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USPS to discontinue postage-free Mac shipping

updated 11:20 am EDT, Mon April 14, 2008

USPS and Mac support


Mac owners may soon find themselves inconvenienced when trying to ship packages online, a note from the US Postal Service indicates. For some time the USPS has let people pay for shipping online through its web-based Click-N-Ship service, which eliminates the need to buy physical postage. The pay-without-postage service is being discontinued after May 12th however, which will force customers to use the USPS Shipping Assistant software if they want to avoid buying postage separately.

The difficulty is that at present, the only available version of Shipping Assistant runs on Windows 2000 or later, effectively excluding Mac users from pay-without-postage schemes unless they run Boot Camp. In response to inquiries from MacNN, the USPS says that Mac users will still be able to print labels in May, but will have to buy their own postage.


by MacNN Staff

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TAGS :

 industry, software, USPS

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  1. letmebe

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Apr 2008

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    04/14, 11:28am | report spam | Reply |

    C'mon!

    disingenuous or sloppy? 'postage free' implies not having to pay for postage. If the service was called "Postage Free" then put quotations around the word. Geez!

  1. iolaire

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2001

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    04/14, 11:31am | report spam | Reply |

    to bad

    I used this service from my work PC all the time for personal mail. Sorry to loose it.

  1. zaghahzag

    Dedicated MacNNer

    Joined: Aug 2006

    0
    04/14, 11:32am | report spam | Reply |

    wtf

    Seriously, wtf. Why would they do that?

  1. danviento

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    Joined: Dec 2005

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    04/14, 11:35am | report spam | Reply |

    Totally Unrelated Headlin

    That was a very poorly writen headline. Here I thought the Apple Store had switched to USPS all of a sudden, and no longer offers free shipping in their overall price.

    They have typicall used FedEx in all of my purchases, and most any Apple-branded hardware purchase is free (since most are over $50).

  1. ZinkDifferent

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2005

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    04/14, 11:43am | report spam | Reply |

    Well, I guess ..

    ... I'll be voting with my feet, and using alternate means of shipping. I suspect other Mac users to do the same.

    Way to go, USPS, demonstrating how backwards-a$$ their decisionmaking process is. Instead of staying with a platform agnostic solution (web-based), they discontinue it, and throw their weight behind a proprietary solution that loses them customers.

    Right, after all, the USPS doesn't actually have to deal with a shrinking customer base. Make that, 'a further shrinking' customer base.

  1. fhunter

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2007

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    04/14, 11:53am | report spam | Reply |

    article inaccurate

    If you read the note at the USPS site they state that they are only changing the ability to print a shipping label without postage... you can still pay for the shipping and print a shipping label from the web site, so this really isn't all that big of a deal:

    After 5/12/08, the option to print a label without postage will no longer be available within Click-N-Ship. If you would like to print labels without postage after this date, please download USPS Shipping Assistant.

  1. g4zilla

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    Joined: Jun 2000

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    04/14, 12:01pm | report spam | Reply |

    Critical part still works

    Not sure what all the hubbub is, USPS is only discontinuing the ability to print a label WITHOUT buying postage. I use Click-N-Ship regularly, and me and my Mac will continue to do so.

    Need to just print a label? I thought that's what word processors were for.

  1. tomodachi

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Apr 2002

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    04/14, 12:03pm | report spam | Reply |

    /

    What fhunter and g4zilla said.

    Stupid, sloppy journalism. As usual.

  1. Kainzow

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: May 2007

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    04/14, 12:15pm | report spam | Reply |

    Put down your crack pipes

    Jeez MacNN, you really botched this one...

    It's a non-issue, unless you print USPS labels WITHOUT postage, which not many Mac users are likely do.

    You can continue to enjoy easily-generated, browser-based, low-cost USPS shipping from the comfort of any Mac web browser.

  1. umijin

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jun 2004

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    04/14, 12:35pm | report spam | Reply |

    Who writes this stuff?

    "The difficulty is that at present, the only available version of Shipping Assistant runs on Windows 2000 or later, effectively excluding Mac users from pay-without-postage schemes unless they run *Boot Camp.*" [Emphasis Mine]

    You got a bunch of newbies or Windoze users writing your copy now? How about you tell them about Parallels or VM-ware? Or, heaven forbid, Virtual PC?

    Jeez, this and the other stuff mentioned above really points out you guys need to retract this article and resubmit it after the grownups have looked it over.

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