.Mac Update on Jan 10th

[Arcus]

If iWeb is just a .Mac thing , what a shame that would be. Id never use .mac. I have more email addresses than I want now. Online storage? Hamachi solves that for me. A mac version is coming soon.

Boo on .Mac only web app.

Yay if its a Front Page like app!!

 

[fjs08]

My account is due to renew for year 2 at the beginning of February. I've been toying with letting it go. $ 100/yr seems a bit steep for what you get, really.

I'm surprised Apple is doing its maintenance during the day too. Doesn't make sense to me.

I'd like to see them add more content to .mac. Mostly, I use My Yahoo for not only e-mail, but news, stocks, sports, etc. It's all right there. If I could get my e-mail and news at the .mac site, I'd love it.

I do like the link between iPhoto and Home Page though. It's very easy to post pics for family and friends.

Frank

 

[boombashi]

If iWeb is just a .Mac thing , what a shame that would be. Id never use .mac. I have more email addresses than I want now. Online storage? Hamachi solves that for me. A mac version is coming soon.

Boo on .Mac only web app.

Yay if its a Front Page like app!!

It'll be an iLife app - but I'd like them to give away .mac with iLife and integrate the two a little more - that way $99 a year wouldn't be so bad if you got new versions of iLife every year with your .mac subscription. I think that would be huge for Apple.

Yeah, if I was ever thinking of getting a .Mac account this decides it for me. They don't know how to sysadmin their .Mac cluster.

I doubt that - BTW night and day is different in other places of the world. Is it annoying when systems go down for maintenace? yes. Is it on occasion neccesary? yes it is, especially for upgrades.

 

[Sierran]

Wishful thinking

One thing that I could see them adding (in my dreams) that I would pay for - PVR update functionality. i.e. they introduce an Intel Mini with decent storage and an updated version of FrontRow that has TiVo-like functionality - and then tie the scheduling information to .mac, like TiVo ties its updates to a dial/net subscription update. That would, in my mind, go a long way towards increasing the value proposition of .mac!

Of course, they seem bent on converting everyone to the download model, rather than the PVR model. But even so...perhaps they could negotiate with the networks such that .mac subscribers would get unlimited access to current-run shows, much as cable network subscribers get access? No more a-la-carte pricing per download? Would that help some of the naysayers here, if .mac offered access to the equivalent of 'basic cable' downloads? Perhaps you could select 'channels' with .mac, and finally get 'subscriptions' to shows in the iTunes music store.

 

[boombashi]

If anyone caught the Intel CES keynote you would realize that content distribution is one of the main focuses of Intel and the CES conference as a whole. Apple isn't stupid, they know where everything is going, I am betting on some major Apple content distribution anouncement at MacWorld...I really hope it is a little more than hey this new Mac Mini can record TV...but that would be pretty cool as well.

 

[daddy-mojo]

CABBAGE. In the spirit of one-word posts, I'd just like to say that I find the most alluring feature of .Mac is the integration with OSX coupled with the ability to sync my Macs. Of course, I'd love to see a price drop and a storage increase though. That may be, but the price is way too high for such "integration". There just isn't enough compelling features for me to want to pay $100 a year for .Mac. I find most utilities free on the .net, such as web design and blogging tools. Syncing is great for n00bs, but just with enough skill and knowing where to look, syncing is fairly easy enough to do. I sync my macs perhaps every other month, so it's not that hard at all!

syncing for noobs? are you serious??? its a freakin wonderful feature! syncing my macs and with my phone with my ipods, in one step. Not to mention having everything backed up online. I'm a busy person (I used to do mac tech work and now I'm a video editor, more time spent in front of other peoples macs then my own), I don't have time to search for multiple free things that may or may not work correctly in order to save a little bit each month. Part of the price is for convienence. Yes the price should be a little less. But come on, $8.50 a month, not so bad. I've had my mac account since like 1998 (when it was free), so long as .mac never goes away, I've got a permanent email address. And the tight integration with OS X is very important as well. I sync my macs weekly, automatically, without any additonal effort on my part. Nice. Its just going to keep getting better.

 

[Capt. Obvious]

Yeah, if I was ever thinking of getting a .Mac account this decides it for me. They don't know how to sysadmin their .Mac cluster.

maybe so, but what if they're migrating to a new, more distributed server topology?

 

[Stella]

Yeah, if I was ever thinking of getting a .Mac account this decides it for me. They don't know how to sysadmin their .Mac cluster.

Its how many times per year .Mac goes down for scheduled upgrades? Very rarely.

Boo hoo - your being unconvinced for a few hours.

As someone else said - no matter when Apple chose to do the upgrade some one is going to be inconvenienced.

Timing of the upgrade is probably critical - major upgrades for .Mac that cannot be avoided.

 

[Detlev]

maybe so, but what if they're migrating to a new, more distributed server topology?

Windows?

 

[powerbook911]

I thought the Keynote was on the 9th, I got all excited, this happens to me every year...I always get the dates messed up, ugh! >_<!!

And for .Mac to be down that long...come on that's crazy!! I mean 2 hours while they fix one section is one thing...but, everything?! Down for 5 hours? Oh that'll be fun...Not checking my e-mail or accessing my iDisk will be horrible. I don't know why it has to take this long this is crazy...I guess I'll have to wait until the 9th...err....10th, to see what changes they made are worthwhile...🙄

I think the POP mail always works, when .mac is down.

 

[Xtremehkr]

I'm still waiting for those .Mac widgets 😡

 

[chubad]

So this means that some sort of big thing is coming to .mac. I think the movie download is the only thing that makes sense for the timing for this. If it was just a simple feature upgrade why would they chose to do it on the morning of the Keynote? Nope. This is something major.😱

 

[WindowsSUCKSX5]

So this means that some sort of big thing is coming to .mac. I think the movie download is the only thing that makes sense for the timing for this. If it was just a simple feature upgrade why would they chose to do it on the morning of the Keynote? Nope. This is something major.😱

That just adds on to the theory about this new iweb program. It must have some connection to .mac. Ilife 06 will be announced supposedly with iweb on the 10th

 

[mdavey]

And for .Mac to be down that long...come on that's crazy!! I mean 2 hours while they fix one section is one thing...but, everything?! Down for 5 hours? Oh that'll be fun...Not checking my e-mail or accessing my iDisk will be horrible. I don't know why it has to take this long this is crazy...

They didn't say that the service will be down. They didn't say that services would be affected for the entire 5 hours. They said that scheduled maintenance window was 5 hours and that all .mac services would be affected.

It may be that the servers will be a little slow at times during the service window. It may even be that one or more services will be completely offline at some point (or even for multiple periods of time) during that window.

Apple is a big company. You can be sure that both they and others track annual uptime. 5 hours straight downtime across all .mac services would pretty much use up all their target downtime in one go (assuming they want to be be in the top 10% compared to their industry peers), leaving very little for other scheduled maintenance tasks and unforseen outages for the rest of the year.

 

[ClimbingTheLog]

Its (sic) how many times per year .Mac goes down for scheduled upgrades? Very rarely.
Boo hoo - your (sic) being unconvinced (sic) for a few hours.

In real IT projects you go for 5 9's availability. That's minutes per year downtime.

How often is Google down?

As someone else said - no matter when Apple chose to do the upgrade some one (sic) is going to be inconvenienced.

Timing of the upgrade is probably critical - major upgrades for .Mac that cannot be avoided.

With their current architecture, perhaps. That doesn't mean they can't do right. It would lower their margins, that's all. There's no voodoo about how to make a reliable web service any more. The required amount of downtime is the amount of time it takes to copy all the data for an account. That's probably like 5 minutes per account, max. They call it where they want to and we can each choose whether that call is worth $99/yr.

maybe so, but what if they're migrating to a new, more distributed server topology?

Well, that would be fantastic. None of the previous .Mac downtimes have lead to such a development, unfortunately.

 

[liquidh2o]

haven't used .mac in a couple of years, so if this is standard now please excuse my ignorance 🙂

I'd like to see the ability to back up all photos/music/video and then have the ability to stream them on demand.

A set top media box would probably be necessary to stream it to a tv or stereo, but if they could pack all that into something like the airport express and it came with a remote, I'd be sold on it.

 

[eXan]

If they triple the content and half the price, maybe I'll consider it.

Agree. I also wish they offered a simple e-mail-only account (with iChat support, of course) for free or at least 10$-per-year

 

[supafly1703]

Ummm, .Mac is already old news

Spymac offers 12gb for blogging, websites, online storage, etc. with templates and all that for $25 a year!

http://www.spymac.com/club/

 

[manuelpl]

.Mac Exclusive

It would be nice for Apple to give its .Mac Members an exclusive Stream of the Keynote. The same idea Sirius is doing with Howard Stearn.
or Maybe a iChat .mac exclusive , were you can view the keynote via ichat.

Something!

Maybe an exclusive .mac widget that gives you leetness

 

[sw1tcher]

Putting aside whatever features they might be adding, a five hour downtime window during regular business hours for much of the US is a very bad thing. Quite a number of people use their .Mac accounts - email, web hosting, and otherwise - as a core part of their business. If my main web/email provider ever told me this I'd have a new provider.

If the whole service really, really needs to be down for the upgrade (which itself is poor planning), then announce the upgrade and bring it online that night. Ugh.

Exactly what I was thinking too. Remember, this is Apple... they have to make a big media event out of everything. This is why I'd rather get my own domain and host if I needed one. Many web hosts typically guarantee a 99% uptime. Apple, correct me if I'm wrong, guarantees nothing.

 

[Diatribe]

what about current users who paid the $100, do we get a refund.. 🙁

I would expect that to depend on when you signed up. But you'll never know.

 

[yankeefan24]

I would expect that to depend on when you signed up. But you'll never know.

well i could get the refund, i guess, my account expired on the 25 of december, but i didnt renew until the 1 or 2 (of january) so i could, but only if i could keep my account.

EDIT: OMG, IM A MEMBER NOW!!!

 

[Eniregnat]

Looking at the last BT update to OSX, and seeing as it at some interaction with the firmware, I bet a BT remote is on its way. I haven’t seen any rumors about this, but then again I haven't been the boards for a while.

The idea of the iBook Nano or iBook Mini (an ultra thin laptop) would be quite the show piece for Apple.

Of course, Apple is good about spreading out it's press announcements, mostly so each fiscal quarter has at least one major announcement. So what ever doesn’t come (an there is much that is rumored) will likely come with in the next 6 months.

 

[2nyRiggz]

maybe i should start using .mac if they add some new stuff.


Bless

 

[Stella]

iBook Nano - wouldn't that be a PDA?! 🙂

Looking at the last BT update to OSX, and seeing as it at some interaction with the firmware, I bet a BT remote is on its way. I haven’t seen any rumors about this, but then again I haven't been the boards for a while.

The idea of the iBook Nano or iBook Mini (an ultra thin laptop) would be quite the show piece for Apple.

Of course, Apple is good about spreading out it's press announcements, mostly so each fiscal quarter has at least one major announcement. So what ever doesn’t come (an there is much that is rumored) will likely come with in the next 6 months.