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.Mac...Is it really worth the money?

gazfocus

gazfocus

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 3, 2008
1,650
0
Liverpool, UK
I currently have 4 email addresses that I use on a regular basis and I am trying to reduce them down to one or maybe 2 email addresses that I will use for a long period of time.

I have been looking into getting a .Mac account because the web based email is good, and I like the photo syncing, and the iDrive, etc, but is it really worth the price?

I have 2 domains that I use (one purely for eBay) and one doesn't get used at the moment as I've only recently registered it (due to my first domain not supporting PHP), so the first one will eventually be cancelled.

The webmail associated with my new domain is appauling and you can only receive text emails, not images or html, etc. However, this email/domain costs me approx £10 a year compared to the .Mac membership which is £40 (if buying off ebay).

My main email that I use at the moment is hotmail, but the flaw with that is, I want to use an email client (either Mail or Entourage) to sync with my iPod Touch.

So what would I be best using? What are peoples experiences with .Mac? Do you find the yearly fee too much when it comes time to renew it?

Advice would be appreciated
 
I have friends who swear by it. I recently picked up a new MBP so with two Macs in my household, I decided it was time to get it (and it was only 69.99). Using it at work, it seems like it's worth the trouble. It's ease of syncing between computers makes it very useful. Also, while I haven't tried it, back to my mac seems promising.
 
.Mac is worth while if you have more then one mac, if you dont its not. I have three macs and i dont really use .mac except for email unless they do a huge update to it. I never really used it much i dont see the need to there are better tools out there. There was a post here a long time ago listing these software that you can get for free but i cant seem to find it now.
 
I find .Mac well worthwhile. I use it to sync contacts/calendars and various other stuff between home and work computers, I use iDisk heavily for files I need to access from various locations, and I'm a light user of .mac email. There are other ways of doing all of these things, but nothing that works quite as seamlessly and elegantly.

If you have multiple machines and/or need to exchange data between locations, have a play with the trial and see how you get on.
 
I have had .Mac for a couple of years now and wouldn't be without it.

I use it every day for syncing all my stuff between home and work. I regularly use 3 or 4 macs and they're all in sync.

As someone else said, if you only have 1 mac, then probably don't bother, but it's great for keeping stuff in just one place.

Cheers.
 
Yes and no

.Mac, is it worth it. It depends. At the retail store they should give you the $69.00 discounted price if you decide to buy it after your purchase of the computer. Try the Free Trial online, and then if you like it, then purchase the .Mac from the Retail Store. Then enter the activation key. For me, it is really a convenience to have .Mac. Syncing between 2 computers is a plus, but if you have 1 computer that doesn't matter.
 
The IMAP feature alone were worth it for me :)

That and synchronization between any Mac I use. Be it at work, at the university or home.

Bookmarks, mails, settings etc. With .Mac I can easily and quickly use any Mac as if it were my own.
 
It was immensely useful after I was burgled.

It knew the time of the last synch so could time the burglary to within 15 minutes.

And when I got a replacement Mac, all those little things that it takes time to set up just synched across perfectly.
 
I have only one Mac and got a .Mac account last year. Six months later I feel it was a waste of money, but that's just me.
 
Take a look at Google Apps - it's free. I switch a few months back when I decided I had better things to do than manage my own mail server these days. They also just added (for free) Google Sites, if you want a "domain portal" for your users/yourself. I personally don't use the Apps portion of the kit much yet (has a shared area, w/document and spreadsheet applications) since it's just lil' old me - but it does look like it could very well meet my needs.

http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/index.html

Being free, it's worth trying before dropping any $$ on .Mac.
 
Thanks for all the advice.

As I said, one of the important things for me is to have web based email in addition to having the same emails in my client such as mail app of entourage, but I don't think I could do that without specific settings on my domain email.

I currently only have one mac but will be getting a mac pro in the summer and also have an iPod touch which I think can be sync'd with .Mac.

Can the iDrive feature be accessed on a windows of as well as mac?

Thanks again and please keep the opinions coming.
 
sprice25 said:
Try the Free Trial online, and then if you like it, then purchase the .Mac from the Retail Store. Then enter the activation key. For me, it is really a convenience to have .Mac. Syncing between 2 computers is a plus, but if you have 1 computer that doesn't matter.
Click to expand...

I have registered the free trial but it only gives very limited space for the iDrive and email. However I do think the mac.com site is a pleasure to use and I love the web based email in comparison to my domains email.
 
Other aspects

gazfocus said:
Thanks for all the advice.

As I said, one of the important things for me is to have web based email in addition to having the same emails in my client such as mail app of entourage, but I don't think I could do that without specific settings on my domain email.

I currently only have one mac but will be getting a mac pro in the summer and also have an iPod touch which I think can be sync'd with .Mac.

Can the iDrive feature be accessed on a windows of as well as mac?

Thanks again and please keep the opinions coming.
Click to expand...

I have used DotMac for about four years and it has quite a few other useful aspects besides web mail and networking between two computers. For really big files (I work in publishing) you can upload these to your iDisk and they can be downloaded by anyone anywhere, Windows or Mac, and the same people can upload files for you to retrieve.

iWeb and DotMac lets you publish websites, and iPhoto and DotMac will allow you to publish your own gallery on the web with ready-made photo albums with just one click. Anyone with your permission (again, Windows or Mac) can not only view these, but add to the album or download pix from it.

iMovie will let you publish your own movies to the same gallery, and these can be viewed by anyone with a modern browser.

Remember, all these features have business as well as leisure uses, and I for one think that DotMac is amazingly good value for money, and a fast, elegant way to achieve things that in the past would have involved burning CDs or DVDs and sending them by snailmail and all sorts of other ponderous procedures.
 
Personally, I am a big fan of the syncing between all my macs. Very convenient
 
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