[mikeini]

Whats up guys?
while i finalize what exactly i want to get when i purchase my ibook, i remember the apple rep telling my buddy that if he uses the internet a lot, then .Mac is essential. but i want your opinions.

is it worth 100 bux a year?

is it necessary even if i do use the internet a lot.

mike

[Hi I'm Ben]

i think .Mac is crap.

To each his own.

[addiecool]

Nah... Not worth 100 buckaroos.....
Umm.. Maybe 40, yes then I would have bought it

[Krusty]

I voted 'yes'.

There are cheaper services that provide more than .mac BUT its a great "general purpose" account to have and is tightly integrated with many of the programs on OS X (iCal, iPhoto, Backup, iDisk, iSync, Address Book, iChat etc). If you have "hard core" needs, you'll probably want to upgrade from .mac eventually but, for me, its nice to be able to throw up a web page quickly from iPhoto, or drag files to my iDisk that I can download at work.

Try it out for the first year. If you don't use it often, then by all means, don't renew.

[bbales]

I've had a trial version for about 6 weeks and am about to pay for it. I am never going to be a web designer, nor do I have the time to learn something complicated. For now, for just putting up some photos (and primarily for my 13-year-old, who wants to do this), this is the way to go. She/we might not something better down the road, but this will get her started.

I've made a couple sample web pages and it's just amazingly easy. Limited, yes, but easy nonetheless. And by the time you find a web hoster, pay the fees, etc., you're not saving THAT much money.

That said, I sure wish we got more than 100 MB storage. My document file is three times that, and that would be what I would want in cyberspace somewhere, for really secure backup.

[voyageur]

I like it. I have a place to put personal websites and photos, I get a few free games for my family, and another email address. I agree $100 is steep, but I've never paid that; got it half price last year, and this year got the $20 coupon for the Apple Store.

[codywalton]

Short answer:
If you use the web space, yes. If you don't use the web space, no.

If i get the tme later I will write up a longer discription of the pro's and con's. But overall I think it's a good deal.

[Macpilot]

Yes, I think it is worth it.

It is all about integration, and Apple has done a very nice job with it.

I don't want to mess around with 3rd party shareware so I can do what .mac does for a few bucks less. And there are features of .mac you can't do elsewhere. For me the convenience and ease of use is well worth it. Plus, I have referred a few people to it and got a discount on my renewal for the second year.

The iSync bookmarks and iPhoto homepage publishing is great. Very easy and reliable.

Backup is also very well designed, typically Apple. It works every time.

[mishap]

how many more threads do we need like this...? we all know the weak benefits of .MAC

[Macpilot]

Originally posted by mishap:
how many more threads do we need like this...? we all know the weak benefits of .MAC

How about elaborating?

How exactly is is weak? Show me an easier, more-integrated, quicker, more well-designed way to do all that .mac offers and I will take a look at it.

[C.J. Moof]

.mac is like Apple hardware- more costly, but it just works. I think it's most useful when you have multiple macs- synching contacts and safari bookmarks between my laptop and desktop just makes my life easier, as does the background idisk synchs. The ability to hook up my digital camera and have a webpage posted to .mac in a half dozen clicks is worth the money to me- I just want to share the pics, I don't want to be a web designer.

If you don't have multiple macs, or want to design pages yourself (or not at all), it's not as useful.

Oh- I'd never used IMAP mail before .mac- I'm liking that a lot too.....

[Mr. Blur]

Originally posted by mishap:
how many more threads do we need like this...? we all know the weak benefits of .MAC

i don't agree with the "weak benefits" statement, but i certainly do agree that this subject has been beaten to death many times over.....

[zigzag]

Contrary to what the salesman said, it's not necessary to have .mac if you "use the internet a lot." You can use the internet just fine without .mac.

However, I think it's worth it anyway. As others have said, you can find cheaper substitutes for most of the services, but they aren't nearly as convenient or as well-integrated. And you can't get iSync anywhere else. I use iSync all the time and wouldn't be without it.

One feature that's usually overlooked is all the royalty-free music that Apple puts on your iDisk. I've used it for a few video projects and that has more than justified my subscription fees.

By the way, you can get .mac from megamacs.com for about $80, which makes the decision a little easier.

If you're short on funds, .mac looks overpriced. If you can afford it, I think it's well worth it.

[mikeini]

thanks guys.

but honestly, even if i do pay for it now .... i really dont see myself setting up a website or anything. i mean it would be cool and all ... but highly unlikely.

but that is definitly food for thought.

thanks guys! again, this forum rocks!

mike

[Macpilot]

Originally posted by mikeini:
thanks guys.

but honestly, even if i do pay for it now .... i really dont see myself setting up a website or anything. i mean it would be cool and all ... but highly unlikely.

but that is definitly food for thought.

thanks guys! again, this forum rocks!

mike

You don't need to know squat about website development with .mac. I use the iPhoto/Homepage thing to upload photo albums to the web so my family and friends can look at pictures without me having to email them. Very convenient and easy.

[Mohammed Al-Sabah]

Originally posted by Hi I'm Ben:
i think .Mac is crap.

To each his own.

yeah i would never pay a dime for it, i used to be free and was worth getting but pay for it ? na neva!

[clarkgoble]

In general you can find a place to colocate a cheap Linux or BSD server for about the price of .Mac. You can on that server set up most of the utilities that .Mac offers but with more control and space.

You might also be able to get a fixed IP with DSL for the price you pay and get everything integrated on your home machine.

The problem is that monthly fees appear low until you add them all up for a year and consider alternatives.

[Stogieman]

Originally posted by zigzag:
One feature that's usually overlooked is all the royalty-free music that Apple puts on your iDisk. I've used it for a few video projects and that has more than justified my subscription fees.

Whoa! I never knew about this feature. This would have helped me out immensely on my past home DVD/video projects. Thanks for the tip.

[keston]

.mac, not unlike a Mac or most other things/services from Apple, comes down to what the numbers/quantity by comparison don't show. Its about quality and integration done well. Yes, you can probably get ABCXYZ for less, and seemingly more of it, but the difference becomes apparent when you see how easy and how well Apple's services and products comes together. We pay more because good things cost money, people who maintain this level of quality and functionality need to get paid, just like everyone else. And time is money, you can get yourself a cheap linux box and set this up as someone mentioned, go through that hassle... but what is your time worth? You'd think that people who use and buy Macs would already have realized this

[Macpilot]

Originally posted by keston:
.mac, not unlike a Mac or most other things/services from Apple, comes down to what the numbers/quantity by comparison don't show. Its about quality and integration done well. Yes, you can probably get ABCXYZ for less, and seemingly more of it, but the difference becomes apparent when you see how easy and how well Apple's services and products comes together. We pay more because good things cost money, people who maintain this level of quality and functionality need to get paid, just like everyone else. You'd think that people who use and buy Macs would already have realized this

Very well put.

[Cadaver]

Agreed.

While each individual service may be available for less money, the tight packaging and integration into the iApps and the OS makes it worth it for me.

Easy-to-publish iPhoto albums for family/friends is only the beginning.

I use my 100MB of iDisk space, and may buy more. I've got three additional email address (a second one for myself and two for my wife) and extra IMAP space (since it can get used up quickly when you leave stuff in there, like me).

I also find the bookmark sync extremely handy. Not just ability to sync my Safari bookmarks between Macs, but also to have those same bookmarks available no matter what browser or computer (Mac or PC) you're using. I have access to my bookmarks from work or on the road. Nice.

Same goes for the Address Book (syncs in to the .Mac webmail address book).

iCal publishing to the web is also worth a few bucks a month IMHO.

My wife and I have access to everything... she on her Palm, me on my PocketPC, and also available if we're away from our PDAs, Macs, my work PC, etc... can get to our data from any machine.

I use virtually all the .Mac services, and I definitely think its worth the annual cost. Plus, I got a free copy of The Sims for renewing

[Krusty]

Originally posted by mikeini:

but honestly, even if i do pay for it now .... i really dont see myself setting up a website or anything. i mean it would be cool and all ... but highly unlikely.

honestly ? I didn't see myself doing those things either until it was available, free, and simple to do. For me, it was highly unlikely that'd I'd go to the trouble of purchasing a hosting service just so I could "tinker around" with web pages, web folders etc. But when iDisk etc. was free, I got hooked and started using it often ... then paid $50 to up my web storage from 20 to 70mb. When .mac was announced and I could get 100mb + extras for the same $50 I was already paying, I thought it was a steal. I'm bummed that its not free anymore, but its still well worth $8.33/month to me.

Plus,its a great place to host customs sigs

[waffffffle]

I think that most people do not use ALL of the .Mac features and if you are considering .Mac then you need to look at each feature and decide how much it is worth to you. The web storage space is very overpriced in comparison to other hosting providers, however the iDisk feature makes it easier to access in some ways but the lack of FTP access makes it harder. The .Mac webmail is the best webmail system i have ever used and the iSync feature to sync multiple Macs is the most important thing to me. I have all 3 of my Macs with the same address book, calendar and Safari bookmarks. That is extremely important to me as it is a great time saver.

I don't use homepage and don't plan to. I don't upload my photos using iPhoto (I use my school's web storage space since it is faster to upload to).

So to me .Mac is easily worth $50 but it is hard for me to justify paying $100 for it. I am lucky that my current job pays for my .Mac account but I will have to quit the job when I graduate school and I will have to decide if I want to renew .Mac then.

[juusan]

I think it would be a cool thing if it were free.... there's no way it's worth $100 a year (or even the $60 disounted rate).

it's only really useful for backing stuff up, like ical and address book, neither of which I really use since ical is lacking several features and I use frequently and address book is just, well, too bland for me feature-wise.

I considered getting .mac, tried the two month free trial, and only used it twice. $100 for that? not I said the little red hen. but for those that use the apps it works with, it might be worth it.

[pahroza]

I had initially signed up for .Mac when it turned from free to paid, and was only $50 for the first year. My membership expired in October, and I decided not to renew it. The sheer amount of spam I was getting was not worth it to me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I was getting the spam through any fault of Apple. It had been an e-mail address that I used for years, and signed onto many services using that e-mail.

Since then I've started running my own mail server, and I add an email address for each website that requires one, for example [email protected], [email protected], and so forth. In the few months that I've been doing this, the only spam I've received was to my username_networksolutions, and username_netscape aliases. i've commented both lines out of my aliases file and have received no spam since.

The main reason I did this was so that I could determine over time, who, if anyone, was selling my e-mail addresses. Almost everyone I sign up with has a privacy policy that states they will not sell my address, so I want to know if they are stabbing me in the back