.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]

Well, that's something!

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]

Well, actually, no...

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]

So...

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

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]

Even a little profit..

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]

Rush??

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

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]

Cool, I'm happy

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.