part of what makes owning a Mac so good.

I look forward to seeing the updates. I think Apple is really figuring out how people can integrate their Mac, notebook, iphone, and apple TV.
 
iCal publish to google calendar?

The last time I created a calendar in my iCal it asked if I wanted to create it "On My Mac" or "Google Calendar". Since I am using iCal and not google calendar I chode my Mac and haven't investigated the other option. I believe this is new with 10.5. My wife's iCal with 10.4 does not offer the choice.
 
badlydrawnboy said:
I've been a .Mac user for a few years now, and with the exception of a few major outages, I've been more or less happy with the service.

However, with the availability of GMail IMAP, I'm considering ditching my .Mac account and switching to Gmail. I don't tend to use the .Mac services other than email, and it has obviously occurred to me that I'm paying $100/year for a service I could get for free from Google.

Before I go ahead and do the switch, I just wanted to get your opinions on Gmail vs. .Mac for the iPhone. Also, is there any .Mac service you use that you find invaluable? Perhaps I'm not using it to its full potential.

Thanks for your thoughts.
Click to expand...

I use both .Mac and gmail on my iPhone. I use all of the features of .Mac so I will continue to renew this service. Since you just use it for email it makes sense to just use gmail.
 
You can 'downgrade' your .Mac to email only option for about $10 per year. They don't advertise it, but I'm sure it still exists.
 
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