Apple has extended its “A Must-have for Mac Users” promotion through December 27, 2003. The promotion offers a $30 discount on .Mac memberships ($99) when purchased with a Mac. The offer is good in the U.S. only and requires a mail-in rebate sent by January 31, 2004.
Apple’s site reads, “Purchase a Mac between January 7 and December 27, 2003, and pay just $69.95 for a one-year .Mac membership. With .Mac, you get Virex anti-virus protection, automatic backup software, 100MB of online storage, .Mac Mail, Mac-to-Mac synchronization with iSync, online calendar sharing with iCal, and website creation and hosting services. A comparable value of over $250
I’m thankful that the Mac Specialist at the Apple Store reminded me that I can use this for my renewal. So I bought .Mac with my new 15″ PowerBook even though I signed up last year.
I wish Apple would stop saying “A comparable value of over $250” or something like that. They said the Jaguar training was valued at $39.95 I think. I checked to see if I could order that for my mom since she had just bought an iMac. Couldn’t buy it. Only .mac members could get it. So how was it a $39.95 value? If I can’t buy it, it has no monetary value.
Well Jeff, according to some economists, “what cannot be bought is the most expensive thing”…anyway…in the end one is who places “value” or “worth” to things….
A must-have for Mac users? I have been a mac user for many years, and never have owned .mac, even when it was free.
I think I am doing a-okay without it …
I think .Mac is hard to describe because when you don’t have it it is hard to imagine or justify why you need it, yet for people who do own and use it, it is hard to imagine continuing without it. IOW, for me it has become a must-have. I don’t want to sound like a switcher ad or something, but that iDisk with iSync and Backup is really useful. And everthing else is for me added value – some features being more valuable than others. I haven’t given the free StickyBrain or iBlog a chance yet, but perhaps for some people they’re becoming indispensable tools, as well. And sure, there are other alternatives for all of this out there. Whether .Mac integration is worthwhile – or even desirable – for you is your own decision to make.
I’m hooked. It comes in handy at the weirdest times.
I was going back and forth on renewal, as I thought $99 was a bit pricey. I also don’t give a rip about the type of games , etc. they were offering as a premium. The $30 rebate will work for me as I bought a new laptop this year which qualifies me. The iDisk is a neat concept that is kind of weak in execution, The transfer rate is slow even on broadband (Cable at home & T1 at work). Another gripe is that the Backup program does not remember your serial #’s for 3rd party apps. When I partitioned my drive and had to reistall, I had to re-enter serial #s for VPC, Adobe apps, VueScan, etc.
Definitely a work in progress, but you got me for another year, Steve. Let’s see how much better it is with Panther.
The only thing that I would use is the iDisk… IF I didn’t run my own server… the funny thing is, everyone can run their own server if they would like, and have it privately held at that, so no one but you can get in, or make passswords for family and friends if you want. This way, I have 150 GIGS worth of stuff on my computer at home, which is on all the time – I can DL to work, or at my parents/friends/ what have you at a great speeds. I run a cable 2mbit so I get about 150k/s DL speed. And I have most things backed up to CDs as well, if need be. It works pretty slick for me.
but the rest of the stuff that you get with .Mac, I just don’t think I’d use…
When my hard drive died suddenly and I had to rebuild my system, it was a huge timesaver having my Address Book and Bookmarks sync back up.
Panther should also help with increasing iDisk’s usefulness. I use it as an ftp site for my sister, who is in another country, to upload files to my iDisk that are too big to email.
Ease of use counts for a lot when you don’t have a lot of time to tinker.