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MacHighway: low-cost alternative to MobileMe hosting

updated 02:40 pm EDT, Tue July 21, 2009

MacHighway vs. MobileMe


Denver-based MacHighway is taking on Apple's MobileMe, offering a web hosting package for less than half the $99 price tag for Apple's service. The company provides Mac-specific site hosting and support, designed for use with iWeb, Sandvox and RapidWeaver. MacHighway says most of the other features of MobileMe, such as syncing of Mail, iCal and Address Book, can be accomplished with free work-arounds.

MacHighway's Easy Hosting package includes 10GB of storage space, 100GB of bandwidth per month, free domain registration for the first year and five e-mail accounts, all for $40 a year. The company primarily hosts Mac-created websites, and says it has support techs who are well-versed in the types of problems faced by Mac users.

MacHighway hosts about 11-thousand domains, offering a variety of hosting packages. The company says it is environmentally friendly -- with all of its energy needs provided by wind power.


by MacNN Staff

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 Graphics/Web Design, MobileMe

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  1. jhawk95

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 2006

    -5
    07/21, 03:12pm | report spam | Reply |

    Not the same as MobileMe!

    Just another company trying to make money off of Apple but only providing a half-baked solution.

    Where is support for my iPhone (wirelessly and over the 3G network) at with MacHighway?

    How about find my iPhone or erase my iPhone if it is lost or stolen?

    They can keep their solution... frankly, by "selling" solutions they have no control over.... GoogleCal and GoogleContacts.... they are no differnt than the cheap b******* over at Palm who tried adding value to their own crappy product with no way to insure it would work in the future.

  1. jhawk95

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 2006

    -6
    07/21, 03:12pm | report spam | Reply |

    Not the same as MobileMe!

    Just another company trying to make money off of Apple but only providing a half-baked solution.

    Where is support for my iPhone (wirelessly and over the 3G network) at with MacHighway?

    How about find my iPhone or erase my iPhone if it is lost or stolen?

    They can keep their solution... frankly, by "selling" solutions they have no control over.... GoogleCal and GoogleContacts.... they are no differnt than the cheap b******* over at Palm who tried adding value to their own crappy product with no way to insure it would work in the future.

  1. yetsirah

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2009

    -3
    07/21, 03:16pm | report spam | Reply |

    Free alternatives aren't

    Having worked very diligently to use free alternatives for much of my computer experience—20 year—I have discovered that free alternatives aren't exactly free. Many of them take so much of your time in set up and in maintenance that they cost more in time than paying the 99 per year for MM.

    MM just works. With the Google contacts it has stipulations about not having two contacts with same phone numbers (there are times this is necessary for organization purposes) and the iCal syncing through CalDAV isn't flawless—actually no where near as clean as MM.

    As for mail—other than me.com account—the main thing I use is Google apps. Even still I am using SpanningSync. Because calDav wasn't working well just two months ago.

    I think people will find it more freely frustrating than freeing up money.

  1. gentooq

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2008

    +3
    07/21, 04:00pm | report spam | Reply |

    i use MacHighway . . .

    to host my domain . . .

    i think that there is at least one error in this article (i know BIG surprise on macnn), the company is a Mac FRIENDLY host that does most (it may be all but i don't know that for sure) of their hosting on Mac hardware.

    the BIG part is that (paraphrasing their website) they "speak Mac." i ran an ISP for 7.5 years and i know that, as a Mac FRIENDLY business i was a veritable oasis for Mac users. these guys are as well. imagine calling up with some problem trying to post your website, only to have the tech-droid on the phone tell you some lame excuse centered around your use of the macintosh.

    machighway is another vendor in the mac ecosystem, like many vendors whom i see as taking apple's "here's the low bar" offer and then extending it.

    just my 2¢.

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +4
    07/21, 05:29pm | report spam | Reply |

    Re: Not the same as

    Just another company trying to make money off of Apple but only providing a half-baked solution.

    How are they trying to make money off of Apple? By saying they're a mac-friendly hosting company? OMG! You're right, how dare they say such things!

    Where is support for my iPhone (wirelessly and over the 3G network) at with MacHighway?

    Um, is this the same support that you'd be decrying as another attempt of someone to make money off of Apple if they included it?

    What this shows is really how much MobileMe has turned into just a big centralized cloud for iPhone users. If you don't have the iPhone, MobileMe isn't that useful...

  1. MacHighway

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2009

    +20
    07/21, 07:50pm | report spam | Reply |

    From MacHighway

    What we provide at MacHighway is industry standard web site hosting services and email and superior support for those services. We've been providing hosting to the Mac community since 1997, longer than Apple has been doing it. The intent of the "Easy" package is to let Mac users know that there are alternatives to MobileMe's features. It is important to recognize that MobileMe does not answer every Mac user's needs. Use MacHighway for hosting your website and email and duplicate some of MobileMe's other features using free services provided by Google. This may not be enough for everybody, but if you just want a professionally hosted website and @yourdomain email, email syncing, and are happy with Google's options for syncing addresses and calendars (they work very well) then you don't need to pay $99 a year.

    As for web site hosting features MobileMe requires you to have an outside service host a CNAME record for you to use a domain name with their hosting, and they do not provide a way to have @yourdomain email addresses. We do all of that here under one roof, simply. MacHighway provides telephone based support for our customers, which Apple does not. For some people these are serious considerations.

    I would like to make a small correction to the article as well. We do not provide hosting only for Mac-created websites as the article states; we host any site created on any platform and have many happy Windows and Linux based customers because they appreciate our level of service.

    I do appreciate your comments.

    Thank You,

    Chris Graves, President
    MacHighway.com

  1. emilygrae

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jun 2007

    +2
    07/23, 12:28pm | report spam | Reply |

    it just works

    I know as a Mac user I do tend to say that all the time when telling people why I use a Mac, but the truth is, no, it doesn't always just work. Such is the case for MobileMe. .Mac used to be more about having a web presence of your own, but now it's trying to simply do what Google and others do for free, and less aimed at giving you someplace to have your own website. I'm not saying that MobileMe is horrible, I'm only saying that for me, personally, I prefer this other method. Apple knows that MobileMe isn't what ALL Mac users want. Why else would they put a Facebook and Flickr button in iPhoto, or allow videos you make in iMovie or on your iPhone to be so easily sent to YouTube?
    I don't exist for Apple's sake, Apple exists for OUR sake. If the particular service they are selling isn't what you need, it's okay to look at other solutions!

  1. facebook_Nicolas

    Via Facebook

    Joined: Feb 2010

    -1
    02/25, 11:41am | report spam | Reply |

    MacHighway is c***

    In 15 years of Internet use I've never had a problem setting up an email account. Not until I signed up for MacHighway, that is. Their "automated" process didn't work, and two calls to customer service yielded the same response: go visit our web site for instructions. That is no support at all. So I cancelled during the 30-day trial.

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