“.Mac has been a mixed bag since its introduction. It’s always been helpful, but never strong enough to make the $99.95 yearly fee a bargain. We’re impressed that Apple has never raised the price and that users can work seamlessly with their .Mac tools from within the OS and various iLife apps (for example, creating an online photo album from within iPhoto). But at the same time, .Mac still doesn’t feel essential or robust enough,” Troy Dreier writes for PC Magazine.
Among the “Pros” of .Mac, Drier writes, “1GB of online storage (up from 250MB). Groups tool for creating online shared spaces. Provides online access to e-mail, bookmarks, and contact info. Ties in with many Apple applications.” .Mac “Cons” according to Drier, “Backup tool no longer shows how much iDisk space is in use. Backup hides advanced controls. Suite no longer offers antivirus utility. Too little storage space.”
Drier gives .Mac and overall score of 3 out of 5 stars.
Full review here.
Related articles:
How to use Apple’s new .Mac Groups – September 20, 2005
What’s new in Apple’s Backup 3 – September 20, 2005
Apple debuts new .Mac features: .Mac Groups, Backup 3, 1GB storage, French & German Localization – September 20, 2005
Bob ‘Dr. Mac’ Levitus: ‘deciding to renew Apple’s .Mac membership a no-brainer’ – September 13, 2005
some what understandable. i get it because of mail, syncing and the homepage. if any of those three features were missing, it’s simply not worth it
Personally I’ve not used the online stuff much since I got the family pack, however I do love the new backup. Even if I don’t use it to backup online I still think it’s a great app.
I just renewed my membership for the third year. Interesting enough, I would have had to pay $99.99 to renew with Apple, but for $78 I was able to buy .Mac from Amazon (with free shipping). Saved $22 just to have a registration code mailed to me in a box. Weird, but I’ll take the savings.
Backup has saved me quite many times. I give .Mac 6 stars especially because of the iChat and the new groups feature.
Wouldn’t changing the cost from free to $99.95 count as raising the price?
There’s a long list of what .Mac could offer – greater speed, more integration, and more storage space heading the list – .Mac should at least offer what the free services (Yahoo!, Flickr, Google, etc.) do in terms of storage and speed.
I’ve been a .Mac user since iTools, but every time I go to that painfully slow site I reconsider my subscription.
Oh, and can I be forced to log in one more time? I don’t think three times in one session is quite enough…
.Mac needs speed more than anything else. It seems to run slow. Also, Apple needs to release many more Homepage templates. I suggested that they hold a contest and give .Mac memberships (or renewals) away to the winners. Let the Mac community design templates for you. You can never have enough. Why have I had to use the same birthday template over and over. How about an assortment of templates for every occassion?
Same goes for Tiger. Why hasn’t Apple added user icons and more desktops by default. I know yoou can add your own and I do, but many people just choose from what is included. Why have a Jaguar icon and not one for Panther or Tiger. Why have a basketball and no football. I know it’s rediculous, but it’s the attention to the little things that make a difference.
It’s a much better deal now that Apple finally raised the storage to 1GB (which was about a year overdue IMO). I got it back in April at the Tiger launch event while the $69 promo price was in effect. If you can get it at Amazon or during a promo for a significant discount, it’s definitely worth buying .Mac, but not for the full $99.95 price tag.
Backing up online makes so much sense to me, that itself is worth the .mac fee. 1GB storage space is small for backup, but if I limit the backup to critical files, it is sufficient. I sleep better knowing, even if fire distroys my house with all the computers and backup disks, I can get back my critical files.
3 out of 5 isn’t bad really. Especially from a PC magazine. It seems that they understand that a lot of people are willing to pay a little extra for the convenience, even if compared to getting the equivalent from disparate sources andhaving to deal with FTP etc, would be better for many advanced users.
I’m happy to use it for convenience. Even though I could quite easily use cheaper alternatives, it’s just SO easy that I couldn’t face the hassle of the extra effort now.
I tried the three months’ free subscription when I bought my G5 iMac. I didn’t renew it. I wouldn’t call the fee a rip, rather it’s just not worth it. Of all the Mac users I know only one uses it.
It would be interesting to know what proportion of Mac users pay for the service. Are there any stats on the usage?
The new UI of Backup looks like something from Micro$oftopoly or the LINUX world. Otherwise– not ready for prime time. With .Mac Apple has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s time for Apple to ‘Think Different”.
The new UI of Backup looks like something from Micro$oftopoly or the LINUX world. Otherwise– not ready for prime time. With .Mac Apple has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s time for Apple to ‘Think Different”.
The new UI of Backup looks like something from Micro$oftopoly or the LINUX world. Otherwise– not ready for prime time. With .Mac Apple has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s time for Apple to ‘Think Different”.
I agree with his “con” regarding the BackUp. This is one Apple app i’ve had to scratch my head to figure out how to do certain things. The way i can summarize it: the app is all over the place 🙁
.Mac is nice but not worth the price. But I’m a sucker and have it anyway. This Apple/Mac cult thing is getting really expensive.
MDN is also a cult but cost a lot less.
I agree with their assessment for the most part. I keep it mainly because I have many out of town friends and family who want to see my one year old, and it couldn’t be easier than it is with iPhoto and .Mac. Also, I actually just tried Backup for the first time yesterday after using Retrospect for some time. I dumped Retrospect. I think Backup is so much easier. I was impressed.
That being said, I think .Mac could be much better. For starters, I wish that the homepage slideshow could operate automatically like some of the other services do. I agree about the templates too, they’re getting stale. I guess overall my biggest gripe is that .Mac isn’t as Apple-like as other products, meaning, it doesn’t live up to it’s potential.
My 2c complaint voiced before: The computer integration is nice, but when logged into the web, you are bombarded with Advertisements for stuff you already have. (Backup, iCalendar) It just doesn’t function as a ‘portal’. More like iAds. It’s just weak. (yet I pay)
I recommend .Mac to newbies because I am always asked about where they can get some training. So I suggest first trying a 60 day trial version of .Mac and if it is helpful and worthwhile then buy it.
Ditto on the slow speed of the iDisk. Kudos to Apple on the details of .Mac.
And what’s with the 80 letter limit on captions under the photos?!?!?! That’s barely a sentence and a half and totally unnecessary!
The original .mac had no such limit. Why add a major hinderance that serves no purpose???????
I give .MAC 1 out of 5 stars, and since I’m the freaking customer, that’s the only rating that matters. Yet I still pay for .Mac; go figure! I’m not even sure what .MAC is. Can someone explain it to me? Is it like MSN/HOTMAIL with everything sucked out of it? Oh, and “one more thing,” the last MAJOR UPGRADE to .MAC was a freaking joke! Groups I won’t use and extra space I’ll never need. Nice try Apple. I think .MAC should be free. Then it would be worth it.
My .mac account runs out in 31 days. I’m not renewing it. I’ve had my account for 3 years but I’ve decided its not worth $99 a year. I want to use mainly for online storage, but Apple doesn’t let me use it the way I want. No SSH connectivity. No subversion capability. No, they want me to use the god-awful iDisk which is painfully slow. So, no thanks Apple.
Yeah, I’m becoming more and more unimpressed with .Mac. I find the online storage useless, as uploads over a certain size will hang. It might work fine if you live in North America, but it’s absurd that the storage is centralised in the U.S. if you’re elsewhere on Earth.
Try uploading a 100MB file to it from Australia – I’ll guarantee it’ll get stuck at “5 seconds remaining” and never complete. Apple, if you’re reading, each region needs it’s own local storage for lightning fast and RELIABLE up/downloads.
Then there’s the little matter of Anti-Virus Software. Where the @#$@# is it? For heaven’s sake, Apple, dig into your stash of cash and provide a solution. The AV Software is one of the main reasons, along with email, I bought into .Mac in the first place. No viruses or other malware, 5 years and counting, but still I want it for peace of mind.
I think it’s reasonable to state there is an expectation amongst account holders that AV sofware is an integral part of the service, and was a primary reason to sign up in the first place.
MW “elements” as in these essential elements just ain’t working.
Odd MacDaily didn’t pick up this FUD in the review:
Quote:Viruses on Macs are rare, but they do exist. We’re shocked that Apple would remove Virex from .Mac without replacing it with a better antivirus tool.
For those finding that interacting with iDisk is slow (it is) due to OSX’ subpar WebDAV implementation, give Goliath a try. It’s a small webDav app found over at http://www.webdav.org and amazing how much quicker you can up/download files. The interface isn’t pretty but what they hey, it works. Follow the instructions regarding iDisk.
(Thanx to RTP for reminding me of Goliath)
Anti-Virus by McAfee (Virex) was one of the reasons I got .Mac 3 years ago. Unfortunately, McAfee’s performance has been sub par, and its latest upgrades screwed up enough Mac systems to be classified as an unofficial… well, you know…. the V word.
It deserved to be dropped.
I use clamXav, it’s free, effective, and fast. I can actually use my computer with Sentry running in the background. Apple would be smart to seed the project, then buy it. But then, on principle, open source should be free or as close to it as possible.
MW=third… as in : Virex was a 3rd rate product
“Renew .Mac today for only 139.00 CAD”
I’ve had my .Mac service since inception but with reluctance, I have chosen not to renew this time. My needs are few, it’s very pricey and my credit card of twenty years (which is accepted by .Mac .. and everything else on the whole planet) is rejected by the iTunes Music Store. Without iTMS access as part of the package … well, you know .. $139 will buy a whole lot of music, eh?
At this point(saying this as a disclaimer only) who cares about Virex?
Something that needs to be understood is that anti-virus software can only detect a virus that it knows about.
This is why it can work for Windows. From everything I read, there are actually not that many new viruses for Windows. Instead, the 80 or 90,000 viruses for Windows are just “improvements” on old Windows viruses.
That is not to say there will never be a virus for OSX. But statistically it would have been much more likely to happen in the early days of it being out in the world.
If you want to come back with the old argument about viruses be more likely to happen when there are more than the 16 million copies of OSX are out there. Seahawk and others with more tech expertise than me have disposed of that argument many, many times. Essentially, Seahawk proves in his posts that if a virus can happen , it will most likely happen when the first two vulnerable computers are networked and/or to the Internet.
And he makes the point that, from a configuration point of view, he makes the argument that thousands or millions of Windows computers are configured identically when they are initially booted up, which is not the case with OSX computers unless the 2nd one is created with a disc image of the old one, and then only until the settings on the 2nd computer are changed by the user. It then becomes unique, therefore far less vulnerable to a virus.
Since most Windows users are frightened of their computers, their setting don’t get changed, or viruses infect them within seconds before security upgrades can be done. It is just the world that they accept as normal.
We don’t.