Once, long ago, being a member of Apple's .Mac seemed like a good idea—even value-for-money. Following the recent Macworld in San Francisco (Jan 2006) I'm left wondering what I'm getting for my money.
I use Gmail instead of .Mac for e-mail, because I find it more flexible in use for mail forwarding to and from my domain. I used to make use of Virex, until Apple killed support in recognition that it caused some users more problems than it solved (I now use ClamXav). The .Mac membership area used to make software freebies available (including iBlog); this habit has long since dried up. Occasionally the Pulbic folder on my iDisk sees use as a drop-box, but the only .Mac feature I use regularly is HomePage integration with iPhoto for sharing holiday snaps (although there are excellent free alternatives, such as Galerie). When Mac OS X Tiger was released .Mac users were promised "exclusive" widgets; they never materialised.
And now Apple has released iLife 06, together with iWeb, the icing on the cake of disappointment.
Apple promotes iWeb as if it's some kind of benefit of a .Mac membership—but it's not. It's not included. whereas it used to cost £70 for a .Mac membership, if you want to enjoy all the features Apple trumpets, it now costs £125 (£70 for .Mac plus £55 for iLife 06). Add your ISP costs to that and you have a fair bit of cash to spend on a more transparent and competitive hosting service.
A couple of "first impression" comments relating to iWeb on MacInTouch echo my feelings:
...if it's only another way for Apple to try to generate revenue for .Mac, I think it's in bad taste for them to sell it as part of iLife '06 without making it freely available to .Mac subscribers (Tom Warsaw)... [HomePage] has not had a significant upgrade in many years. Instead of upgrading HomePage Apple decided to make iWeb part of the iLife package. What has happened here is that Apple is making mac.com less complete. Those who want to use mac.com for publishing web pages have just seen the price raised from $100.00 to $180.00 (Bruce McLaughlin).
.Mac is not maturing with age; it's turning sour.
I wonder how many other .Mac members are thinking the same thing, and whether our combined voice can send a message Apple will hear. Maybe if they added support for PHP and MySQL...
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![[Photo of Bruce McKenzie]](data:image/jpeg;base64,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)
Good point, well made. I hadn't really stopped to consider, but will probably continue with it for the time being; my .Mac e-mail has become my default, but I certainly don't use the service to the full. Maybe they should heavily discount iLife for .Mac subscribers (or include it in the price) - that would be a winner.
I think i'll remain a .mac user (mail reason, mainly), but you're right, Bruce, also they should have produced a much cleaner version of the iWeb: I saw the HTML code and it's a very mess up, even if formally standard. I don't understand why they can't be able to put some Blogger-like tool, with comments, etc. Ok, their target is our mom, but this is not a reason.
Is there an alternative way to backup a MacBook to a USB external drive, other than Backup 3.x? That's really the only reason I tried the trial membership, and they limit it to 100MB or something, for trial members. Who's system just uses 100MB nowadays? Also, charging an annual fee so that you can use a piece of backup software seems a bit much. There must be other alternatives?? I can't believe this product is the only option for backup. If so, this is absolutely the last time I'm buying a Mac. (It's also the first.)
BTW, I had to dig quite a bit just to find out that .mac membership costs $100 per year. I can see some nominal rate similar to what I pay for a web-based email account, but $100 per year?
[quote post="280"]Is there an alternative way to backup a MacBook to a USB external drive
Yes, there are alternatives.
Thanks for this post! I was going to purchase a .mac membership and decided to do some research beforehand. Definitely sounds like .mac membership would be pointless for me. I really hope apple changes the trend because I bet they are losing valuable money this way! Goodluck n thanks!!!!
Thanks for the input. I as well was looking to get a .Mac membership. After reviewing their services, I certainly wouldn't pay $100 for a yearly membership.
I could understand if it was a family account, with a lot more added features, but for an individual user, that's just plain absurd. Its not like I could even see myself downloading my backed up disk from the internet.
I think affordable idea would be to just buy a USB Flash Drive and use that to sync up with Time Capsule. The flash drives are getting quite cheap as well. I just recently saw a 4gig Sony MicroVault on sale at CircuitCity for only $19.
Also, in terms of syncing bookmarks I also use the foxmarks plugin with firefox. Add a 6.6 gig email account with google, what more could you need?
.Mac has certainly not sold me on the reason to pay an annual fee of $100.
Hopefully they'll reduce the cost as they see more free options being added to google services. I'm sure they Apple could use .Mac to create an even greater loyal customer base by reducing costs, and using it to advertise their products to the users. But I'm sure they have the marketing scheme all figured out...
I am thinking about getting .Mac with a new iTouch. I want my email to sync up quickly. I will be out and about with my iTouch, and I want records on my desktop of the emails I send. Do you think this is a decent idea? I don't know of a quicker way to do it.
The .Mac described in this 2 year old post has moved on Gloria. MobileMe does include push synchronization for e-mail, calendar, and address book. But consider that you could set up a free Gmail account to use IMAP which will also synchronize any e-mail you send or receive with the web interface or Mail on your Mac ('keeping records' as you desire). iTunes will synch Address Book to a Gmail account, and Google Calendar can now be used in iCal without extra software. So perhaps the question revolves around how often you need to update: if you are content to synch with iTunes daily MobileMe seems redundant. If you're in business and need your schedule, contacts, and events pushed to you multiple times per day then you probably will set your iTouch to use Exchange Server—except that you'd by an iPhone with a data plan so you can do this when away from WiFi.