.Mac: No. 2 seller in Apple retail, next big thing?
updated 02:15 am EST, Wed December 12, 2007
.Mac is no. 2 seller
Apple's second hottest seller this year has been little more than an empty box, since the company's retail stores are selling large amounts of the .Mac packages – largely due to the integration of the service with Mac OS X and iLife. Computerworld reports that the .Mac retail box, which contains a serial number on a slip of paper and empty space for the most part, has been leaping off shelves at the Apple stores. According to NPD research analyst Chris Swenson, this could indicate a growing trend with software developers, offering a boxed idea or service, rather than distributing software for users to install on their machine.
With the emergence of several free options, such as notMac, and the availability of large-storage email services like Google's Gmail, the key to Apple's success with the service will revolve around staying competitive. Apple updated .Mac in August, introducing 10GB of storage for single users and 20GB for families, larger mail attachments, Widget integration with web .Mac web pages, and more.
The notMac Challenge recently received an answer to its request posed to developers around the world: create a free, open-source utility that provides client-side .Mac services for users who run their own servers. Ben Spink has claimed the prize of almost $9000 for indulging the challenge. His solution currently involves using a server running Mac OS X, but Windows and Linux ports are currently in development.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Dec 2005
get a whiff of that..
A real key that's not stated is the ease of use with .Mac- many of the iLife apps funnel directly to .Mac Syncing. Of course, there are options to use other providers services, but they aren't as easy. With .Mac's very simple sync integration, it takes a lot of effort to go the other way, not to mention you can't be sure of what you're going to get using the 3rd party.
In a way, this bundling smells of an MS-esque bundling program, but not as insidious. In all reality, .Mac appeals to people who just aren't savvy enough or don't have the time to make everything work through other avenues.
I have the service on the issues of time earlier this year, but I'm not impressed with the price. Their only saving grace, in my opinion, is the simple, yet polished nature of the unlimited photo storage. It's good to know there's a slick interface out there that family members can get their favorites photos from at full-resolution, mind you, from the photo guy.
If they elevate some of the functionality of iLife, in particular iWeb, to the point where it's not just templates templates templates, you may even see some businesses buy into that software along with the .Mac service to build and support their site. After a while people recognize "just another fill-in-the-blank" sites, and don't see the cool graphics, but just another poser.