what .mac updates are expected, if any?

[thecritix]

Hi
the other day apparently sj said that apple were working on updating the .mac, do we have any news on what to expect, mine runs out soon and im reluctant to pay the full price this time (last time got the discount for buying with the mac)

any rumors or news on what updates, if any are coming?

thanks
nick

 

[Nym]

I want a free service...

Really, there's already other companies on the market offering better e-mail storage and most of the features available in .mac.

For what I can read, most Mac users find that .mac is a premium service that is just not worth the price you pay.

If it was free for all Mac buyers I'd certainly go for it so I could use iChat, IMAP mail, Personal stuff sync and etc...

But what do I know? what about you? what do you expect from .mac?

 

[flyfish29]

I want a free service...

Really, there's already other companies on the market offering better e-mail storage and most of the features available in .mac.

For what I can read, most Mac users find that .mac is a premium service that is just not worth the price you pay.

If it was free for all Mac buyers I'd certainly go for it so I could use iChat, IMAP mail, Personal stuff sync and etc...

But what do I know? what about you? what do you expect from .mac?

If you want it free go get it from other companies- but you are not getting the convience of .Mac. You also probably get some advertising too.

Remember, .Mac is not necessarily aimed (yet at least) to the power user or even most of the pretty competent users here on MacRumors...but instead at those people who want everything in one easy to use product where they can sync their bookmarks, calendars address books, email. They can get their email through it and post web pages using iPhoto and iWeb very easily and can use the space they have or the software program Backup to make backups online (althought not much space, but good for basic info to be backed up daily) or they can use Backup to make DVD, CD, or hard drive back-ups. I buy it for convience and to be able to do lots of things I want easily. I use every bit of .Mac right now to some extent and some of it extensively.

Yes, you could do most all of this for free or a reduced price, but the average user doesn't know how or doesn't want to mess with it to save $40, 60 or even 80 bucks! I am one of those people- I could figure out how to do it cheaply, but it is not worth it to me. Yes, I am disappointed that they have not updated it lately, but feel it may be one of those secret features they have not yet disclosed about Leopard and its integrations with .Mac.

Dont forget you can usually get your renewal cheaper on either Amazon or eBay!!!

 

[Yixian]

Apple to buy Yahoo and rebrand it into it's new .mac. Believe!

 

[MacsRgr8]

Maybe some more powerful sync options, i.e. use .Mac not as a sync storage but as a database on which sync activities between Macs can be stored.
I mean, instead of syncing some parts via your iDisk, let .Mac keep keep a database of, for example, changes of all Files on your Home directory, to be able to sync all your data with another Mac without having to use Rsync, or Synchronize Pro, or Mac OS X Server's Mobile Home Accounts.

 

[GregA]

Maybe some more powerful sync options, i.e. use .Mac not as a sync storage but as a database on which sync activities between Macs can be stored.

Or store your whole computer's data on .mac so you can login to your AppleID from any Mac.

The other more doable thing for Apple is a virtual storage space for purchased media. If you bought 100 movies, you could store them on your vDisk... and download/watch them on demand. It'd save a lot of hard disk space locally, give you a backup of all you've bought, and it wouldn't take up any actual space on Apple's servers.

You could even connect your aTV to your vDisk (or sync from it?).

 

[merbel]

New to .mac myself and have been trying to use mail but, at least at via the .mac website I must often use at work, I find it unusable. Often down or giving me mulitple error messages-not something I can count on. Do others have this issue or is something wrong with me setup?

 

[andiwm2003]

New to .mac myself and have been trying to use mail but, at least at via the .mac website I must often use at work, I find it unusable. Often down or giving me mulitple error messages-not something I can count on. Do others have this issue or is something wrong with me setup?

impovement to .mac would be to make it work! i sent two pics 3MB each out. i tried to resend that mail and all of a sudden the pics are 5.1 Mb each = 10.2 MB. the mail is still sent but without pics and no warning. i sent the pics idividually and the sizes are o.k. for each pic.

FIX that damn mail APPLE! for $99 that should be possible!

anyway:

improvements to mail
a ical web based application
a small webbased texteditor/graphic program to write notes to myself that stores the resulting documents on my idisk
a webbased app for my contacts
more storage
faster idisk

so in a nutshell they should make the all of .mac functionality available via webbased apps. and they should make it work without bugs!

 

[GregA]

i sent two pics 3MB each out. i tried to resend that mail and all of a sudden the pics are 5.1 Mb each = 10.2 MB. the mail is still sent but without pics and no warning.

That happens with email. Always, no matter who you use.

It's something to do with the encoding, making sure it safely passes through the email system as 'plain text'. So it limits which characters it can be encoded as, and I think it makes everything 7bit instead of 8bit. Not really sure.

But not .Mac in this case.

 

[aspro]

I'm hoping for a price drop, better speeds and more storage. Anything else would be a welcomed bonus.

I really want to be able to justify subscribing to .Mac, because I really want the Mail web interface.

 

[andiwm2003]

That happens with email. Always, no matter who you use.

It's something to do with the encoding, making sure it safely passes through the email system as 'plain text'. So it limits which characters it can be encoded as, and I think it makes everything 7bit instead of 8bit. Not really sure.

But not .Mac in this case.

i could understand this if it was consistent. but when i send out two pics they are 10.2 MB and the pics get lost. when i send the out individually they are 3.3 MB each. and when i sent them out together a week ago they were 8 MB.

i think the use of .Mac has changed with the "iLife age". people send more pics and documents. therefore higher limits (50MB per email and higher speed are necessary. i would even pay a bit more for that if it was reliable and if the re where a few more web based apps (so my post above)

 

[epochblue]

I'm hoping for a price drop, better speeds and more storage. Anything else would be a welcomed bonus.

I really want to be able to justify subscribing to .Mac, because I really want the Mail web interface.

I like some of the stuff .Mac offers and would love to have it for a more reasonable price. They definitely need to increase storage and the like as well, though.

 

[AdeFowler]

I genuinely believe that Apple should make the storage unlimited or a huge amount like 500gb. My thinking:

1. Storage is cheap
2. None of the .mac members that I know use anywhere near the existing capacity, so the actual increase in overall date may not be that huge
3. Few people would have the patience to upload more than a few gb.
4. Apple bought a huge data centre last year
5. Then I woke up

 

[pcguru83]

I really want to be able to justify subscribing to .Mac, because I really want the Mail web interface.

Wha!?! Trust me, you do not want the .Mac web interface. It is the most ill-conceived and slowest web e-mail service I have ever used. My web mail access from Time Warner's Road Runner is quicker and more stable.

My wife and I are constantly having problems with it, both at home on our Macs and at work on PCs. Were it not for the awesome email address I was able to obtain (firstnamelastname@mac.com), I wouldn't even remotely consider renewing next year. Unless of courses they make some big changes between now and February.

 

[elppa]

Wha!?! Trust me, you do not want the .Mac web interface. It is the most ill-conceived and slowest web e-mail service I have ever used. My web mail access from Time Warner's Road Runner is quicker and more stable.

My wife and I are constantly having problems with it, both at home on our Macs and at work on PCs. Were it not for the awesome email address I was able to obtain (firstnamelastname@mac.com), I wouldn't even remotely consider renewing next year. Unless of courses they make some big changes between now and February.

Browser? Specific Problems?

I've found it top notch, both in conception and execution.

 

[flyfish29]

Browser? Specific Problems?

I've found it top notch, both in conception and execution.

I have actually had good luck with the online .Mac as well.

Is it really firstnamelastname or is it YOUR first name last name @mac.com??

 

[zap2]

Remodel with some OS 10.5 looks, more storage, new features....possible some google support?

 

[samh004]

New to .mac myself and have been trying to use mail but, at least at via the .mac website I must often use at work, I find it unusable. Often down or giving me mulitple error messages-not something I can count on. Do others have this issue or is something wrong with me setup?

I generally have no issues with the online web interface. Strangely, sometimes it throws an error when I try to read my messages, but a log-off and back in usually fixes it. That can be annoying, but it works fine most of the time.

improvements to mail

Coming with Leopard

a small webbased texteditor/graphic program to write notes to myself that stores the resulting documents on my idisk

Taking your idea a little further, I noticed that the new Mail in Leopard would have a notes feature, I'd like to see the notes folder added to the sidebar in webmail, so a note entered online appears in my notes folder on my mac, that'd be really useful. Currently when I need to remind myself about something, I send an e-mail to myself and read it when I get home.

And on that same note, a junk mail folder, like I have in Mail on my Mac, would be really useful online, showing me in webmail exactly what it does on my Mac. Is that already there, I have tried searching for it but can't find it ?

a webbased app for my contacts

This has upset me for quite some time now, webmail recently got a nice do-over, but Address Book is still pre-defined fields that don't match up very well with the Address Book on the Mac. I would like to see AJAX, or whatever was used for webmail, used for Address Book to make it as customizable as the locally stored one on the Mac.

more storage
faster idisk

I don't really use that much storage as it happens, or upload much to my iDisk, but general enhancements would be good, as long as the better features as outlined above and implemented first. They are much more important.

so in a nutshell they should make the all of .mac functionality available via webbased apps. and they should make it work without bugs!

That would be the right thing to do, they have started with webmail, now it's time to continue onwards with Address Book, iCal, Bookmarks, etc...

 

[mikesown]

It's very obvious what apple will announce: Storage for Time Machine backups. Think about it- $100 a year for unlimited storage of your mac! It's simply genius! No one would be able to compete with the ease of use of apple's system, and they could run a campaign about how PCs are hard to backup and on a Mac, you don't have to think twice about backups.

 

[samh004]

It's very obvious what apple will announce: Storage for Time Machine backups. Think about it- $100 a year for unlimited storage of your mac! It's simply genius! No one would be able to compete with the ease of use of apple's system, and they could run a campaign about how PCs are hard to backup and on a Mac, you don't have to think twice about backups.

You would have to think about it if you have a broadband monthly limit... at least the first time you synced up.

 

[ravenvii]

To all those who claim .Mac is way more expensive than if you go and find what you need yourself... I challenge you to find a web hosting provider that provides 1 GB of storage and unlimited transfers for under $100 a year.

 

[TimJim]

i hope they lower the price and speed up the iDisk transfer rate

 

[samh004]

To all those who claim .Mac is way more expensive than if you go and find what you need yourself... I challenge you to find a web hosting provider that provides 1 GB of storage and unlimited transfers for under $100 a year.

It's actually 10GB/month data transfers. Calculated 5GB/bi-monthly though.

When you purchase a .Mac membership, you receive 1 GB of storage and up to 10 GB of data transfer per month.

 

[kcross]

Apple to buy Yahoo and rebrand it into it's new .mac. Believe!

yahoo, really? im pretty sure it'd be google if anyone. im thinking they combine to form gapple, agoogle, or (my favorite) voltron.


but realistically

maybe some cross google/.mac services?
or just better intergration with a few new bells and whistles.
i dont think its gonna have non-subscribers pouring in.

 

[TimJim]

To all those who claim .Mac is way more expensive than if you go and find what you need yourself... I challenge you to find a web hosting provider that provides 1 GB of storage and unlimited transfers for under $100 a year.

doesnt gmail do that for free...