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.Mac Sync Changes

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Multiple .Mac users report receiving emails from Apple regarding a .Mac sync update scheduled for today.

Dear .Mac member:
Due to improvements being made to .Mac Sync on October 19, 2007, please note the following changes.

Mac OS X version 10.4 Tiger users:
To ensure uninterrupted service, you must be using Mac OS X version 10.4.10. To check which version you're running, select About This Mac in the Apple menu. If you are not running version 10.4.10, click the Software Update button and install the update to 10.4.10.

Mac OS X version 10.3 Panther users:
To accommodate new enhancements, .Mac Sync will no longer support syncing of calendars between a Panther-based Mac and a Mac running Tiger or Leopard. Syncing calendars between Mac computers running Panther is unaffected.

These changes will help enable .Mac Sync to do more than ever. Thank you for your patience, and thank you for being a .Mac member.

Sincerely,
The .Mac Team
Click to expand...

The update is further explained on this Apple Support page. The changes would seem to be in preparation for syncing improvements introduced in Mac OS 10.5 "Leopard".

Article Link
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2007/10/19/mac-sync-changes/
does that have anything to do with all my Mail accounts getting blown out (old mail, sentmail saved on server, thankfully nothing lost)...also iTunes library file corrupted...
 
my contacts and bookmarks synced correctly for the first time after the update. Prior to this, my contacts would sync happily between my macs, but were missing from .mac (.mac just had Apple Computer as the single contact).

Similarly, the bookmark bar always synced between my macs, but there was another bookmark bar in .mac (an old one that must have synced correctly some time ago) and that merged into my current bookmark bar

Sounds like some bugs fixed:)
 
yeah, I got the email also! It is a major crock that they announced it the day they are disabling the feature!!! It is disabled for me now that my wife uses Tiger and I can't on my school computer and don't on my home iMac!!! I am so ticked off- This is something that should not be disabled. They are probably doing it to "force" people to upgrade. So unless I go out tomorrow and buy an upgrade for my school owned computer I can't work with my 8 synced calendars while I am at school!!

I am a huge Apple fan, but the recent bigheaded feeling I am getting from the company is ticking me off- At the very least give me a month's notice if not more. Did they just make this decision?!?! :mad::mad::mad:

If Apple is wanting to be a serious contender in the calendar market, they should not notify customer one of the most important features is no longer supported after TODAY!!! And .Mac had just gotten syncing reliable between multiple macs using .Mac! Lets hope I get my Macbook for school very soon!
 
flopticalcube said:
Apple will have to up their game if they want me and my family as customers. CDN$229 per year for a family pack. I just don't see much value there at the moment, even with the potential upgrades coming in Leopard.
Click to expand...

I really thought the same thing until it was upped to ten gigs and the new web gallery was added, all in conjunction with iLife 08. How many potential serious users in your family? If its 3 or more I'd say the family pack is a damn good deal.

I certainly think $100 every year is a lot for a single user, but there's enough there for me to give it a 1 year go.
 
flyfish29 said:
This is something that should not be disabled. They are probably doing it to "force" people to upgrade. So unless I go out tomorrow and buy an upgrade for my school owned computer I can't work with my 8 synced calendars while I am at school!!

I am a huge Apple fan, but the recent bigheaded feeling I am getting from the company is ticking me off- At the very least give me a month's notice if not more. Did they just make this decision?!?! :mad::mad::mad:

!
Click to expand...

Call me an apple fan but I trust them to only disable such a feature (on a relatively old OS) if its absolutely necessary for the new services. And I can't for the life of me work out how giving you a months notice would help you at all - what would you have done differently?

As for buying an update - at least wait a week!
 
GTiPhone said:
I really thought the same thing until it was upped to ten gigs and the new web gallery was added, all in conjunction with iLife 08. How many potential serious users in your family? If its 3 or more I'd say the family pack is a damn good deal.

I certainly think $100 every year is a lot for a single user, but there's enough there for me to give it a 1 year go.
Click to expand...
I love the multiple computer sync and the web gallery feature. That plus the 10gigs makes it worth the $100 for me. About what it costs for my neighbor to fill up his SUV.:)
 
GTiPhone said:
I really thought the same thing until it was upped to ten gigs and the new web gallery was added, all in conjunction with iLife 08. How many potential serious users in your family? If its 3 or more I'd say the family pack is a damn good deal.

I certainly think $100 every year is a lot for a single user, but there's enough there for me to give it a 1 year go.
Click to expand...

1 serious, 2 casual, 1 seldom. The single user license is CAD$139 (US$143) here. While I can still replicate 66% of .mac for free (at least the 66% that I could use), I'm not shelling out US$237/year.
 
No complaint here

Not everyone has the time nor the inclination to download 5 different apps and plugins to get that 66% of the functionality of .Mac. I just want my stuff to work. I usually pay around $70 a year for .Mac. That's less than 6 bucks a month. I've been known to spend more than that on coffee, every day.

.Mac is worth every penny and then some. It has been for years.
 
joseph2166 said:
Call me an apple fan but I trust them to only disable such a feature (on a relatively old OS) if its absolutely necessary for the new services. And I can't for the life of me work out how giving you a months notice would help you at all - what would you have done differently?

As for buying an update - at least wait a week!
Click to expand...

i call you "apple fan"!:D

i can accept that they have to disable that feature for some technical reason.

but telling us ONE day before that we won't be able to sync our calendars anymore is ridiculous. some people are traveling and can't update their machines. so they won't get "up to date" calendars until they come back.

if they had told us earlier we could have updated to tiger. or they could have waited 4 weeks and we would have all updated to leopard.

taking away a PAID feature on such a short notice is bad. the timing is the problem here. i hope the service gets an update that's worth all this problems.

in general i have to say that .mac doesn't live up to the usual apple standard. it's a good service but the manager(s) in charge are not good.
 
I would be pissed

I have to admit, this looks like a really dumb move on Apple's part. Would have been much better to announce this as an upcoming change, and allow some time before implementation. Although I am using 10.4, I know plenty of Mac users who are still using 10.3.

If I were using 10.3 and paying $99/year for .Mac, and I received this email, I would immediately call Apple to tell them that unless they provide a reasonable work-around, or a free Tiger family-pack for .Mac subscribers, this is completely unacceptable.

Changing terms of service is one thing, but changing terms of service for a prepaid service, with no notice and no opportunity to make other arrangements, strikes me as grossly irresponsible. With all the lawsuit-happy news items lately, I would not be surprised at all to learn of a class-action suit over this by .Mac subscribers.

If my hosting company tried to pull something like this, I would just drop their service. What's the point of paying for something on a one year plan if there is no guarantee that you can even use it tomorrow?
 
joseph2166 said:
Call me an apple fan but I trust them to only disable such a feature (on a relatively old OS) if its absolutely necessary for the new services. And I can't for the life of me work out how giving you a months notice would help you at all - what would you have done differently?

As for buying an update - at least wait a week!
Click to expand...


I agree- they probably needed to, but did they just decide this week this might be a problem???? Steve said they were going to focus on .Mac...not focus on screwing with VERY faithful .Mac customers. I have owned a .Mac email through the tough times for years now...it was just getting very reliable!

A month would have allowed me to decide if I need to buy a new MacBook for my home so when my wife has her laptop I can see my calendar and make changes to the calendar...

a month would have allowed me to buy an upgrade for at least one of my computers I work on so I could sync.

A month would have allowed me to try and get a palm or something synched to my wife's iBook so I can have a calendar with me.

A month would have allowed me to find a new calendar (online perhaps) that would allow my wife and I to keep our very busy calendars synced so I know when and where she is traveling and which days I have to pick up or drop off my children, etc.

A month would have been a positive business gesture for them to do.

A month would have allowed me to decide if I need to get an iPod Touch to be able to view my wife's calendars (and hopefully they will allow for editing soon on the iPod Touch!)
 
Jdot said:
my opinion on the whole thing is tiger has been out for over 2 years now you have had plenty of time to upgrade
Click to expand...

Sure...I have had a chance to upgrade...but I shouldn't need to since last week they sold me a .Mac membership renewal for $110 saying I can sync using any of my current macs...then a week later they say, oh wait, now you can't get all the benefits of .Mac. We have known about this recent upgrade and we are changing the way we have done this in the past...we are not making .Mac backwards compatible like we did before when an OS upgrade came out.

I still love Apple...their products are top notch...but this is bad business and they have made many bad business decisions recently which worries me. They didn't take their customers needs into consideration with this knee jerk decision...and if it was in fact not a knee jerk decision why couldn't they have given me more than a days notice!?!?!

I am now wondering if I will still be able to back-up my iMac which is not running Tiger...maybe they will remove that next week from my .Mac benefits.

I for one have not upgraded for a few reasons...cost (I stayed home for six years to raise my two kid so money is short.) Two, my iMac is faster than my wifes iBook running Tiger and more memory and faster processor.
 
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