[MacinTommy]

For all of you that use .Mac is it worth the 100$? I want it but then again I want to hear some ups and downs before I buy it.

[Camali]

I'm sure others will say it isn't, for me its fine, sharing photos and files with families. However if you do decide to get it, go to Amazon, its cheaper ($75) there and yes it is the same thing Apple sells for $100.

[TETENAL]

Don't ask whether it is worth it. As Apple fans we should all support our favourite company, and .Mac is a great way to show our support.

[rickey939]

I'm definitely pro-.Mac and have been since Day 1...go for it!

[Franz]

I would say no it's not worth it. I used to be a member but chose not to renew.

Just a few of the things I found bad about it:
- iDisk is extremely slow and also buggy
- The webmail was really bad (they are releasing a very nice update to that soon though)
- Looking at my contacts on the web it did not sync my address book template so the custom fields and notes and such I added were not there.. Really annoying.
- Servers were down often and for hours at a time
- 1GB combined for email/storage is not a lot
- You have a bandwidth limit on your website

Apple has been really lazy with .Mac and it's not that great of a value. There is no denying they could be doing a lot better.

You can get most of the functionality of .Mac for free (like Gmail + Box.net). Or if you wish to pay you can get something like Dreamhost with a lot more bandwidth, flexibility, and storage.

[JKT]

This is the perennial question for which you will get a whole gamut of responses. Is .Mac worth the money - for me yes, but I make use of 90% of the features it offers:
In order of most usage:

E-mail,
Encrypted e-mail,
Synching,
Encrytpted iChats,
Backup,
iDisk,
iLife and third party app integration (e.g. OmniWeb synchs my Bookmarks etc via .Mac),
iCards,
iCal online calendars,
.Mac Learning Centre.

Unlike Franz above, I have not experienced a great deal of downtime at all. In fact, the first really annoying occurrence happened last night when the outgoing e-mail server was down for 3 hours, but that is about it for me, other than the occasional maintenance periods.

If you use more than one Mac, then .Mac is most definitely worth it for the synching features. FWIW, for me, Gmail is not an adequate .Mac replacement as it is only a POP account and not IMAP (not to mention that their Webmail interface is horrible as well). Again, if you use multiple computers (not necessarily all Macs) and prefer to use proper e-mail clients rather than web-based mail, then the free e-mail accounts are highly deficient due to their use of POP and crap user interfaces. However, I barely have 50MB of e-mail stored on my .Mac account, so I guess I'm not exactly enamoured by the 2GB+ of storage that GMail offers. Personally, I also find the simplicity of the .Mac webmail interface much more preferable to that of GMail's ugliness. Perhaps its just me, but I also do not like the notion that GMail scans all my e-mails in order to target their ads at me.

Could .Mac stand to be improved - definitely. The amount of disk space provided should be improved again, the support could be much, much better, iDisk upload speeds could be improved, and numerous other little things, but overall I'm satisfied with the service but not massively enthusiastic about it. It works well enough (some of it very well - the synching for example), but could be better.

My opinion is that you should wait for a month or two (or try the 60 day demo in the meantime) to see what, if anything, Apple does to upgrade the service.

[jbleisure]

It's relative isn't it? if $100 is affordable for you. Here in the UK it is more expensive....but anyway, I use it and althought I don't use all the features just having an IMAP email account that I can access and use where ever I am is useful for my business right now, plus being able to upload large files and host pictures. True - all can be done through other means more or less, but it is quite integrated and that with the features I use make it worth it for me.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by MacinTommy

For all of you that use .Mac is it worth the 100$? I want it but then again I want to hear some ups and downs before I buy it.

For me, no. It is not worth $100 (€80) so I cancelled mine after 2 years of subscription.

It is a collection of things available for free or included with the ISP's internet subscription. What is worse, those free things are usually better than what .Mac offers.

e-mail: ISP or gmail, both better than .Mac mail (2.5GBs for free with gmail)
webspace: ISP (I use Transmit for the FTP, it is as simple as it can get)
syncing: mySync
AIM: free
encrypted AIM/MSN: Adium
Backup: I'm not backing any big things on the slow and unstable iDisk! Free if one uses CDs/DVDs to back up on.

All in all, .Mac isn't worth much if anything. It saves you the 'hassle' of gathering these services by yourself (which only has to be done once) and only gives you a mediocre experience.

iCal and iCards? Meh. Cute, but not worth $100.

V

[driven]

For me ... yes.

[MacinTommy]

wow thanks for all the feedback... I need to take it all in and think about it...

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by JKT

Encrytpted iChats

Originally Posted by voodoo

AIM: free
encrypted AIM/MSN: Adium

For the record: iChat works with AIM accounts, but your .Mac-account does continue to work with iChat even when it is expired. If you want to do instant messaging you can also register for the free 60 days-trial account of .Mac and let it expire. It also will continue to work with iChat.

[wataru]

I'd like to cancel my subscription, but I'm far too wed to my email address at this point. Eventually I want to migrate to an address on my own domain, but things have been too hectic to do so just yet.

[onlykaria]

nope its not.

1-for $5-$15/ year you can get TONS if email address with your own domain. (godaddy, bluehost and many others)
2-its 1 gb. of COMBINED storage. there are sites on the net that give you 5 for free.
3-the webhosting is slow.
idisk is useless as it is too slow and its impossible to back up anything of merit in the 1gb you get.

[Franz]

Here are just a few links that I quickly looked up. Take the time to read them AND the comments posted on those sites too. You will see that a TON of people are disappointed with .Mac

Mac Recon :: an operative mac blog � Leaving .Mac
digg - Leaving dot Mac!!
GigaOM � dotMAC, Time For A Makeover?
GigaOM � DotMac.DotLame
The Tao of Mac - blog/2006-07-09.20:00
The .Mac Tax - O'Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog

JungleDisk offers a far cheaper, cross-platform, encrypted iDisk - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
Sync data without .Mac - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

It is just not a good value for the money you pay. Most of the features have free alternatives which work better.

[Grrr]

I've always been rather 50/50 about renewing my .Mac service. A lot of people renew around this time of year too, as its around 3 years ago it was introduced. So Apple usually do something to sweeten the deal right about now. But with only 6 days left to go, I don't see any sign of it yet?
Hmm..
I think .Mac is a good service, its just a bit too costly for what it is..

[cwosigns]

I love .Mac. I have an email address that never changes regardless of my ISP. I, too, take advantage of the iSync features, as well as sharing photos, iCards, etc. Making web pages with iWeb is very easy and they look sharp. I didn't like iWeb for blogging, though. But to me it is TOTALLY worth it. I haven't had noticable downtime since I can remember, and I was an early adopter.

[driven]

It's the iSync features and the iPhoto integration that does it for me. For my dad it's the online tutorials. Is it perfect? No. Is it expensive? Yes. However I'm happy with it.

I'm looking forward to the new web-mail.

[MRTrauffer]

For me it's definitely worth it. I upgraded to the 2GB storage option this year, mainly because I've started integrating my iweb site with my video editing workflow. And since I'm not well versed in web publishing, I've found iweb to be an easy solution for me, it gives me a decent looking website with 1-click publishing.

As for idisk, I noticed that it was really slow and unstable last year, but a few months ago, Apple did some upgrades to their .mac services, and now the idisk is quicker and stable...well it is for me.

Overall, I like the simplicity of .mac, and I like the way it integrates with my systems.

[Camali]

I agree with the iDisk being slow, even with that there is no feedback as to how much is being uploaded or any type of status, except, the usual Finder transfer status. However many have recommended using FTP program, I have had Transmit since it was released and transfers to and from my iDisk are alot faster.

Hopefully Apple will increase the iDIsk storage along with the new webmail interface.

.Mac is completely worth it for me.

[DuckRacer1]

I say nay to .Mac. I didn't dish out the $100 for it since all the features on it can be fulfilled by something else... for free.

iWeb hosting = other free web hosting.

Photocast = Photobucket.

iDisk = Firefox with Gmail Space extension and Gmail account.

.Mac email address = Gmail address.

Now, if you think the iSync and other little things are worth the $100, then, well, don't let us hold you back. But there's a ton better things you can spend your $100 on, IMO.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by DuckRacer1

I say nay to .Mac. I didn't dish out the $100 for it since all the features on it can be fulfilled by something else... for free.

That simply is not true:
Show me a single free e-mail service that offers an IMAP service rather than POP (hell, even most paid for services give you POP rather than IMAP).
Show me a free Backup application that does everything that Backup does.
Show me a free Sync service that does everything that iSync does.

You won't be able to. Now that might not be worth $100 to many, but it (when combined with the rest of the service) is for some.

[alphasubzero949]

I'm letting my subscription expire as well. Too much $$$ for too little.

[mac128k-1984]

I think you're going to see the concensus here is not for .mac. This question has been asked before and it seems the majority of people here don't think it is.

I think its a personal question, how important is the .mac email address, how much of a hassle will it be to change it. Do you use isync, or backup or iweb?

Only you can assign a vaule for these features and for years the .mac email address was very important to me. (not the .mac part but the hassle of changing email addressses).

This past year I opted for my own domain, and for less money I get 2 gig of space, unlimited email addresses and faster servers - the .mac stuff is a tad slow.

[Cadaver]

Definitely up to the individual. And .Mac is overpriced for what you actually get, however I've had an account since it was iTools and I plan to keep it.

I personally find the application integration (iWeb, iPhoto, iCal, Mail, MacOS X's keychain, Omniweb, iSync, etc.) to be worth the additional price for me.

And while also overpriced, the iDisk/Finder integration & syncing across multiple Macs is very useful for me. I've got 2GB of space and about 75% is in use at the moment. Its great to be able to drop a folder full of files in it at home and have it waiting for me when I get to work (and vice versa). Don't have to worry about maintaining multiple different versions across flash drives, etc. I've even been thinking of getting the 4GB upgrade option.

[patrix]

A less pricy option similar to .mac is the Spymac Club (they give you up to 6 months free, too, in addition to your first free trial month, if you invite 5 friends over. I'm tempted to post my referral URL but that would probably be considered spam ). 25$/year gets you 3 GB of online storage, email, webspace, blogspace, forums, sync features, backup, etc.

Their Spymac Disk option is interesting too, a bit like Jungle Disk, except instead of using a localhost DAV server, it uses a local disk image and syncs it regularly (every 10 minutes, hour or day, or manually). They also have a dav server if you need that (so I can sync my OmniWeb bookmarks easily).

Not as integrated with the Mac as .Mac is, but good enough for me, for now

Patrix.

[driven]

Not that Spymac club is doing anything bad, but I'm more apt to trust Apple with my personal information than Spymac club. (Just a thought)

[patrix]

hm true driven, now that I googled around (like I meant to do for a while now), seems Spymac - and their users - have been through some rough times. I'm not sure what to make of it, save that for me in the past 2 weeks it's been great. I still have 2 weeks to decide if I pay or not, maybe 6 more months if I manage to get my referrals to others

[driven]

Originally Posted by patrix

hm true driven, now that I googled around (like I meant to do for a while now), seems Spymac - and their users - have been through some rough times. I'm not sure what to make of it, save that for me in the past 2 weeks it's been great. I still have 2 weeks to decide if I pay or not, maybe 6 more months if I manage to get my referrals to others

If you go with Spymac please let us know how it worked out. They may be a viable alternative for someone.

[Macpilot]

First of all, anybody that pays $100 for it is stupid. You can get it for $69 anywhere.

Now, when people say "I can do all that stuff .mac does with x, y, and z programs" that is all fine and dandy, but I don't want to fiddle with a bunch of third party stuff if I don't have to.

After all, isn't that partly why we use Macs?

So for $6 a month, it is safe to say .mac is worth it.

The only major problem I have ever had is iDisk uploading crashing the Finder.

The iWeb pages are really nice looking and the Address Book syncing is important to me.

Can you get more storage elsewhere? Sure! Do you need it? Probably not.

[driven]

Ignoring calling me stupid for a moment ...

can you actually RENEW for $69? Or is that just for new sign-ups?

[patrix]

Originally Posted by driven

If you go with Spymac please let us know how it worked out. They may be a viable alternative for someone.

I am currently into week 3 of my 30 days free trial of Spymac. I personally have no complaints, except the occasional slowness of syncing the spymac drive (iDisk equivalent). The good thing is, it takes place in the background, and I have a local cache of it so file operations are quick all the time.

I can sync my address book, omniweb bookmarks, safari bookmarks, heck anything that can sync with a webdav drive, the backup isn't limited to 100 MB, and can backup to the Spymac drive, CD/DVDs or a folder on any hard drive. I have 3 GB of storage (even with the free trial). I haven't really made use of the blogspinner software or their web hosting, but it works.

An all-around good package despite the bad reviews of previous versions of their service that I read on the net. Like I said, not as integrated with the OS as .mac is, but their new suite of software they revealed earlier this year makes some progress towards integration. .Mac is still more userfriendly and better translated (I'm French).

If anybody is interested in the free trial, it's on their page (Spymac Club). However, if you want to be nice, you can click the homepage url in my profile and then click the "download now" link at the bottom (not the register link on top) - this is my referral URL (I don't want to spam this board unless the mods say it's ok), which would help me get 6 months free after 5 referrals

Patrix.

[Camali]

you can renew for $69, just not through Apple, you'd have to buy the .Mac (retail box/cd) for that price and then enter the activiation (located on the CD slip)

Just make sure AUTO-renew is not checked and when Apple sends you the "time to renew" email, you enter the .Mac activiation code BEFORE the renewal date.

I learned the hard way.

[SS3 GokouX]

Originally Posted by driven

Ignoring calling me stupid for a moment ...

can you actually RENEW for $69? Or is that just for new sign-ups?

You can buy the .Mac retail box for new accounts and renewals.

A family member bought a new iMac and the Apple Specialist said that the .Mac for $69 promo could be used for renewals. Inside the box there's a URL and a code, enter the code and your .Mac account page will say "[Your Name], your account will renew on [date]." Also, the .Mac preference pane will say "Your account will renew in # days."

I wish I knew about buying it from Amazon years ago and saved myself the $90+ for all those years I've been renewing.

I think it's overpriced, but it's the easiest way to sync up everything between multiple machines. And using iDisk through the Finder is god awful. Transmit, on the other hand, is much faster.

[Krusty]

I'm going to pony-up one more time this year because I have too much tied in to my .Mac email address and I use the iDisk still. In past years that this topic has come up, I was a pretty strong advocate of the service (at least for most people) becuase of its tight integration and comprehensive set of services. But, I definitely have to say that its relative value had definitely declined .... Apple really needs to drop the price down to about $69

[bealzabobs_youruncle]

You can find it for less than $60 on eBay, and I am very comfortable with that price.