What is your opinion of .Mac?

[NinjaMonkey]

I like .Mac but Apple could do much better. I only bought it because they had it for $70 right before Tiger came out so I thought for that much I'd give it a try.

Things I like about .Mac:

1. Keeps my PowerBook and mini in sync easily. Bookmarks, keychains, adressbook, etc.
2. Easy photo albums right from iPhoto. Sure I could make better looking ones myself, but I am lazy and looks are the most important thing when I just want to share some photos with family/friends.
3. Backup, this program works great for me. I used it when doing a clean install of Tiger. I backed up everything to my FW drive and restored everything smoothly.
4. Bookmarks on any computer, it is great to login to .Mac at work aand get all my bookmarks.

Things that I don't like:

1. iCards, these are almost useless. Apple should give this away for free.
2. The webpage creator is very simple to use which is great for quick pages but again Apple could do better and give you a little bit more freedom with customizing pages.
3. The Learning Center is pretty basic. It is a great idea but doesn't seem to go very in depth on its tutorials.

So far I haven't decided on if I will renew next year or not. My main complaint is with the homepage creator. I wish they would make it more flexible or make it so Pages could create homepages on .Mac.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I like .Mac but Apple could do much better. I only bought it because they had it for $70 right before Tiger came out so I thought for that much I'd give it a try.

Things I like about .Mac:

1. Keeps my PowerBook and mini in sync easily. Bookmarks, keychains, adressbook, etc.
2. Easy photo albums right from iPhoto. Sure I could make better looking ones myself, but I am lazy and looks are the most important thing when I just want to share some photos with family/friends.
3. Backup, this program works great for me. I used it when doing a clean install of Tiger. I backed up everything to my FW drive and restored everything smoothly.
4. Bookmarks on any computer, it is great to login to .Mac at work aand get all my bookmarks.

Things that I don't like:

1. iCards, these are almost useless. Apple should give this away for free.
2. The webpage creator is very simple to use which is great for quick pages but again Apple could do better and give you a little bit more freedom with customizing pages.
3. The Learning Center is pretty basic. It is a great idea but doesn't seem to go very in depth on its tutorials.

So far I haven't decided on if I will renew next year or not. My main complaint is with the homepage creator. I wish they would make it more flexible or make it so Pages could create homepages on .Mac.

Pages can already do this. You just have to put the resulting HTML files in your iDisk's Sites folder yourself.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I always wonder about people who say a product is "too expensive" but then they buy it anyway. This means by definition that it isn't really "too expensive." Anyhow...

I've kept up my .Mac subscription since it was first offered by Apple. I realize that less costly alternatives are available but I need at least one e-mail address that isn't invaded by spam, like my two domains are on a constant basis, and my mac.com address works well for that (hard to put a price tag on this feature of .mac). The address book and Safari bookmarks synchronization features are also quite useful. I also like the public drop-box, which works quite handily once you figure out how to make it world-writable. Never used iSync to back up the Mac, so I wouldn't know about that.

 

[NinjaMonkey]

Pages can already do this. You just have to put the resulting HTML files in your iDisk's Sites folder yourself.

Pages can export to HTML but it looks horrible. Apple needs to improve upon it and add .Mac integration or better yet develop a whole new app for creating web pages and put it in next years version of iWork.

 

[liketom]

i too have .Mac and with the 1gb option too + extra mailbox for my mrs .

it is expensive but it works , i have e-mailed apple regarding changes to the .Mac service but no answer as yet lol

stuff i would like to see:
10gb disk space email/idisk
a new iApp for the Homepage feature - more templates more bells more extras
5 e-mail addys per .Mac pack
faster transfers

simple really -

i have 47 day's to decide if i want to take another year 🙄

 

[jared_kipe]

I can't justify it anymore, if the storage was a few gb, then maybe. But I've got a bluehost.com server (sailbyair.com) that offers 4bg storage and a real web domain for less than $99 a year that .mac costs. Next year when my sub ends, I won't renew, unless they up the storage give out domains, or bring the cost down.

Oh and Virex is pointless, and backup is too.

If anyone gets a bluehost account, please do so from clicking on the link from my website. Bluehost gives money to me for doing so. PLEASEEE.

 

[jared_kipe]

Things that I don't like:

1. iCards, these are almost useless. Apple should give this away for free.

iCards is free to everyone, icards.mac.com quoting from site.. "Send, free electronic postcards to everyone on your list. If you're a .Mac member you can use your own photos from your iDisk..."

 

[NinjaMonkey]

iCards is free to everyone, icards.mac.com quoting from site.. "Send, free electronic postcards to everyone on your list. If you're a .Mac member you can use your own photos from your iDisk..."

That's what I meant, they should be free for anyone from right inside of iPhoto.

 

[Claudia]

I know I tried backing up my information to .mac and it didnt prove to be too useful. I seemed to have backed up my files, then i did a clean install of Tiger (still dont know if the new OS was worth my 70 bucks; I'm a college student). When I tried to retrieve the backup, my photos (that .mac said were backed up) were NOT, neither was my music, basically, anything of real value to me minus my address contacts. If the contacts had been missing I would've slammed my head against a wall.

If I moved aroudn a lot and had lots of computer based projects to do perhaps .mac would be worth it but i'm not sure if I will be renewing. If i dont renew I dont get to keep my nifty .mac e-mail account name do i?

 

[tech4all]

My .Mac expired yesturday and I did not renew it. I didn't use the @mac.com email address. The only reason why I got .Mac was for Virex last year. Backup is cool, though. But I couldn't see spending $100 + and for only 250MB of web space? Too much money for that, IMO. I think Apple should go up to at least 1GB per .Mac account (or maybe 500MB). But even if they did, I really don't have a use for most of the features included in .Mac thus far, at least not at that current price.

 

[jaseone]

I have both .Mac and web hosting at ASO, they both serve different purposes.

ASO is for any hosting requirements besides photo galleries.

.Mac is for photo galleries, as it is just so damn easy to publish from iPhoto, I used to manually code photo galleries and also use Perl scripts to generate them from a directory of photo's then upload the result but that was always a pain, sure it costs less but I'll willingly pay for iPhoto's ease of use in that respect.

I also use my .Mac email for important stuff like bills.

Comparing Gmail's storage space to .Mac's though is pretty silly, sure you can use scripts to split backups into 10mb chunks and email them to Gmail but again the convenience factor is in .Mac's favor.

 

[shoemia]

Good For Homepage Photo Albums

I have a .mac account, but only because I'm "computer-stupid" and I can easily create homepage photo albums in minutes, and our family and friends love the photos. If I knew how to make photo albums as easily (and as well) for less, I would.

Link to my photo albums:

http://homepage.mac.com/miaw77/Menu20.html

Homepage looks good and works well for me.

 

[krye]

I switched to Mac recently and I have been more than pleased with everything including my painless move to Tiger.

Also only 256 Mb of email storage for a "service" that costs so much and they then want you to buy more ohhhhhhhh please 🙄 when you can get 1 Gb free with Yahoo.

(

What? You can log into .mac and change all those settings. .Mac gives you 10 Gigs to allot as you wish. I have 1.2 Gigs devoted to email and the rest goes to my iDisk and iWeb storage.

As far as the syncing goes, you might be doing something wrong. Between my MacBook, My Mac Pro, and my PC at work, the syncing id a godsend. As far as I'm concerned, for $8.25 a month, it's the best deal in town. Not to mention Back to My Mac, Web Galleries, etc, etc.

 

[vansouza]

I love it...