i was wondering if .Mac is worth the money. it seems to have lots of features, and lots of things in tiger will be incorporated into it. you can also use .Mac to make several webpages where you can put movies and pictures which is great for me and the rest of my family. is there a limit to how much data you can put on your site(s)?

I don't know about the limit on storage space, but...

At $99.99, I don't think it is a good deal. It gives you email, but that's available, with more storage, freely. Yahoo offers 100MB, and GMail is 1GB. If you want to try out gmail, drop me a PM and I'll send you an invite; I've got a few.

The hosting service might be worth it, I don't know the specifics on how many site and how much storage they give you. The iDisk feature (100MB) could me useful...but USB flash (thumb) drives can be had in much greater capacity for less than $70.

It may be more integrated in Tiger, but as far as the WWDC version goes, I didn't see much more integration.

I've been a .Mac subscriber since it's inception, I joined for four reasons: I thought it was a great way to express my undying support for all things Apple. It was my "top-level" e-mail, only given to friend's, colleagues and family. The software, like Virex, Keynote themes, and backup. The easy web site setup.

Now, I feel none of these things are really worth $100, e-mail accounts are a dime a dozen, the software is just not compelling enough, the web site it pretty useless since my provider offers basically the same thing. As far as my love for Apple, I paid $3K for a computer recently, that should show my loyalty! But seriously, I can spend the same $100 on plenty of other things that will make me more productive (like a new iPod ) or AirPort Express, or software that I really need. As it stands, it's the end of the road for my .Mac address. I'll continue to feed Apple's bottom line in other places.

i think i might try that 60 free subsciption they got goin on. jestershinra-i might try Gmail, but i'll decide that if i don't like .Mac. unclemimo- airport express is great. how much storage does the homepage feature offer?

-Indo

Here's a link to the member benefits page: http://www.mac.com/1/memberbenefits.html
You get 100MB of online storage, I'm really not sure what the homepage size can be. 10MB, 100MB!? I sure can't find it!

i'm sure that u can put a huge amout of data on your webpage. apple says you can put your movies on there, and movies are huge files.

That is true as long as you do not go over the 100MB limit for your folder's account

I don't really think it's worth the $99. I certainly don't plan on renewing my account when it expires next year. I use the .mac email account more as a spam-hole, and not my primary address. But I can also use a Yahoo account for that. There's just nothing in the .Mac mix that interests me or that I see myself using even semi-regularly.

Frankly, the stuff one gets with a .Mac account would work better as a bundle of services that anyone plunking down the big bucks for a new Mac would get as part of the deal. Sort of a perk for joining the Mac community.

But, at $99, I just don't see the value.

It may not be worth 99.00 but I thought it was worth 77.00 at buy.com so I renewed.

R

Buy.com has it for $80?

I still think that's too much for the services, but it's more reasonable than $100.

Wasn't apple running a promotion where it was around $60?

i'm not sure, but i think you may have been confused with the 60 day free trial.

-Indo

You can buy more space on their servers also.

But it's time for me to renew, so I'll be a shopping.

$99 is a bit steep.

Hopefully someone remembered me and recommended me for the discount.



Apple sends a email 90 days before DotMac expires.

I use Apple's server for my webpage and exchanging large files with friends that my e-mail service won' accommodate. In the beginning it was very slow but has lately been fairly responsive to my constant tweeking. The Versiontracker-MacFixit promotion is definitely worth the money as it keeps everything up to date on my three drives with little fuss. Also, Apple seems to be very intent on making sure their server is always up and running which some other sponsors are a bit lax. The .Mac account is so good that I just bought more space on it yesterday for all of the images I now store for my webpage.

From AppleInsider.com:

Apple Computer this week is expected to quietly surprise members of its .Mac internet services with several new features.

According to reports, the company will be increasing email and iDisk storage space to a combined 250MB, up from 115MB. User's of the service will also be given an option to upgrade their .Mac account to 1 GB for US$49.95 per year.

In addition to the storage enhancements, Apple is also expected to introduce e-mail aliases and an e-mail spell checker.

<------ Still leaving .Mac

I recently went through the should or renew or not question. I ended up renewing, and here is why:

Web space: The web server is nice. If you want CGI, PHP, etc. you will have to look elsewhere, but it definitely suffices for a personal website (see the link to my site in my signature).

Email: I have had this address for at least 3 years, changing it would be a hassle. Plus, I have always like the mac.com email address, and the POP/webmail access is nice.

iDisk: Besides having room for a website, I also have room to backup those important documents to an off site location.

iSync: Being able to easily sync bookmarks and contacts across multiple Macs is very handy.

Fringe Benefits: Getting free software that throughout the year totals over $100 is a boon

Price: If you get it from Amazon.com, you can purchase the boxed version for $80, and renew your current subscription that way. By doing that, it comes out to less than $7/month for al these features (I wish my cable bill was only $7 per month).

I made the decision to renew a few weeks before the storage upgrades, but those are definitely a welcome addition.