.Mac a missed opportunity
updated 03:30 pm EDT, Thu May 22, 2008
.Mac opportunity
Apple's .Mac service, once a promising method for sharing media, performing online backups and more, has paled in the presence of free alternatives and represents an untapped opportunity for Apple according to a recent report from CNET. The articles posits "$99 a year is hard to justify for the .Mac service. 10GBs of storage? I can get that for $20 from Google, and I can get much more if I want it. Photo sharing? I can do that for free on Flickr, and upload as many photos and videos as I want for $24.95 a year. Build my own Web site? Lots of services offer that capability for free."
The real value of .Mac lies in its Mac OS X integration. You can share photos from iPhoto with a single click, sync contacts and more for easy backup, and perform other useful functions from within the iLife suite and elsewhere. However, that value offer isn't proving compelling for Mac customers: the entire "Software, Service, and other sales" category that includes .Mac revenue accounted for $529 million in revenue during its most recent quarter, and Leopard upgrades counted for a large portion of that total.
Some have suggested that Apple make .Mac free -- a loss leader that would help to move more Mac and iPhone units. Alternatively, the company could dramatically reduce the price, perhaps in half, and increase the online storage capacity as well as enhance offered services. Yet still, the company could give away .Mac subscriptions with new Mac purchases.
Too much $ for too little
05/22, 03:40pm reply
I really WANT to get .Mac but $99 a month isn't very compelling for what it offers. I think it centers too much around the e-mail component, when in this day and age, anyone paying for e-mail is crazy with Gmail offering 6GB and Yahoo! with no limits.
I'd like to see tigher integration with Time Machine. There are always those few documents which you ABSOLUTELY cannot loose and .Mac can solve that problem with ease. Also, make it cheaper!
dagamer34
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2007
$99 a year...
05/22, 03:48pm reply
...not a month. a year.
rtbarry
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
it's cheap
05/22, 03:50pm reply
it's $99/year that's less than $9/month
sixcolors
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Oct 2001
.Mac
05/22, 03:59pm reply
9$ a month for ad free email, and the capability to sync files and address books and mail settings between computers is worth it to me. Never mind encrypted video chat, web access to synced files, and web hosting. Yeah it's expensive, but it's not THAT expensive. Buy a boxed version on amazon.com when it's on sale.
sailin74
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2002
It's lame
05/22, 04:11pm reply
I had a .Mac account from the day it opened for business until last Fall. I finally couldn't justify the expense. As described in this piece, most of what .Mac offers is readily available for free. The one nice thing .Mac offers is the Sync feature. If you have multiple Macs, it's a great way to keep them all in sync. However, I wrote a few Automator actions that backs up the essential bits (Address Book, Bookmarks, Preferences, Keychain), and saves them in a central location where I can retrieve them and update a Mac if necessary.
The one thing that could draw me back to paying $99/year for .Mac would be if the email gained push capability to the iPhone. Apart from that, I'll continue to use the free alternatives.
factorguy
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jan 2005
back to mac
05/22, 04:15pm reply
Ok, you can do remote control knowing an IP and using any VNC client, but it's so easy with .Mac its another nice feature. Web gallery's make posting a nice photo site a breeze. Yes, you can do any of this cheaper and yet every one of my co-workers/friends that tell me this never has a site as nice as mine or they are always out of date. It always comes down to, "well, I could if I wanted to, but i don't want to spend the time to maintain it". That's the whole point. I DON'T spend the time. Take my $9 Apple. My time is worth more than that.
simdude
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2004
$30- would be ok.
05/22, 04:18pm reply
$30- would be OK for .Mac. No more than that. And $20- per 10GB of extra storage.
YangZone
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: May 2000
it's awesome
05/22, 04:19pm reply
It all depends on your needs. For me it offers a low-maintenance way to host and maintain a site with iWeb - .mac alone isn't worth it, but integrated with iLife it's insanely useful.
Like I said though, it depends on your needs and what you want.
Super Glitcher
Dedicated MacNNer
Joined: Aug 2003
google gmail is better
05/22, 04:25pm reply
The integration google's gmail offers with its spreadsheet and docs tools (also free), and google calendar make it a no-brainer to use gmail. Dot mac was a no brainer when it was free, but a hundred bucks a year just doesn't cut it. I'd rather buy a tank of gas and go to the movies. Apple can make it free and add features if they want, but it's hard to imagine coming back from gmail -- I get almost no spam at all, and my dot mac account never managed to figure out how to filter out email addresses that obviously were not mine.
ggirton
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999
It's $69.99
05/22, 04:27pm reply
When you buy it from Amazon.com. Is that a better price for you? Thanks sailin74 for the Amazon suggestion.
koolkid1976
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: May 2003