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.Mac up for renewal--time to ditch it?

wordmunger

wordmunger

macrumors 603
Original poster
Sep 3, 2003
5,124
3
North Carolina
My .Mac subscription is up for renewal again. Last time I justified it because of the ease of backing up with .Mac. I can put critical backups of Quicken, all my writing projects, etc. on my iDisk and backing up my most important files becomes trivially simple.

However: I don't use iSync, or iCal's online features. I don't use my .Mac e-mail address (now that I have my own .com address). My .com hosting service offers me 500 MB of storage space, of which I use less than 100 MB, which means I've got 4 times as much storage available through my Web host as I currently get through .Mac.

So, if I can find a backup method that's as easy as .Mac, I think I'm going to ditch .Mac.

I'm posting here because I'm wondering if any MR users have suggestions for easy FTP-backups.

Alternatively, maybe you have an argument that might convince me to keep .Mac.

Thanks!
 
wordmunger said:
My .Mac subscription is up for renewal again. Last time I justified it because of the ease of backing up with .Mac. I can put critical backups of Quicken, all my writing projects, etc. on my iDisk and backing up my most important files becomes trivially simple.

However: I don't use iSync, or iCal's online features. I don't use my .Mac e-mail address (now that I have my own .com address). My .com hosting service offers me 500 MB of storage space, of which I use less than 100 MB, which means I've got 4 times as much storage available through my Web host as I currently get through .Mac.

So, if I can find a backup method that's as easy as .Mac, I think I'm going to ditch .Mac.

I'm posting here because I'm wondering if any MR users have suggestions for easy FTP-backups.

Alternatively, maybe you have an argument that might convince me to keep .Mac.

Thanks!
Click to expand...


Why don't you just use Transmit (or any other ftp software) and upload to your webserver? It's only drag and drop.
Or are you talking about something even simpler, like automated backups?
BTW I too only have about 40 days before I have to update .mac. In my case, I don't use it at all. I only got it for the sake of getting it. I'll probably end up upgrading it for the simple reason that I'mone of those stupid people that continue to spend money on Apple because it's Apple.
I think for those of us that have .com addresses and don't use isync, .mac is absolutely useless. I really hope they start coming up with more (and useful) features in the near future.
 
i signed up a couple of moths ago hoping that there will be and upgraded soon.. infact i though there might have been one in paris...
the main reason i did it is because i have family all over the uk and a 18 month old son so i can conveniently post pics to my homepage for them
 
They better update .Mac fast? Its still the same capacity and things since it was introduced... whats up with that? Oh wait, Apple likes to push things to the limit, only changing them when people start leaving them...

I already used iTools, later bought .Mac and use iSync, @mac.com email, backup, etc. But the service seriously needs a god damn update! Come on apple, raise the space for each user! Whats up with 15MB mailboxes?
 
Tiauguinho said:
I already used iTools, later bought .Mac and use iSync, @mac.com email, backup, etc. But the service seriously needs a god damn update! Come on apple, raise the space for each user! Whats up with 15MB mailboxes?
Click to expand...
One of Apple's all-time classics. Provide a free service, then start charging for it, and finally while other service providers are heaping disk space on users gratis, enhance .Mac by providing free games?
 
Steve returns to Apple this month after his cancer surgery. Maybe to celebrate his return .Mac will get a major overhaul! :cool:
 
I started when it was iTools, too. I wasn't too happy when Apple started charging for it, but it is the first mail service I've used where no spam has gotten in. That alone was almost worth the price for me. .Mac mail has been the best I've ever used.

I also use iDisk, and keep a local copy on my Desktop (with auto-update) so I just toss stuff on and it updated every so often. I use iSync to keep all my bookmarks updated between all my machines, and I like how the iApps are all integrated with each other.

Sure I could find another set of free services, but a.)I'd have to find a way to hook them all together, b.)find another IMAP mail service (I hate POP now) and c.)I'm really lazy. Also, .Mac works out to like $10 a month for me, which really isn't expensive enough for me to care about :)

I do think that an upgrade should be done. It's been the same forever now and something should be done.
 
Ditch it. .Mac is seriously behind the times. Hopefully a lot of people won't renew this month (since most .Mac people signed up in September when it was introduced), and Apple will get the idea.
 
I think I'm going to ditch it. I've downloaded Transmit and it looks pretty good. I especially like the "synchronize" feature. Any other suggestions before I lay out $26.95 for the Transmit license?
 
I'll be renewing my .mac this fall because I currently use my iDisk for some web hosting (although I could easily move over to a real hosting service), and because I'm still a slave to my @mac.com email address.

That said, I own a couple of domains and have been looking into some real webhosting with asmallorange.com. If Apple doesn't upgrade .mac in the next year, I'll be all set to ditch it next time I need to pay up.

I'll actually be very surprised if .mac doesn't see an update sometime next year. I haven't really expected it thus far, but I'll be disappointed if Steve doesn't give us something at MWSF or WWDC.
 
pyrotoaster said:
I'll actually be very surprised if .mac doesn't see an update sometime next year. I haven't really expected it thus far, but I'll be disappointed if Steve doesn't give us something at MWSF or WWDC.
Click to expand...

If .mac is planning an upgrade, they better do it in the next 30 days. The early adopters (like me) are beginning to run out of patience.
 
Ohh how I wish they would just let you use the email service for about 1/4 of the price! I don't use iDisk, Homepage, etc. I'm not paying $99 again this year, the only reason I did last year was because I hate to have to switch email addresses, and Apple was offering incentives to get you to renew. I believe I got a $20 gift certificate. :(

Sigh. Lower the price!
 
.mac is one of those things that you can use on a three month free trail, and either decide that it is worth it or not. I can see that for some people it is not worth the expense.

For me however, I would not know where to start on creating my own homepage, and with family dotted all over the UK and the world, being able to create new pages in a couple of minutes from iMovie and iPhoto is almost worth the subscription on it's own. I have more than one Mac :) and hence iSync has been very useful. I don't rate many of the (free) games very highly, although wingnuts was amusing for a while. Some of the tutorial stuff has been quite interesting as well. So in my case .Mac has been worth it.
 
I am on my second subscription, and often ask myself the same thing. I love the address book, and the basic stuff that goes with it. But my big grip is why I can't use my .mac in mail with out another client (aol, earthlink ect). If I could send and receive via mail, and not have to log into the web I would love it. I don't think I will be renewing it again.

However if you use the virus protection that kind of justifies it as you have to pay for your early norton membership fee.

chris

THIS WAS A GREAT QUESTION!
 
imac abuser said:
I am on my second subscription, and often ask myself the same thing. I love the address book, and the basic stuff that goes with it. But my big grip is why I can't use my .mac in mail with out another client (aol, earthlink ect). If I could send and receive via mail, and not have to log into the web I would love it. I don't think I will be renewing it again.

However if you use the virus protection that kind of justifies it as you have to pay for your early norton membership fee.

chris

THIS WAS A GREAT QUESTION!
Click to expand...
you can send/recieve .mac with mail :rolleyes:
 
I signed back up last year only because Apple offered a free app (Sims) to sweeten the deal and I use Backup also for Quicken and the iSync for Address Book. But, this year, I'm not signing back up. It is way to expensive for what you get. To me, it's worth $29 as is.

I already have my own domain and so I can back things up their. I've been thinking about Transmit also. So backup is taken care of. I can probably find some way to output my Address Book and uploaded it to a password protected page on my domain.

Somehow, I know I will survive without .Mac. I'm just wondering now how I'm going to spend $99!
 
imac abuser said:
I am on my second subscription, and often ask myself the same thing. I love the address book, and the basic stuff that goes with it. But my big grip is why I can't use my .mac in mail with out another client (aol, earthlink ect). If I could send and receive via mail, and not have to log into the web I would love it. I don't think I will be renewing it again.

However if you use the virus protection that kind of justifies it as you have to pay for your early norton membership fee.

chris

THIS WAS A GREAT QUESTION!
Click to expand...

Are you aware that you can have Apple forward your mail to any address you like?
 
I would like to access all my email accounts (college hotmail work) all from Mail at home. Is there any way of doing this? I thought I heard that you could for other email services. Mostly I would just like my college email account to automatically forward its messages to my .mac email account.
 
rdowns said:
Are you aware that you can have Apple forward your mail to any address you like?
Click to expand...

My wife is the one that has the .Mac account. She said that she was not aware of that feature.
 
joshuawaire said:
Ohh how I wish they would just let you use the email service for about 1/4 of the price! I don't use iDisk, Homepage, etc. I'm not paying $99 again this year, the only reason I did last year was because I hate to have to switch email addresses, and Apple was offering incentives to get you to renew. I believe I got a $20 gift certificate. :(

Sigh. Lower the price!
Click to expand...
I think you can use the email service for 1/10 of the price. The catch is that its only 5 mb. No problem for me because I consider mine cluttered after about 3mb though.

linkage
 
bbarnhart said:
I signed back up last year only because Apple offered a free app (Sims) to sweeten the deal
Click to expand...

They gave away Sims with it?

Mmm didn't get anything like that when I switched!
 
Dr. Dastardly said:
I think you can use the email service for 1/10 of the price. The catch is that its only 5 mb. No problem for me because I consider mine cluttered after about 3mb though.

linkage
Click to expand...

Thats nearly right - if you have a full price .mac account you can register additional email only accounts for $10. You can't have these accounts if you don't have a full account to attach them too. I have a full account and my wife has an email only account. She can't use homepage etc but she has an email address that matches mine :D

you can also register extra email addresses to each account and have them all delivered to the same mailbox. For example my main account is robin.h at mac.com but for no extra cost I can also have dobbins.spam@mac.com set up and use this to deliver to my robin.h account (highlighted in Mail in a colour I choose). This means I can keep my main address secret. Well, its not that secret, I just posted it here :confused:
 
Discounts on renewal

I've seen before that you can buy a .Mac membership from somewhere else (e.g., Amazon, etc.) at a discount, and apply this towards a renewal. Anyone know specifically how to do this? (I'm also one of the September renewals.)

I'm sort of forced to continue with .Mac, as I'm using it to host my cheesy wedding webpage (www.punzie.com) ;)

By the way, it's easy to use .mac with 3rd party email programs (such as Outlook Express) if you don't like the web interface or Mail. I agree on the spam filtering, I have gotten absolutely no spam on this address.
 
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