Apple’s .Mac service, is “a $99-a-year collection of online tools released in 2002 featuring 10GBs of file storage, Web site hosting, and photo sharing, among other things,” Tom Krazit writes for CNET.
“Apple has designed .Mac to work very closely with its Macs, and updated it last year with additional storage and hooks into the latest version of iLife. But Apple charges far more than competing online services, which offer many of the same services for free or for a nominal charge,” Krazit writes.
“The art of business–even in a Web 2.0-gone-mad world–has not yet evolved to the point where giving your product away for free always makes sense. Maintaining a storage and networking facility costs real money,” Krazit writes. “And why give something away for free when people are willing to pay something–if not $99 a year–for a service?”
“Of course, Apple’s financial performance isn’t exactly hurting these days, so it’s not like .Mac is a huge drain on the company,” Krazit writes. “But the company is letting price get in the way of a service that could be a unique selling point for its hardware: the real profit engine at Apple.”
Krazit writes, “Apple could turn .Mac into a real selling point for its hardware if it cut the price in half to $49… Or, Apple could give away a free year of .Mac service with the purchase of a new Mac. That’s the drug-dealer strategy: the first one is free. After that, once you’ve put all your images and videos on the .Mac service, $49 a year won’t seem like much to keep that service running. Apple does provide a 60-day trial period for .Mac services, but that’s not enough to get hooked.”
Krazit writes, “Grocery stores sell basic items like tuna fish and bread at razor-thin margins, because they know people are likely to pick up a few other things while they’re at the market for the basics. Apple has an opportunity to do the same thing with .Mac, and it won’t have to give away the store to make it happen.”
Read more in the full article here.
This article sure brings up a lot of good points. I bet Apple implements some of these suggestion coming this summer.
The cost is way to high right now. First one can get an eMail account from a number of providers free of charge. Second hosting prices are coming way way down and some photo sites actually let you host shots there. Finally the storage is no bargain with the cost of external drives dropping rapidly.
Apple could add value by extending Apple Care for a few months or allowing users to download additional free tools or templates for iLife products.
I gave up on it a long time ago. Sure I like the email and the syncing, but not enough storage and limited web capabilities.
I’ll stick with Google Mail, Calendar, and Flickr. Only costs me $25 per year.
@ Mac+ – we get it, stop already.
I think giving it for the first year with an AppleCare agreement is a good idea.
$49 thereafter.
Free? Don’t think so – I like my AAPL thank you.
Wow, have ANY of you looked at the Apple Store online? .Mac is $30 off with the purchase of a new machine. (i.e. $69.95)
The following dialogue was captured during a dma meeting (dma – dot mac anonymous)
“My name is Lenny and I am a dotMac addict. I am addicted to dot mac.”
“Gidday, Lenny. Tell us about your addiction and how it started.”
I have been a user since it was first introduced to me and I have not been able to curb my habit for even a day. When I realise that my addiction is about to need renewal, I do what so many of my friends do and draw a line on the glass and use my credit card to create a perfect line for another year. Even with daily use, I find that when I am offered anything new by my dealer, I pull another plastic line. I even now use it with my iPod touche’ and my iPhone.
I can now use and appease my addiction wherever I go!”
Thanks for listening.
By the way, I do not feel 27¢ a day is too much to feed my addiction!”
“Thank you, Lenny”
Names have been changed to protect the iDentity of the .mac user.
I just love stories like these. We might as well be swilling Jack Daniels and shooting a 9mm in a darkened room. Without any access to Apple’s books, none of us, including the writer, have a clue about how much revenue and profit Apple makes with .Mac – or not.
I’m not of the “software wants to be free” camp. Just look at the train wreck from the dot-bomb era to see how that worked. While the freetards and penguinheads keep crowing about free this and free that, ask yourself how profitable they are.
I thought so.
Look, I agree I’d like to see .Mac cost less. But I get a ton of value from it. It’s handy, if not a bit slow, but incredibly easy to use. I know of no similar service on the PC side with the array of useful conveniences. (Okay, I’ll wait for some smartypants frigtard to respond to this email with the standard, “well if you use this, this and this group of free services, you can do the same thing!” BS. Well, Mr. smartypants frigtard, did it ever occur to you that these are all scattered on a bunch of unrelated, hard-to-use sites? And these twits keep multiplying…)
We’ll see. One thing I’ve learned is never to second guess THE Steve. Just when you think you’ve outsmarted him, it usually means that something you’ve thought about is in late beta.
And ask yourself: if the hack who wrote the story referenced above is so friggin’ smart, why doesn’t he run a company?
I thought so.
IF the rumored .MAC upgrades show up at WWDC08, THEN .MAC will be really something. I’m referencing the rumored push email service / calendar syncing, contact / to do list, with an iPhone. This service would effectively compete with a Blackberry server environment.
Without an iPhone, I am not sure the utility is there, particularly for the most technical user.
$100 is way too much, I have always felt that way about .Mac. I don’t think I would use some of the tools that .Mac provides like Back to My Mac. Although, I would probably use some of the iWeb and iPhoto integration tools.
I’d pay $50. I pay $120 for my personal website, that provides 5x the storage, many times the monthly bandwidth, databases, nearly unlimited e-mail accounts (at least for my purposes), and a slew of other web development tools.
Just on that comparison .Mac costs too much. .Mac should be more of a loss leader to get people to purchase some Apple products, and to pay for upgrades, which are otherwise meager feature wise. For instance, the last iLife upgrade wasn’t very significant, and some actually thought a retro-grade in terms of iMovie. Most of the changes were with .Mac integration. Yawn.
While I like the idea and services .Mac offers, the cost has kept me away. Something like $39 or $49 would be much more palatable….
Other then myself who remembers the Free .Mac days.
It was basically a crap hole with little point. The Free email with the cool @mac.com address was the only reason to use it. Apple upset many, many Mac users when they started charging for .mac but, in charging for it they’ve been able to expand and improve the features and increase the reliability. While many and yes most may think Apple is charging too much for .Mac I’d argue that Apple isn’t charging enough for what services and features they are offering.
It’s really about perceived value. I’d guess that most people that try it don’t find the value because they don’t really look at everything that .Mac offers. Apple is working it add education of .Mac to experience but most users will never take the time to get educated on how to use .Mac and all of it’s features.
.Mac…. Great service, great integration, easy enough for my 5 year old to upload photos too. Would I like to see it a few bucks cheaper, sure…. the yearly price difference between what people are bitching about and what they want to pay is less then a latte a month. So common guys, stop the latte, and drink the cool-aid.
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The Dude abides.
It may seem a bit steep, but think about what you are getting. 10GB space. Full email capability. Web gallery for iPhoto and iMovie. Sync capabilities with iCal, Address Book, Mail, etc. Back to My Mac. Also, some of this is going into development, and from what was mentioned a week or so ago, .Mac is undergoing a full upgrade that should make it a lot better than it already is. I think cutting the price a bit (let’s say to $69) would be a good move to entice more users, but still at $99 I think it’s a good value.
For $49 it would be A LOT easier to convince recent switchers to pay for .Mac
Price has always been the thing that keeps me from subscribing to .Mac. I would love to use it, but I can’t justify the annuall fee for a 10GB internet HDD and some (intriguing) bells and whistles. Even the suggested $49 in the article would likely sway me to subscribe, $29 even more so.
Anybody remember the “Free for Life” Mactools where you got a .mac e-mail address and some other goodies?
Nah, I didn’t think so.
How about they work on making it work properly and offering real support for that money.
It is ridiculous that they have no phone support yet charge $99 a year. And the shit breaks all the fucking time. And back to my mac used to work all the time… and now does not. WTF?
There were no “Free .Mac days” … it was free iTools. And I remember them. That’s when I joined. Then the first year was $49(?) before it jumped to $99(!). I’ve made good use of the service – me using the e-mail and my wife using the storage (backups) – and feeling grateful for each freebie thrown our way. Well … many of them. The latest – $30 off iLife’08 – was rather late and rather modest, but … Anyway! I was thinking about cutting the chain a year or so ago – then they boosted the storage and added other toys. They have about another year before I get back to that point. Less money and/or more service.
They are charging almost half what I pay to play WoW! How unreasonable is THAT?!?!?
It has been a while — it was iTools not Mactools.
Honestly, if I didn’t rely on my .Mac email account, I would ditch the service in a minute, For me personally, synching has never worked correctly. Never, not even once. I’m also not thrilled that Apple provides no telephone tech support at all for .Mac problems. Email and chat are the only options, and the responses I have received in the past did not inspire confidence in the technical expertise of the .Mac support staff. .Mac really could be a key component of the overall Mac experience. As it is, it has always been, and continues to be, a neglected step-child that is definitely not worth $100 a year.
@Cubert
First one free only works if they know you have never tried it before.
Like in 4th grade maybe. You are not going to get any free drugs, sorry.
Hummer:
You should wash your mouth out with soap and water, dude. Your words make you look like the piece of trash.
Look for educators it’s a little less.
If they could add a domain protection for that price – better.
Using iWeb to make my school website – priceless!
If you haven’t used this service with .mac – your missing out!
If your just buying .Mac for email only- might as well go somewhere else.
Offer this for free?- You can’t be serious!
That was it “iTools” with the .Mac email address, iDisk of some less the really usable amount and it seems their was another service or two that was part of it.
I only remembered the .mac email address and that it was free.
.Mac is worth the money if you use all the features. I keep it primarily for a second email address, the Syncing and now for Back to My Mac. I keep telling myself that sometime I will use the other features, but… you know. I think his Steveness could have called .Mac a “hobby” up until now. But I agree with those that predict we are about to see .Mac go on steroids to become a must-have cloud port for all our computing. So, I think we will soon see either a more robust .Mac at the same price, or a reduction in price if Apple keeps .Mac unchanged. It is obvious that Apple would see a far greater adoption if the price was lower. What is often left out of the disussion is that “free” services come with advertising of some sort. It’s a trade-off.