The Big Macintosh Rip-Off
Published November 20, 2003
I am a loyal Mac user. I have been for about 4 years now. I own two Macs, and iPod with accessories.
About 3 years ago, Apple began to offer a service for free called iTools. This service offered modest services like a @mac.com email address, an on-line disk drive, very crappy web-site authoring and hosting, and some so-so greeting cards.
What did they do? They decided to charge $100 bucks a year for this service and call it .mac.
They were nice enough to extend an offer of 90 free days of the new .mac service to current iTools subscribers, which I was one at the time.
I was not impressed with the offerings as free services, let alone now that they were charging for them. The only thing of any worth is the @mac.com email address. Other than that the only thing they really added, in my opinion, was an anti-virus, which is moot because there are very few virus's that attack macs.
I do not like the .mac service. I didn't even think it was that great when it was free, let alone now that they charge for it. I keep getting emails asking if I want .mac. I think I would never pay for all these paltry services. They act like they are offering to teach you how to make brass into gold or something.
I'd love to hear from some other mac owners out there. What do you think of .mac? Is it really worth $99 a year?
- The Big Macintosh Rip-Off
- Published: November 20, 2003
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- Section: Sci/Tech
- Writer: Tom Bux
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I may let my .Mac account expire. About the only thing stopping me is not wanting to give up having a .Mac email address. I particularly abhor their so-called Backup program. It is virtually useless.
That said, I'm not going to really bash Apple, though I'm in a dispute with Apple right now in regard to my PowerBook G4. Among other things, it has stopped running from batteries. (I have two and both work in friends' computers, so I know the problem isn't with the batteries.) My past experience with Apple, over more than a decade, has been 85 to 90 percent positive. Even when I have to escalate a complaint, it usually gets solved. Though imperfect, my experiences with Apple laptops have far surpassed any I had in regard to my Windows lapops, including repairs.
I paid for .mac membership and agree with you, unlike the rest of the wonderful Apple stuff, it is not worth the money. I already have several email addresses so don't use the mac one. I have three web sites so don't need the web pages. Transferring files to and from the Mac server is so slow it's like swimming through treacle! The only thing of any use is that I can back up some important files off site so I could retrieve my life story and cash account if the house burned down! Next year I won't be renewing though. That said, I'm still a great Mac fan.
Exactly, Valerie. Uploading to the .Mac servers is excruciatingly slow. For bloggers that may be particularly noticeable because we have gotten used to fast uploads.
The webpage function for .Mac is also amazingly clunky and limited. It reminds me of the now deceased Talk City and About.com webpage bots of about five years ago. I don't know why Apple doesn't realize many of its users are savvy enough to know when Internet software doesn't work well.
I bought my 1st mac 2 years ago. I used .Mac for free and then paid the discounted fee for a year that expired just a few months ago.
We used it for the extremely useful iPhoto to web feature. Since then, I have found some wonderful software that will do the SAME THING, but now on one of my personal sites.
Bye Bye .Mac... thanks for nothing!
I guess I'm the exception. I love .Mac.
I use Backup (twice a night--one to iDisk, another to a FireWire drive), and I love being able to publish photo galleries so easily from iPhoto. And I use the email function and the address book when I travel.
Apparently Panther will put an iDisk copy on your hard drive and sync in the background, but I don't have Panther yet.
Macs are OK for the tecno-challenged.
no, Macs are for people who just want their computer to work...without any unnecessary reboots, patches, driver updates, etc.
gees, the microsoft philosophy is a fricken' disease.
I used .mac for the first year after it was offered. I got a couple games, liked the Backup program, but when it came time to renew. I did not do it. It just isn't worth it if you already have a web site and email.
It was annoying that they had my account set to auto-renew, and in order to turn off the auto-renew option I had to enter my credit card info. Nope, I emailed customer cupport to ask them to turn off the auto-renew. Mike
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I've found the service worthwhile. In the first year, they offered the service for $49. They gave 100 free photos from the iPhoto store, in essence giving you the service for free.
Over the past year, I've used the service to back up my documents; sync my address book, bookmarks, and calendars; post pictures on a web page for my family; and post movie projects. I've received several free shareware titles. They've posted tutorials on iMovie, iTunes, and iPhoto (all were well done).
As a gift for renewing, I've received another game (Everquest), Sticky Brain ($39.99), iBlog, and a trial version of Contribute. Once again, the freebies pay for the service. I get to enjoy another year of synchronization, backup, antivirus protection, and my e-mail address.