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Apple to Unveil .Mac Today
Steve Mason writes "Apple has put up a .Mac FAQ up here proving that .Mac will indeed be introduced at Mac World New York. .Mac will cost $100 a year as previous rumors had reported." Yes, this means that if you don't pay Apple, your mac.com URL and email address will stop working. Some have suggested that the "switch" in Apple's new ad campaign stands for the unfortunate part of a "bait and switch." Someone should mirror that URL, it might be taken down any second now.
Huh? Apple with 5 percent of the market. This is not news or for that matter even worth reporting. Mod me out!
NO ONE is willing to pay a hundred dollars for a big.mac.
Q: Is it true that Apple will begin charging customers for iTools memberships?
.Mac. The membership includes brand new features, like Backup and Virex anti-virus software, and improved versions of the iTools services, like additional email and iDisk storage. The fee is US$99.95 per year, and as a thank you for being loyal customers, existing iTools members can reserve a first year special offer of $49.95. iTools members will have until September 30 to join .Mac. After this time, original iTools accounts will be deactivated.
.Mac membership include?
.Mac membership includes everything you need for life on the Internet. Join .Mac and get the tools you need to share and communicate with family and friends, while keeping your system safe. Software and services included with a .Mac membership are:
.Mac membership for US$49.95. (If purchased within the 60-day grace period). Normal charges (US$99.95) will apply after the first year.
.Mac membership at no charge. Normal charges (US$99.95) will apply after the first year.
.Mac trial accounts, and will continue to have full access to Mac.com Email, HomePages and iDisk, plus the opportunity to sample many of the new .Mac services during the trial period.
.Mac trial account include?
.Mac trial account includes:
.Mac Support Discussion Boards.
.Mac web site will display information about the membership features and charges. Your will also see reminders of account expiration when you log into the .Mac service on the web site.
.Mac member, you can upgrade both your Mac.com Email and your iDisk storage. You can also purchase up to ten additional email accounts.
.Mac membership. The amount of additional iDisk storage will be available to you through the end of the membership.
.Mac membership the membership and additional iDisk storage will be automatically renewed for the following year and your credit card will be charged
.Mac membership?
.Mac members receive thorough web-based support, dedicated to ensuring that they will get the most out of the service. Members have access to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), instant system/network status, the AppleCare Knowledge Base, and private discussion boards moderated by Apple technical support representatives to ensure that questions are answered within one business day.
.Mac Support discussion boards are reserved for paying members only.
.Mac include Internet Service Provider (ISP) services?
.Mac membership does require Internet access. Apple's preferred ISP is EarthLink, and Macintosh customers can get a free 30-day trial.
.Mac
.Mac, how do I preserve my data?
.Mac membership. Custom iCards using your own images will require membership.
.Mac available to Microsoft Windows users?
.Mac trial using a Windows machine, but they can sign up for a full .Mac membership. IDisk and Mac.com Email can be used on a Windows machine.
On Wednesday, July 17, 2002, Apple notified its customers that iTools will be replaced by a new membership service called
Q: What does a
A
Communication and sharing
HomePage with new visitor feedback features
Mac.com Email with IMAP and 15MB of storage that can be upgraded for more
Ability to purchase up to 10 additional email accounts
iDisk with 100MB of storage that can be upgraded for more
iDisk utility software for group sharing of files
Safety and security
Backup software to back up your files to iDisk, CD, or DVD
Virex anti-virus software to keep your system protected
Continuous anti-virus updates to protect from the latest threats
Members-only support with private discussion boards moderated by Apple technical support representatives
Q: Why is Apple charging for iTools?
Providing email and storage solutions for millions of customers comes at a considerable cost. In addition, using the Internet today requires more storage space, better ways to share, and new ways to protect your important files. To continue providing iTools services as well as a new set of must-haves for computing on the Internet, Apple is charging an annual fee.
Bought individually, comparable products would cost you an estimated $250:
Anti-virus: $50
Backup: $40
100MB of online storage: $60
15MB of email storage, forwarding and POP/IMAP access: $40+
Home page creation and hosting: $60
(These prices are approximate, and may vary.)
Q: Will current iTools members be given a discount?
Yes. Current iTools members can purchase a one-year
Customers who have already paid for an upgrade to their existing iTools account (for additional storage) will receive the first year of their
Q: Is there a "grace" period before charges begin?
Yes. Existing iTools accounts have been converted to 60-day
Q: What does a
A
Trial version of Apple's new Backup software to back up files to iDisk (backup to CD or DVD requires a paid membership)
20MB (vs 100MB for paid membership) of iDisk storage, so you can continue to store all your files in one place
iDisk Utility software to set read/write access to and password protect your Public Folder (great for group sharing of files)
Mac.com Email with 5MB (vs 15MB for paid membership) of email storage, including IMAP/POP and Webmail access, forwarding, and photo signature
HomePage for publishing web sites as well as photo albums directly from iPhoto
iCards, including the ability to use your own images
NOTE: Trial memberships do not include the Virex software or access to
Q: Can I pay monthly?
No. The annual membership fee must be paid at one time.
Q: Do all the new software and services work in both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X?
Backup and iDisk Utility require Mac OS X. All other software and services, including Virex anti-virus, iDisk, Email, HomePage and iDisk, work in both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. iDisk and Mac.com Email also work with most Windows operating systems.
Q: How will Apple notify me of the membership charges?
Apple has notified all iTools account members via their Mac.com Email accounts. They will also receive follow-up emails with more information. The
Q: Can I upgrade my storage space?
Trial members cannot upgrade their storage. But once you become a full
Email storage iDisk storage
15MB Included 100MB (No additional charge) Included
25MB (adding10MB) $10 200MB (adding 100MB) $60
50MB (adding 35MB) $30 300MB (adding 200MB) $100
100MB (adding 85MB) $50 500MB (adding 400MB) $180
200MB (adding 185MB) $90 1GB (adding 900MB) $350
Additional Mac.com Email accounts include 5MB of storage and cost $10 per year. There is no additional storage available for email-only accounts, and the photo signature feature is not available.
Q: I already paid for an iDisk upgrade, what will happen to my account?
If you purchased iDisk storage in the 12 months prior to July 17th, 2002, you will receive a one-year complimentary
Note: At the end of your one-year complimentary
Q: Is there any technical support included in the
NOTE: Support for the standalone applications consists strictly of installation, launch, and removal.
Q: What level of support is offered to trial members?
Trial or grace period customers have access to all the Apple Care online support features. The
Q: Does
No, but a
Q: What happens to my data if I choose not to join
Following the 60-day trial period, any home pages, Backup or other files stored in iDisk and messages left on the email server will be removed.
Q: If I decide not to sign up for
iDisk
Open your iDisk and drag all your files to your own hard disk.
Email
If you're using IMAP, open your email client and create a local mailbox. Drag email you want to keep from your Mac.com mailboxes to the local mailbox. For more detailed information on this topic, please see the Email Help section.
If you're using POP, your messages are already stored on your local machine.
Email address
Inform your contacts of your new email address if you have one. Any message sent to your Mac.com Email address after the account expiration date will bounce back to the sender.
HomePage
If you created your web pages using an HTML editor other than HomePage, move your files located in the iDisk Sites folder to your desktop or to another hosting server.
Inform your contacts of your new home page address if you have one.
Q: Can I still send iCards for free?
Yes. Standard iCards may be sent without a
Q: Is
Customers cannot sign up for a
NOTE: The standalone applications, such as Virex and Backup and the HomePage web application are not available to Microsoft Windows machines.
Q: Which web browsers are supported?
Macintosh: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x, Netscape 4.7.X and up
Windows: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x, Netscape Navigator 5.X
Wow the aggregate of all these supposed services would cost $250.00 per year...such arrogance! I get all that Apple talks about today for FREE! What audacity! It must be that providing email and the like is too hard for Apple to do effectively. This can only mean that Steve Jobs BlowsGoats(tm). It can mean nothing else. Yes, the above poster is correct, only five percent of the market. Let Apple and it's users die a peaceful death. Cease running Apple stories. It is NOT news. Pure and simple.
And for that I get email, online file storage, and my own web site. That's cheaper than the dial-up account I have now that I never actually dial into. I'll sign up.
Dave
yegods, posting as an AC.
I can't see this as a *smart* move - except from an accounting point of view ("we do something for free? Charge for it!").
For those who don't know - Apple's iTools provided users with a free email address (@mac.com), a free webpage (with limitations) and an internet accesible storage space of a few measly MB.
Sitting on the other side of the world from Apple US, the email is useful, but I've never found any of the other services useful.
I'm hardly about to start paying $50 or $100 a year for an email address when I can get from Microsoft or others for free.
Apple, you'll lose customers with this move. It's a sad loss of some of the free iTools - one of the benefits (formerly, presuming this is all true) of being a Mac user.
As an Apple appointed "Helper", on the Apple forum, I can tell you people are going to be SCREAMING about this one. I have no real use for it since I have my own e-mail and web services but to the millions (yes really) that do, Oohwee. They threw a fit when the had to pay $20 for an OSX upgrade. Wait till they read about the $49 "special".
You cannot give people stuff then snatch it away, then say PAY. Wait, maybe you CAN, it worked for Netscape. No wait...
Time for all the Apple apologists to roll out and explain why this isn't a big deal and that they're just doing it because of increased costs of doing business. They should at least offer free e-mail forwarding for current people with mac.com addresses though since I notice a lot of people started using their @mac.com e-mail addresses since that would be more "stable" than they could shift ISPs without changing their e-mail address. I'm just waiting for hotmail.com to announce they're going pay for service. People will be royally screwed then. :-)
"Yes, this means that if you don't pay Apple, your mac.com URL and email address will stop working.
I though this would of been logical. Example: If i don't pay my cable bill, i won't have any more cable. Or am i missing something?
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
I presume 95% of the mac.com users are using only the e-mail address. It got costly and Apple decided to kill it off by charging this fee.
.Mac. After this time, original iTools accounts will be deactivated.
Didn't Apple promise a free for life mac.com e-mail adress?
Reading this doesn't really comfort me...
The fee is US$99.95 per year, and as a thank you for being loyal customers, existing iTools members can reserve a first year special offer of $49.95. iTools members will have until September 30 to join
And just as I was starting to rely on my mac.com email-adress!
:/
Yes, this sucks big time! Free mac.com adresses should persist! We get 5 MB for free, then upgrade it if we want. Just like with iDisk. Killing customers adresses like this is just ridicolous. But this seems to be the way the internet works these days
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
"The fee is US$99.95 per year, and as a thank you for being loyal customers, existing iTools members can reserve a first year special offer of $49.95."
That's kinda cool. If you have been with them for a while, it's not as expensive for the 1st year, but then you have to worry about the next year.
Ah well, by then this will probably have morphed into something else anyway.
Sent from your iPad.
This is what Microsoft was worried about?
-Rich Dredge
One of the major reasons i'm a 'mac zealot' is in part due to the coolness of getting thinks like free iDisk storage and e-mail access. I don't use anything close to the 20mb limit, I think I have like maybe ~100k of stuff on there, but it's nice to have a place to store stuff i'd like to keep for later.. ditto for my mac.com email, i've got maybe ~300k of the 5mb limit. Sure, these features are nice, but they are sure as hell not worth 100USD to me, and I doubt i'm the only one who feels this way.
I bought a five thousand dollar powerbook, partly because of Apple's good relationship with their customers, but now they're stamping out the so-called 'grassroots' sites, charging their users for iDisk and e-mail use, what used to be nice perks is turning bitter. The thing I don't understand is why they think these services are worth 100USD, i'd pay 20 to keep my nifty e-mail address around, but i'm not paying 80 just so that my 100k/10mb of idisk usages turns to 100k/100mb.. that's asinine.
--
Insert Witty Sig Here
For example... spending two years developing a technique to print images on their iMac's then using it for less than 9 months.
Target their marketing at people who know nothing about computers, while their hardware is some of the best, most powerful, and most expensive in the consumer world. "Hi, I'm a total nimrod and I think Windows is hard, but Macs make sense!" (sure you can argue all you want about stability, but from an intuitive interface perspective Windows has Apple beat, I don't see how searching through the hard drive to find a program is any easier than a big button that says "start")
A year long campaign about how great the DV features on their computers are then the series of iMac's that came out right after not having DVD capabilities...
Great company, great computers... they just don't have a clue about advertising successfully.
You want it, they offer it, you gotta pay what they ask, or tell 'em to stick it.
I won't jump to any particular conclusions until I see stats about what proportion subscribe at this price.
However, if it's many subscribing, then that would reinforce the stereotype of Mac users having more dollars than sense, and if few subscribe then it would indicate that Apple don't really understand the market. Neither would be particularly big news - no offense to either side - as these are opinions that large numbers of people already have. Note however, that the flip-sides should _cancel_ the prejudice that's unfounded, but as we know it's almost impossible to get people to drop prejudices.
THL.
Keeping
I think the only obvious action for the Linux world is to unleash the .LIN initiative (TM). It is the only logical next step after .NET and .MAC.
This is really bad news, Apple is trying to get existing win users to switch to Macs. But this is counte-productive. This is what's going to happen at the local computer store:
1. Customer walks in store and asks the salesman about these great Macs they've heard about on TV so much.
2. Customer is told about why a Mac is so much better, and that iTools is really cool.
3. Customer is convinced, buys a new iMac, takes it home and turns it on.
4. Customer is persuaded via the Macs initial setup to use iTools. (.Mac, whatever)
5. Customer discovers that in addition to their computer costing much more than a Win Box, they're expected to pay an extra $100 a year just to use one of the Macs best features (iTools).
6. Customer returns iMac to store, gets a Compaq or something.
7. Retailers get pissed and stop selling Macs.
8. Apple loses
What a shame
They list the required browsers at the bottom of the FAQ as Netscape Navigator 4.7x and up on the Mac or Netscape Navigator 5.x on Windows. I'd be curious to know exactly how many users of Netscape Navigator 5.x there actually are in the world, since they never released one.
I think what Apple loses from this is far more valuable than the money they are going to be making. I hope they'll reverse this decision.
I actually like the idea - especially the anti virus - but currently iTools redirects to
http://itools.mac./unavailable/
Which is a bit of a shame.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
Just like a dial-up account, but without the ability to reach it.
C'mon, you can do better than that.
If you have a dial-up account or a cable modem, you already get this stuff.
This is for ignorant people (I mean that in the dictionary way) who think this offers them something special.
Hey...back up 15M of stuff from your PC over a 28.8K connection whooooo! That might only take 22 hours!
There are free everything like this, why pick apple to do it?
I'm criticized for being on the hopeful side sometimes, and this would otherwise be the same case, but I've grown wiser and hold Apple to lower expectation.
....silly, yes, but for the last couple of years, some mac zealots have pondered what would happen this MacWorld - 5 years after the infamous SOS deal with M$ - the contract for being friendly lasts 5 years!
.Mac is /too/ .Net like? Since when does Apple want to play the tail of the lion?
BUT - what if this was a joke? They've had plenty experience being embarrased by Steve's big announcement being leaked, etc. What if they leaked this? And Steve goes on with the show like this is what they're doing, and the punchline is "Wait a minute, we're not Microsoft!"
Did it occur to anyone that
Yes, of course - wishful thinking - that Apple would turn on M$ - but if it happens, I said it.
and they think I know what I'm doing....
bleed heavily compared to rivals such as Dell. This Reuters articls passed the wires yesterday
This could well be one of the reasons that Microsoft is currently getting mad at Apple.
The online calendar and other tools of course are direct competitors with Outlook, and the whole package is a competitor with MSN and hotmail.
It actually looks really neat to me. I think however it might be a strategic mistake force people to make the move. They should provide a minimal service for free. If the additions are good enough (and they seem to be to me) then people will pay. But people hate to have their arms twisted. But apart from that mistake, this looks like an innovative move from Apple.
"Anti-virus: $50
;o)
"Backup: $40
"100MB of online storage: $60
"15MB of email storage, forwarding and POP/IMAP access: $40+
"Home page creation and hosting: $60"
1) Well, assuming I don't get a free antivirus program online, $50 sounds reasonable.
2) Why do I need 100 MB of online storage when I can put 700-800 MB on a CD-R or CD-RW?
3) Why do I need a special e-mail account when I get one from my ISP?
4) I get 12MB of homepage space from my ISP for free.
All for $120 a year.
Gee, and I was just about to go out and can my new homebuilt for an Apple. Not!
Is this what they call fuzzy math, or is it just fuzzy thinking?
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
I'll be the first post to bet is that this is a hoax. A nicely executed one by someone that wants to have fodder against the mac fans, but nonetheless, not something that is in apple's best interest.
Apple already confusingly calls its operating system "X"; nobody can be certain anymore when someone talks about an "X" application whether that's an "X11" or an "OSX" application. Now the use the name of a major UNIX calendaring applications, ical. What's going to be next? Apple Emacs? Oh, wait, they have that, too.
Bought individually, comparable products would cost you an estimated $250: What?
Anti-virus: $50 Once - not yearly
Backup: $40 online backup - does anyone do this? Whats wrong w/ burning your 'keeper' stuff to a CDR? You certainly wont have room to store your apps/OS, whats the point?Besides, to you want Apple in possession of your personal data - they have nosy admins also you know...
100MB of online storage: $60 there are free hosting companies all over the net..
15MB of email storage, forwarding and POP/IMAP access: $40+ Free with my ISPBR
Home page creation and hosting: $60 Arent there template-style HomeSite(Builder) sites w/ free hosting on the net..? Again, free
We will have to remember that in the next Apple story.
We cant always be flip-flopping like we do with Sony, for example.
I doubt they'l just be completely cutting off @mac.com addresses - you've only got a few hours to wait for the real news instead of guessing.
Last week I bought an Ultimate TV unit (I know, boo hiss M$, whatever..) and I paid 45 dollars for it, as well as picking up a second unit for upstairs. Well, I got the thing home and called for an install. It turns out that I need a multiplexor ($100) to lock the LNBs of the dish into odd and even transponders and then portion out the signal as needed. Well, I also noticed that all the rebates relied on that second box being activated, but, get this, you have to keep both boxes on for a year to get the rebate, otherwise they'd charge you about $150 (twice the rebate). So I'm taking the second machine back (because it would cost me the whole amount of the $60 rebate in 5/mo fees)
Why is this relevant? It's the same as that .mac shit. They say you are getting this and that, and what do you get? You still get the shaft down the line. I don't use my mac.com anything right now because I have too many 'free' email accounts, as well as my personal server. I don't need the features, so I'll continue to let .mac sit and rot.
Lowmag.net
The web space is nice, and the email unhitches me from whatever broadband pipe I've got running into the house.
Now, if they could offer a year free with the purchase of a new Mac.....
Read this on /., read this
from drudge.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Oh, my.
.Mac is a neat idea, but charging money for it? Come on!
I'm not sure what to think. I'm a huge Apple fan, and I love my Mac.com account. I've standardized my e-mail around it, really. This is a really dumb move. Just dumb. I really hope Apple comes to their senses soon --
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Now if they'd also offer domain hosting (for a small fee of course), I'd jump on it.
Look, it's trying to think - Albert Rosenfield
This seemed horrible at first... till I actually read the link. Seems like a decent service for 100 bucks a year. Especially if the support is any good.
100MB of iDisk space, more email space, 15MB email space, backup and antivirus software [probably worth the 100 bucks right there if they are any good], and hopefully good customer support [my ISP sometimes sucks a lot when it comes to storage space and email].
I will have to think it over for the 60 grace period before I make the jump.
Dave
Q: Which web browsers are supported?
Macintosh: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x, Netscape 4.7.X and up
Windows: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x, Netscape Navigator 5.X
netscape 5?...
The only thing I want is the email, and I don't think I'm alone. I'm on dialup. Backing up to a web service is ludicrous and the iDisk is painfully slow. I've never used their shitty web hosting service and I certainly don't need Anti-virus software. Sell me the email, leave it with a 5MB cap (I am capable of storing my email locally) and I might pay $20-30 dollars for it. Might!
$100 is a joke. I'm an Australian and they better not be considering charging me nearly A$200 a year for 15MB of email space.
Personally I prefer the options given to me by Dreamhost. PHP, Perl, MySQL, Streaming Audio/Video , 5 FTP/shell accounts, 5 sub domains, 20 e-mail accounts, Procmail, 100 MB storage, 7GB bandwidth, and more... $9.95/month.
:)
And the deatures go up from there if you are willing to pay more.
And they're a bunch of Linux geeks.
Once more unto the breach dear friends...
Isn't mac.com something that Apple uses to let people have their own email addresses and web hosting space? Obviously, someone just has the URL for mac.com/1/, which is not so inconceivable.
Just reading through that FAQ, I don't think that it was written by Apple. It's not good enough.
Wasn't the mac.com email address supposed to be free for life? I've tried to find the page at Apple that made this claim, but I cannot find it. Maybe Apple has purged all the evidence from their web pages. www.apple.com/itools now redirects to a .mac address (I wasn't aware Apple had been granted a top-level domain!) I checked google for a cached page, but still had no luck. Can anyone else find a claim that mac.com would be free for life? If so, Apple has another class-action lawsuit on its hands.
But 100 megs of storage, 15 megs of email storage, plus a homepage, plus antivirus software makes $50/year for first year at least worthwhile.
As to why you would want online storage, on occasion it is useful to have some stuff on the net rather than on a disk, either to share with others, or for backup or for other reasons.
Let Apple know you are upset! I did!
http://www.apple.com/contact/feedback.html
Remember eWorld? Apple's high-profile electronic community of, uh, was it the mid-nineties? IIRC GEISCO originally developed the software, which gradually morphed into AppleLink, AOL, and eWorld.
eWorld... the world's first electronic ghost town.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
email adresses, antivirus, bit of webpage. Guaranteed to work with your mac computer. No hassle or technical knowledge required. For just 100 bucks. If I had a Mac I'd sign up today
OSX has built-in Apache web serving.
I've never used Apple's itools because Apple assumes all rights to anything you post on their severs.
For the price of a cable connection I can use gigabytes and gigabytes of my own stuff without having Apple's approval.
Signing up
If you're 13 or older and use Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X, you can become an iTools member.
Membership is free.
Click the iTools tab at www.apple.com, click the Free Sign Up button, and follow the onscreen instructions.
If you don't see the Free Sign Up button, click "Take a guided tour" and look for the button there.
You can send iCards without becoming a member, even if you don't use a Macintosh.
see subject line
I got a 'slow down cowboy' message on my first post of the day
I've used Macs since they came out in 1984 and have never gone to Windows for my personal machine. A better machine, a better company. Well it used to be.
Time to deal with fscking Windows XP from now on I guess. At least they aren't going to start charging $100 a year to use WMP...
Oh, they've got great advertising, not even annoying for most people. Now advertising quantity is a different story.
http://mac.com/[my silly username]/ as a url. So I could get "slashdot@mac.com", put up http://mac.com/slashdot/ and claim to be an apple sanctioned version of slashdot? I don't think so.
No, it is real. Look at this: http://mac.com/1/mac_faq.html
But saying $100/year is going to put people off. If Apple had come out and said "$10/month for everything", they could probably have gotten over more customers' price resistance... and the ironic thing is that $10/month is $120/year.
Come on, $100/year is $1/day. You can afford to pay Pepsi that much for your daily caffeine allotment. Surely the .Mac services will be worth more to you than brown fizzy sugar water.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I have a mac.com account and I just bought a domain and webspace hosting from sharpweb services. For $6 a month I get email accounts, 50 meg of web space and 1 gig of data transfer and my domain name. Thats $72 dollars a year. Sure its not all slick like my mac.com account, but its more feature rich.
Its a shame to see them do such a thing to loyal customers who fell in love with Free iTools and who'd love to stick that in the face of all my Windows loving co-workers. People have switched because of iTools. For them to charge for everything is bullshit. They should, at the very least have free email and offer a "preview" version of the service. If not, they just look evil. I've had my mac.com email address since day 1.
Install postix, proftpd, an imap daemon, and a pop3 daemon. Download a php webmail system from sourceforge.
Why would anyone pay for something like that? I have gigs of webspace and online storage space. I may not have mac.com, but I don't really need it.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I too would gladly pay for the email service, but $100 is too much. I don't want to pay for the other services, because I get them from my ISP.
Yesterday I congratulated my self for being happy mac user.
I get many good Mac-exclusive products for free: Developer Tools , AppleScript , Quicktime Broadcaster , Quicktime Streaming Server , iTools iTunes, etc.
Now if I don't pay I'll lose one of my email accounts. Will the same thing happen to other important products I use, that are made by Apple Computer.
I feel very bad. I paid big bucks for my mac, believing that it gives me M$ free working environment where there's no price tags lurking behind every corner.
To steal my idea you'd have to make me forget it. Otherwise you'd just be copying it.
First they tout mac.com email adresses as free to get people to use and rely on their @mac.com adress.
/penhead (at mac dot com, for now ..)
Then they say "we will delete your email adress if you dont pay us $100 a year".
F$"!ng mafia tactics. Expect serious grass-root resistance against this one.
I'm paying enough as it is for my ADSL account, with its own e-mail address, personal homepage and on-line storage and virus scanning/killing tools.
Mac.com was fun while it lasted, but I'll be damned if I'm ever going to pay for an Internet service other than to actually get on the 'net.
Seriously though, if you don't wanna pay for .mac just use other stuff like Yahoo mail, or whatever.
What's the big deal? $100/year isn't that much.
"On Wednesday, July 17, 2002, Apple notified its customers that iTools will be replaced by a new membership service called .Mac"
I got no such notice on my @mac.com address ? Anyone else get the notice ?
blaah !
c'mon Apple. Say it with me. Market share is what's *necessary* to survive in the PC market. They need the economies of scale to keep their products reasonable affordable. This is *not* how you gain market share. Of course, if Apple is just going for the very high end consumer and graphics market, great. But I thought that they were going for the general market with their newer, cheaper Imacs. Oh well, typical Apple shit.
Ok, I'll bite on this troll....I always thought there was one thing most computer users could agree on, even if they don't like Macs. Apple does innovative advertising and marketing.
Especially with the recent coverage they've been getting (and have been getting for many years, at least since oh, 1984)
BTW, I think the computers would be "Insanely Great" Computers heh
Patience is a virtue, but I don't have the time - TH
It's possible that the cost of running iTools is severely eating Apple. They may have had two options:
1) completely discontinue iTools
2) start charging for it
How many of us could afford to RUN a service like iTools? Consider the big iron and bandwidth required........
woof!
So it'll cost me $350 for 1GB of online storage? Last time I checked, 1GB was selling for about $2. Even after factoring in the cost of putting this online (say $50 a month for high speed Internet access), I'm thinking it's much cheaper to do this yourself.
The email is another story altogether. It would be nice to have a reliable lifetime email address, even if it means paying a small amount every year to keep it. While there are some niche players out there, and some nice freebies, I think an email account with solid corporate backing would make a lot of users happy.
It doesn't look like the new mac.com will offer a good email solution, given that it includes a lot of extra overpriced baggage already.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
Ermm... This expression evaluates to FALSE.
.Mac thing is real. Something about that FAQ doesn't seem kosher.
I'll wait until I hear Steve Jobs say that this whole
Right. I get pretty much all this from Illuminati Online Here's the current deal:
Our SSH Internet Unix Shell Access package with one e-mail address, 50 MB of storage, anonymous FTP access, your own majordomo e-mail list server messaging group, and 24/7 support.
Having your own web page is a part of shell access, it seems (I have one). All this: 14 bucks a month. 14 bucks. What magic lets them offer most of what .mac will offer for a mere 14 bucks? Simple. They're not ripping you off.
Disclosure: I have no association with io.com except having been a customer for years.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Iff you're willing to have your email, web pages etc plastered with advertising, then by all means go get it free. I don't use macs so mac.com would not be the first thing I'd go to but as near as I can tell they're offering a decent service. Many moons ago I used the e-world service that was basically a mac-centric clone of AOL (same software, for all I know same network and services). IMX Apple did manage to provide a better (larger) signal:noise environment.
The boom year+1/2 of internet-hype surely led a lot of folks to expect they could get services free on the net, and the fact that most of the businesses offering these services were underwriting operations with checks written by investors (i.e. diluting shareholder's equity) meant that *all* services had to be offered for free in order to get customers.
The flip side of this existential coin of course was that the users data was being collected, on the theory that fine-grained tracking/profiling would create lucrative new abilities to target customers.
I for one quickly tire of emails from yahoo et-al subscribers plastered with spam trailers. Mac.com addresses don't have these, so if they're now having to charge for it, then those users will get to make a choice between a relatively higher quality service and annoying people like me who absolutely abhor commercial adds in private emails.
In motorcycling we say 'if you have a $50 head, by all means use a $50 helmet'. If your web pages / content / email doesn't look worse for a commercial trailer over which you have no editorial control then a free+advertising service is the the thing you want.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
Observation 1. If you look at who Steve Mason is, you'll find that he does a decent amount of design and graphics work.
... which is an awfully suspect link in the first place.
Observation 2. The site was posted on http://mac.com/1
Observation 3. The screenshot he has of the page shows the tab for the ".mac" stuff being in a "metal" look and feel. From a design point of view, it's completely inconsistent with the remainder of Apple's site. Given that Apple is very much a Design-centric shop, there's no way they would have that tab completely different than the others.
Observation 4. Apple has cracked down on people that run sites that leak news that's to come. I believe that that sort of rather stringent behavior would piss off people who thrive on that sort of early news.
Observation 5. Steve Mason seems to run such a site.
Conclusion: The page was doctored up by Mr. Mason, being somewhat bitter by the fact he's been barred from the proceedings that're going to happen today, and what better forum to get a whole bunch of people worked up than to post this to slashdot. I will EAT MY SHORTS if this turns out to be true, and not a hoax.
-k
yours,
kbs
why is everyone here happily comparing .NET and ".mac"/iTools? .NET is a *set of technologies*. a framework. it's not *at all* only about online storage, email providing etc.
if you want to compare it, compare it to something like java (even that would have to be specified more). "Simply put, Microsoft .NET is Microsoft's strategy for delivering software as a service."
it would go too far to explain .NET here, but if you like, check these:
http://www.microsoft.com/net/
http://www.csharp.org/about.htm (about C#)
http://www.gotdotnet.com/
In regards to the screenshot, it seems that it's quite possible the apple.com site could have been hacked. Why else would the iTunes tab be currently unavailable? I seriously doubt any company would be so stupid as to reveal something early without market research.
Call me paranoid, but I still believe this is a set up of some sort.
-k
yours,
kbs
The only thing I use is the mac.com email address. When itools first started I decided I would use the mac.com email address as the address of choice for all of my personal business (ie: bill paying, on-line purchasing, etc...). I figured, "this is a great idea. I mean, after all, I'll only loos this email adderss if apple goes under. and that's unlikely." Now this! I have been a loyal apple customer (I have 7 of them at home!) for years and this will piss me off more than anything else they have EVER done. If this is not a hoax. then Mr. Jobs can suck my mouse. (and I will sell my stock too.) Bastards.
Someone signed up for an account with the name 1 and posted a hoax story? Big deal. Surprising that 1 was still available, but it obviously is what happened. I mean come on, the page did not look professional nor apple-like, and why would it have the /1/ subdir in there huh, or did no one notice it is in a place where a common account could post?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Sure you _could_ spend that much for each item individually if you really wanted to. But hell, you can get that and a lot more for just a few bucks a month with a good web hosting company.
You could definitely get more in the way of disk space for the same cost, and you'll be able to use your own domain name as well as things like PHP, CGI-BIN, etc that I'm sure your .Mac account won't have.
Apple should know better than this. Taking something that was free, adding no (real) value and then charging for it is NEVER a good idea.
Brian
I don't care about mac.com webpages. Or iDisk or whatever. What i really liked, and only use, was the mac.com email account i switched to, to use instead of all my existing addies. I really did not see this one coming. At least i would have expected the email addresses to not be charged for, or at least not this grotesquely.
What can I say .. thank you Apple. You fucking bastards. Till september to move on to another email, and locate every place that has my mac.com account ? This should be a treat. Had i even suspected it when iTools was announced, i would never have signed up, or at least not relied on this email address this much. Maybe i was ignorant. But somehow i expected more.
Again .. You fucking bastards. I hope you get serious heat over this one. Steve, I hope someone cracks a bottle over your head in 15 minutes when the MWNY keynote starts. That'd make for a good laugh at least. And a ruined ugly black polo sweater.
It would have made sense like this, for instance:
iTools (free):
-mac.com e-mail address with 5mb storage (or no storage and free redirection to your real address)
-iDisk space with 10-20mb storage
-Bandwidth limitation on the iDisk webspace (they already do this)
-mac.com address with 25mb storage and user-configurable spam filtering.
-Webmail access and IMAP access
-100MB iDisk, with no bandwidth limitations (provided their AUP is met)
-Streaming support
-Usenet access through a web interface (they could always license DRN from Newsguy or something like that)
It's not that the $100/year is a lot of money (it's $8.33 per month), but not having a free entry-level version and forcing all the existing members onto the new plan with 2 months' notice is doing the Wrong Thing. A lot of Mac.com users are only using it in a minimal fashion - the ones who depend on the e-mail address may stay but a lot of them will be bitter about it. Apple does not need bitter users.
I have a Mac.com address now (I signed up at the beginning), and I really don't know yet if I'll keep it or not. I'll have to think real hard about it.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I don't see how searching through the hard drive to find a program is any easier than a big button that says "start")
:P
A big bouncy shiny icon that sits at the bottom of the screen and that you only have to click once to run it is though
Im mirroring it also here
See the forbiden post Here
See, Apple needs to know, now, how pissed we are. I wrote a letter.
feel free to copy and paste it: Venting is the only way to change their mind
I can't get the stream here at work, but I hope someone is watching and will post to /. when/if it's announced...
This would suck. I just purchased my first Apple, and the itools was a selling point... now it goes away/pay? ugh.
Snooze and you lose your sushi.
I guess now we'll find out if Mac users really are smarter.
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
Ya'll are forgetting some of the other free services Apple's been offering that will no longer be free..and they're so cool I think I might just pay. What am I talking about? APPLICATION INTEGRATION. Here's one simple example... 1. The fact that in iPhoto, I can select a bunch of picures and hit "Homepage" and in 3 minutes have a great looking, thumbnailed picture page. Unbelievably easy, and so much less of a hassle than doing it by hand. For anyone who hasn't seen this in action... Check this out It's stuff like that that WOWS the windoze people I show it to, and I think it (at least that particular example) might be worth some of my hard earned money. And anyway, I tend to take better advantage of things I pay for.
"In the end, we all fall back on fiction." -- Lonely Planet
io.com is (at least it used to be) an ISP as well. So figure you're going to spend at least $10/month for dial up access, so add the $120 to the $100 and $168 seems like a pretty good deal.
-matt
Apple puts me off:
I recommended and praised the Apple and iTools among my friends. Now they're gonna laugh at me. Took me a year to move all my contacts from hotmail to mac.com. Now all my contacts will have to know about Apple's move. The only way to restore my "reputation" is to move away from the company who betrayed me.
There are alternatives:
I would've payed the $100 if I was told about it from the beginning. But I'm pissed. Now I'll buy my own domain and space for half, which will really be with me for life. The only people who will stay with iTools are the loosers shown in the commercials, who can't even register a domain.
Homepage:
Why would anyone use mac.com web space. They don't support neither ASP or PHP. Am I right? Or there is a free Apple alternative?
My name is Will Ferell - and Im a porn actor/
You know what....Its stuff like that that makes me want to purchase a mac.
Companies can no longer offer all the free stuff they once did.
Most companies can't even offer the for sale items/services at the low prices that they do.
This is all still part of the dot com business model. Give away services and products for free to drum up interest, and then figure out a way to profit later.
Look at WorldCom, look at what ever that company was in Europe (you know, the largest broadband provider, or whatever). People are so used to getting stuff for free now days, they don't reallize that they will have to pay for it sooner or later, or it will disappear.
Companies can't afford to offer stuff for free. They are in business to stay in business, not use up all their cash reserves catering to a bunch of pretentious, clueless dead beats.
I really can't find any place in my heart to take sides with the people yelling about having to pay for this service. I run a fairly well-sized free hosting service that offers some similar functionality, and I know personally how much work, time, and money out of my pocket goes into running this sort of system. I know that as my userbase grows above its measely 1500-user count it's at now, there's no way I'll be able to afford to continue the services I'm offering completely for free. Apple is in the same boat - They're obviously paying a number of people to run the iTools service, paying for hardware and bandwidth, and raking up a huge bill. Sure, the iTools system can be a great community-builder, but it can still be a great community-builder when their users are paying only about $8 a month for the services being offered.
To those of you who bitch about services being generously provided for free, get a clue. Better yet, how bout you try to set up a service of similar caliber and see how much it costs you to run 'for free'? You'd probably gain a little bit of respect for the amount of work that Apple has put into their system, for you.
.... um, i lost you after "0110100001101001".
If someone uses the service, than a mere 8.33/mo isn't a bad price. Hopefully they don't go the AOL way where you pay for a service and then have to put up with popup adds (No Thanks!), and banner ads.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
. . .but damn they're greedy $$$$$$$$. As if the $2500 G4 isn't enough.
normally the editor says something sarcastic about 'be nice' to the linked site. but no, when it has do to with macs, its 'hey someone should mirror the site'
I work in a school system with access to a satellite dish. Does anyone know the sat and channel info for Stevie's keynote? I can't use QuickTime(TM)...it doesn't get past the firewall.
Thanks!
Mikie(TM)
Except that 14 $/month x 12 months/year = 168 $/year. Sounds like you'd be better off with Apple.
Apple has every right to charge for a service hey provide. They are, however, not an ISP, so about $8.50 a month sounds a bit steep to me.
That said, I'm not sure that this is official. Usually, Apple doesn't announce things like this until after the keynote.
Helium balloons want to be free.
I wonder how many of you tip at a restaurant? Why is it that this crowd seems so adverse to paying for anything? It sounds like .mac is offering an all-in-one service to people that do not necessarily have the tech saavy to "roll their own."
.mac - on the contrary, it's good to see a copy supporting their customers in areas that are not directly tied to their desktop. Rather than the "integrate everything" mentality that is so prevelant right now, Mac users have a choice. They can get their stuff on the internet and don't need to be web gods to do it.
I don't think this is a bad thing for
Now, this might turn the stomach of some of the hardcore, but the Internet is for everyone. And if Apple wants to make it readily available to their users, they have the right to charge for their braintrust.
Bravo Steve.
I guess it's time Debian setup GNU apps/toolchain for OS X... if they haven't already.
I do run Debian on a GNU/Linux...
and on a BSD it's true!
I do run Debian on a Win32...
and on PS2!
But can you can you run it on OS X too?
Apple's going really far to throw people off the track of what's really happening at MWNY today, huh?
Zoober
My office standardized on the Compaq iPaq desktop. They were small little machines, came in two configurations: legacy free (2 front USB, 3 rear, no PS/2, Serial, or Parallel ports) and standard (2 front USB, standard connectors in the back). The CD-ROM/DVD-ROM was a multibay connector. We really liked them, I didn't have CD-ROM drives letting people install crap, I had good support to replace Dell's crappy service, etc.
The machines didn't really take off, as most Wintel offices want "upgradable" machines that they'll never upgrade.
However, they liked the iPaq name and introduced an iPaq handheld, confusing the hell out of some people, and causing the iPaq desktops to be dropped.
Alex
Well, predictably, Animenation sent the message "if you want to continue to use your Animenation Email account, you must pay a fee."
Here's the funny thing. I used to work at a .com that provided Web based Email, so this makes a lot of sense to me. Why give something away if it is costing you money to do so? It was one part of our business plan that never made sense to me. We didn't even have any method for people to make donations.
Part of the problem is that non-technical people don't realize that these things cost money, because they had been free up until now. It reminds me of the one character in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls who resented having to pay for air on the Moon. Outrageous that he had to pay for something that he had come to think of as free.
Now, the Apple thing is a special case for two reasons. It is expensive, $100.00 is a big jump from free, and Mac owners probably thought of it as part of the bundled software they got with their Mac. (Honestly, I never used it so I didn't care, I'm on dialup, and even post meltdown I still have lots of free accounts. I pay for Web space at Tripod even though I hardly use it. I get my real Email from AT&T and use Hotmail as my spam-trap. So, while I remember signing up for iTools I haven't looked at it since then.)
The reality is that many free Web based services that I used to use that were really cool, like zKey or Workspot have either started charging or gone to .com Heaven. (Or, sometimes, first the former and then the latter.) It is irritating when you suddenly find you can't get to your Email or to files you stored on a remote drive. However, that's the price you pay when stuff is free. (Bad customer relations is what companies like Apple pay when they don't have a sensible way to ease people from a free service into a pay service. Let's face it, though, there are plenty of people who would always complain about being charged for "free" services, no matter how reasonable the request.
Company: "But if we don't charge you, we'll go out of business, and then you'll definitely have no way to reach your Email/Files/etc."
Some Users:"Tough, I was only using your site for trivial stuff anyway, so I'll never pay for it, however, I'll complain to high heaven if you want to charge me. Grr..."
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I really hope Apple comes to their senses soon -- .Mac is a neat idea, but charging money for it?
Why shouldn't Apple charge money for their services? You say yourself that you've standardised your email around it. It must be worth something to you. Specifically, it must be worth $50 for the first year :)
Anyways, I don't understand what the big deal is. Apple has something you want, you have something Apple wants. That's capitalism. I can't understand how it could be a dumb move.
-Brent
Well, Mac users are a resourceful bunch. They'll just move their things elsewhere.
If Apple is looking at this as revenue generation, all I can say is the marketing nimrod who came up with this fiasco should be fired. If they are looking to shut down or minimize iTools as a cost saving measure, this will be quite effective.
For $60 a year, one can host their own web site with 10 email addresses from http://www.pair.com/ plus a whole lot more. The earlier posting about Dreamhost sounds very competitive as well!
For the most part, I only used mac.com for the email address, but it is something I really don't need, as I have dozens of others with my own domain. I just liked having the @mac.com on my email.
The iDisk service was something I simply didn't have any need for. For $100, I can go out and buy a 40 gig Firewire drive and use that for backup. It's certainly a lot quicker than trying to transfer gigabytes of data across the internet.
I'll have to consider whether or not to pay $50 to continue it for a year. That will depend on how much Virex for OS X costs.
Whew! This water sure is cold!
I'll get right on this, Apple. :-\
I thought that the services they offered were a neat little addition...until I started checking my mac.com mailbox. I had only used it for a few things, since I get several mailboxes from my ISP. I was quite surprised to find that I was getting messages from their admin-bot that my mailbox was full. Sure enough, it was...full of notices from the bot. Hmm...deleted them, forgot it. Looked again in a few days - box is full again! Full of...guess what? Bot-spam.
I tried to contact Apple about the problem, but couldn't figure out who to contact - replies to the bot came back as invalid, and there was no easy-to-find contact link.
So now, they want me to pay for the priviledge of having a f*cked-up email account that I don't need? Sure...the check's in the mail, guys...
In related news, Apple reports a slide in third quarter earnings according to this Yahoo release. A connection perhapse? I'd have submitted this as an actual /. story if I thought it had a snowballs chance in hell of seing the light of day, but I'm 10 for 10 on rejections; Why break the streak now, right?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I sell Mac's all day long for a major nationwide retailer, but I've never used iTools as a selling point...And .Mac will never be one either. Apple Systems sell themselves. The only sales I do is to PC users becomming converts. I dont see what the big deal is over iTools/.Mac. Remember a few years ago when to get a rebate on a computer you had to prepay 2 years of MSN...Thats a crock...This thing....Its no big deal.......
it's a dumb move because in this crazy world we call computing, people like free stuff. and if they have to pay for something that's been free for a significant period of time, they'll be even more pissed off. and if apple pisses off their (small) user/fan base, some of them might just switch, thereby depriving them of their almighty dollars. i personally know a lot of people, mostly independent musicians, who depend on their mac.com homepages because they can't afford or don't want to deal with the hassle of "proper" web hosting, myself included. if apple starts charging me $100/year, i don't think i'll be able to keep up my site (unless, of course, they do something to sweeten the deal, like give me a bunch of extra storage). and people wonder why i hate capitalism; i'm moving to fucking cuba.
It may be beating a dead horse, but a lot of these services are available for free, and some of them even come from Microsoft.
But nevertheless, this is a poor marketing decision by Apple, one that we've seen destroy a lot of online companies. One that we hope will destroy others (cough cough IGN). You can't give someone something for free and then ask them to pay a subscription. That only works with cocaine and heroin!
mac.com was never going to be free for ever.
A company having the gall to charge money for their services!? What are they thinking?
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/07/ 1753208&mode=flat&tid=107
I wouldn't want word of this to leak out before my RDF spin had a chance to work either.
Microsoft is adding value to its MSN portal...
http://www.msnbc.com/news/781614.asp
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
You got everything you paid for.
Shell out some money if you want something worth using.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I have no idea about all the .mac rumors...but I am amused by some of what's going on at the expo. I love Apple and all...but Steve Jobs's cultlike ability to make everything into a whiz-bang feature sometimes awes me. This is direct a quote as I can relay, when describing the new chat program, iChat:
:-)
"He sent me a menu using a link within the chat window! You can actually send a URL within the chat window! And clicking on the URL actually takes you to the website!"
Wow...really?!
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
However, when you strip away the so-called "sizzle", you are left with a pretty mundane run-of-the-mill computer -- not the fastest, not the cheapest, not the most versatile. In fact, once you commit to Apple you are pretty much tied to Apple as the sole source for all support and what little "upgrades" are available. Although I wouldn't say Apple == Evil, there is more than a grain of truth in saying Apple == Advertising Hype.
Steve just started babbling about how the "world has changed" and "Yahoo charges for POP email" and "iDrive is out of busines...so...".
.NET, though. :-)
He did get in a few jabs at
And the price is...$99 as reported.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
A basic arithmetic law:
x * 0 = 0
No matter what you set x to, you still get zero. You can give free shit to 6 billion people, and you still won't make a cent.
Jobs talks about the death of free internet services (email/storage/etc), and confirms that iTools will go away as of September 30. So it looks like the FAQ posted is correct.
$99 a year.
Looks like it's for real. Crowd didn't applaud it either.
Well, Steve has announced it.
:( very annoyed.
Bah.
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
It's for real. 100 bucks a year. macworld has been a hush for 5 minutes and you could hear a pin drop.
i'm moving to fucking cuba
Hey dude. Can I have a ride? I gotta go pick up some cubans. Oh, and if you ever change your mind when you get there, let me know. I might need a ride back too.
Why shouldn't Apple charge money for their services? You say yourself that you've standardised your email around it. It must be worth something to you.
same thing with aol. we pay $10 a month for aol access despite the fact that we've had cable internet for over a year now, and regular dial up ISP for 3 yeare precluding that. my mom is just too "attached" to her AOL email address to give it up, depsite the fact that she probably hasn't used it in over 3-5 months. people are willing to and do pay for comfort. i'm sure you could make some sort of variation of the quote "give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he never goes hungry again" to fit this situation, roles reversed or somthing....... i dunno. i just woke up, and am in dire need of caffine.
moox. for a new generation.
I'm watching the keynote speech, Steve just announced .mac >:(
Just think, anyone who buys an old box of OS X off the shelf (or anyone who boots into pre-installed OS X for the first time from OS 9) is going to be confronted with the flashy welcome screen asking them something like "Wouldn't you really like to get a mac.com email address? After all, it's FREE!"
Of course it's not anymore. What will happen if the users click OK? Will they get a message box that says "Just Kidding"?
--
is why the priced it as an "all or nothing" plan. Why not make the individual services available at a lower price as well, say $20/year for just email, or $30/year for email and iDisk?
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
After reading most of the posts here, this is even more obvious. Companies thought they could provide free services to draw volume to their sites and show you annoying adds to pay for it. Well, it clearly did not work. Unless you have a real product, that offers some real benefit, you're out of business today.
This is a real product. It my not be tangible, but it's there to make you're life easier. And even though you can't touch it, it cost money to run it, and to store your email, files, web serving, etc on it. It just doesn't come for free.
I think $99 is a bit expensive, but I will consider paying for this. I used to use Yahoo but they squeeze you as well. $19 here for storage, $30 there for POP, no web hosting, etc.
News.com has an article of their own about this very thing.
http://www.mac.com
Nuff said,
Alex
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
Looks like iTunes 3 is a reality...
n ot e.php
Updates, for those of us who cannot stream the show for some reason or another, are available here...
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0207/17.key
Snooze and you lose your sushi.
Devouring shorts now. Yum.
:)
Oh well. So much for positive thinking
-k
yours,
kbs
When you price a product, a rule of thumb is 10% percent of your target market should think the price is too high and will be unwilling to pay for it (that's why it's generally not a good idea to give a service away for free). But $100? For one email address? Sheesh!
.mac email addresses to cover a typical US household, but the thought of paying $100 for my .Mac account and $100 for my wife's .Mac account is insane!
I'd be willing to pay $100 and get four
There are not enough Mac viruses to make bundled virus software worthwhile. And I already bought Retrospect (which sucks by the way), so I don't need backup software. So, I'm sitting here trying to justify $100/year for an email address.
Maybe Apple's losing a bundle on the free iTools, and they're hoping for one of two things:
1. Enough morons will actually pay $100 for this and Apple can make some juicy margins off of what they used to get nothing for
2. A whole lot of people will be unwilling to pay $100 for the service and will quit using it, effectively allowing Apple to kill a costly service
Apple would be more successful with item (1) with a lower entry price (say $49/year) -- and considering they already have the iTools infrastructure in place (mail servers, web servers, Web Objects applications, etc) they can only expect their service availability requirements to reduce when they charge for a service (obviously, less demand for a for-fee service than a for-free service).
Therefore, charging such a high price for the service implies that they were really trying to accomplish item (2).
So maybe they only get a 5% take on the deal. They get to get rid of 95% of the users, reducing their need to expand the infrastructure. If they eventually get rid of the service entirely, they've only angered a small fraction of users than if they had gotten rid of the for-free service.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Bill says "Come on over and get a free Hotmail account"
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
Anti-virus: $50 Once - not yearly
And then you have to pay $20 per year after that to renew your contract with NAI or with Symantec. Otherwise, the software won't protect you from the MacKlez 3.0 virus when it is released.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I have a @mac.com e-mail address that I got with my iBook, so I guess it's time to tell my friends & family I won't be able to use it anymore (Apple's not getting $100 from this college student just for an e-mail account). Sad to see it go, but oh well.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I suspect that a real Apple FAQ would at least get run through a spell checker. This one has a few too many commas showing up in odd places.
Is it just a troll? Or is it a *REALLY GREAT* troll? And how many karma points does someone get for coming up with this AND creating a heated discussion on slashdot???
The username of 1 is no doubt reserved. Going to the directory of that URL will forward you to this page which gives you the real deal. Why Slashdot didn't use that link, I'm not sure.
The trial version of .Mac lasts 60 days, after which you will have to spend the $99.95 per year.
ian.
ian
Here's my letter to apple
.Mac (what a silly name) service.
Hello
I have to say I am extremely disappointed by the annoncement that the free iTools service will become the expensive
I was under the impression, given to me by Apple, that iTools - anc specifically the mac.com email address, was free for life - this feels like a bait and then charge scam, something I had believed Apple was incapable of stooping to.
I resent being made to pay 100 dollars a year for a free email service (as that's what I use) and I guess I will have to resign myself to tell everyone I know (those same people I have been evangelising Apple and iTools to for years) that my email address is chainging AGAIN. They will all laugh and say things like "I told you so".
I like my computer, but it is becoming harder and harder to justify the hardware expense of a Mac. Slowly but surely you are forcing me to pay for those features (individually) that make a mac "insanely great". I can't afford 100 dollars here and there. I already pay for many other software packages. I can get the functionality that iTools and the other apple specific software elsewhere - often free or shareware. Sure I lose that ease of use, but I am not sure I want to own something from a manufacturer who dangles a carrot in my face - even lets me lick it, and then chanrges me to eat it, when I can go and pick carrots (maybe not such nice ones) from my garden.
This could severely backfire and I suspect will cause a LOT of negative press - I can see now why you were so hasty to chuck out the "rumour" sites. I, for one, will be making damn sure that as many publications as possible report this disgusting move on your part and I will no longer be recommending Apple Macs to my friends and family (I have personally, up to now, converted a large number of people). Whilst I still believe you have a superior product, I cannot condone your actions and I am afraid this will be the last straw.
I need an new computer anyway. It was going to be a mac. It still mightm if you reconsider this rash decision. If not, it's off to Penguin-Land for me.
Yours, with tears in my eyes.
John Savage
PS This will be the end of an era. I have stood by Apple and their "interesting" decisions for well over a decade, until recently the only Mac user in a army of PC clones. I regret that I persuaded all my family and most of my friends into converting to the cause. I guess my (and their) few thousand dollars a year in hardware and software sales isn't worth keeping?
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
They've already thought of that. Here's .GNU
Will I retire or break 10K?
FWIW. I just tried to log into my itools account and was bounced to www.mac.com and denied access.
Damn you /.! You lonegunmaned the keynote for me!!
--
pay the $9 / month for hosting and email / shell ... But $99 is a bit extreme.
That 9 USD per month is 108 USD per year, which isn't much different from the 99 USD per year that Apple's charging.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I just logged into my iTools account, and it .mac, with a big red
has indeed morphed into
"join now" button, and a helpful reminder that
I "...only have 75 days left to take advantage of this special price..."
Feh.
Here's some reading tips for people who don't think apple == Evil..
The bible, book 1 Geneisis...
Snow-white..
Any an apple a day keeps the doctor away mith...
Manifest of the somerset cider-drinkers.
look at http://www.mac.com/WebObjects/Welcome.woa?aff=cons umer&cty=US&lang=en
-k
There's nothing about this on the Apple news site: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/
In other words, you want Apple to keep subsidizing your web site?
Have a nice trip to Cuba. I don't they'll pay for your website either, though.
Been following the coverage on Mac Central and Jobs just announced it, seems the terms are the same as what was stated in the above mentioned faq. :-(.
anyone want lerxst@mac.com? I guess it'll be available in the near future
No one got beat up more often than the mimes of the old west!
Just check out this .Mac webpage explaning membership and benefits.
AAPL 15.41 -2.45 15.40 15.41 9980300 N
Serves them right the bastards. And I own some.
Is this a case of Apple ripping off Microsoft's ideas?
Apple bought out Emagic and plans to kill off this great cross-platform sequencer on the Windows, concentrating purely on Mac development. One of the reasons, apparently, is that (to paraphrase) "all serious musicians use Macs anyway".
This is more of the baiting technique...Apple hopes that all the (non-serious ?) musicians using the extremely capable Logic on a PC will just shrug and switch to Apple to retain loyalty to their product...
bah humbug !
Please give me a proof that Apple != Evil
or even one good reason why if Microsoft == Evil Apple != Evil.
Apple have a mouse that can be opperated by a devils hoof.
for Apple != Evil returns resident Evil as it's first result!
followed by Apple = Evil
This is a perfect example of bad marketing. Rather than saying this costs $100 outright, which always upsets people, they should say this costs only $8.33/month.
It never ceases to amaze me how much we actually pay companies over time but never think about due to the fact that it's a monthly payment.
Think about it.
ISP ($20-$50/month) = $240 - $600
Cell phone ($40/month) = $480
EverQuest addiction ($9/month) = $108
So what's a paltry $100? Nothing. Apple just made the business mistake of charging for it upfront, rather than over time.
Thanks Steve - when you were free, competition was impossible but you've just handed me a golden business opportunity. Venture capitalists please contact me for details of my new .Jobs service.
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
while one ramps up a price, the other adds services with no price change.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/781614.asp
And so damned funny. My wife is going to love that because ever since I went over to the Aqua side of the fence she's been dogging me about becoming this guy.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Precisely. $49 for the first year, breaks down to a little more that $4 a month. You can't pay that for the convenience of centering your email around it, having a convenient place to post digital photos, using it to sync your ever increasing digital lifestyle, post your calendar to, etc.?!? C'mon ... Apple's doing a smart thing by offering an integrated service that will appeal to a lot of folks that want to start taking advantage of a lot of the digital tools that are coming out, but don't have anything in common with each other, aren't designed to integrate with anything, etc. Apple's business plan is to simplify a person's increasingly digital lifestyle ... this isn't about using the computer, that's what Microsoft is centered around, Apple's philosophy is far more sophisticatedm, it seems.
$100.00 a year = $0.27 per day
.Mac account. Existing customers only have to pay $50 for their first year of a .mac account. This means if they eat a Big Mac once every two and a half weeks, they will be paying more to mickey-D.
$50.00 a year = $0.14 per day
Let's suppose a big mac costs $2.50. That means if you buy a big mac once every nine days, you're paying more to mickey-D than you will for a
If anyone's being rash, its you. Your first year for .Mac is $49 - less than $5 a month. Peanuts compared to your dial-up or broadband service. Heck, that's less than I spend on Starbucks in a WEEK! (Significantly so, actually). After the initial year, I assume it'll go up to $99 for everyone, still less than $10 a month, and again, less than I spend on Starbucks in a WEEK!
.Mac will offer IMAP, POP, and WEB access - more than you can get from anywhere else) as well as integration with iCal (the new calendaring app), iSync (the new mobile/digital device synchronization app) and your iDisk will increase from 25MB to 100MB. Go check out how much 100MB of web space will cost you on the various providers out there ... specifically the Mac based providers with which you can properly store Mac files (not that this is necessary if you use HQX or other archives).
.Mac has and will continue to have. Jobs specifically said that they will continue to add features and integration to .Mac without increasing the cost.
.Mac service. Its really not asking as much as you seem to think.
I'm sure that Apple and everyone else appreciates that you have to spend money on a lot of other things, but this is a very insignificant cost compared to the individual user, to subsidize a set of services that cost Apple FAR MORE to offer. As Jobs' keynote explained, Yahoo! and Hotmail both charge money for POP access (and other features) to your email account. All providers of online disk storage have gone out of business (according to Jobs). The new
I personally maintain a server at Rackspace that costs me over $250 a month for my company and our clients. This is pricey, but it has a lot of benefits as well, just as the new
I hope you'll reconsider your decision to nay-say Apple and that you'll consider paying for the
Macintosh: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x, Netscape 4.7.X and up
Windows: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x, Netscape Navigator 5.X
Excuse me? What the hell is Netscape 5.x?
Comic Book Guy: "There is no Groening in my store."
I read the FAQ, and as far as I can tell, this is Just Another Hosting Service. Am I missing something?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The itools area was full of really ANGRY responses to the move to a paid service. In the last 5 minutes apple hosed the itools area (and all of the posts) and changed it to a bunch of .mac faq's. Also the itools .mac feedback page is not functioning as well as the rest of the feedback pages at apple.com. I think this thing is gonna bite them in the ass.
I'm using iTools for about 2 megs of web pages and data. I also have it forward me any @mac.com email to my personal email address. The email stays on Apple's server about as long as it takes me to get gibbed when I play Team Fortress (Quake 1, of course). It's costing Apple next to nothing to keep a folder named "mactari" on their server. I'm not going to get $100 worth of service, and Apple wouldn't spend half that maintaining me if I stayed.
.NET [giving away free development tools and sdk's], "The first hit of heroin's always free."
What's more, Apple doesn't care if I go.
The bottom line of it is that if 90% of the iTools users leave, 10% will start plunking down money. As Maelstrom says when your bonus gets to nothing, "Twice nuttin, still nuttin" -- 100% of iTools users paying nothing is less revenue than *any amount* of the users forking over $50 [then $100].
I'm leaving iTools (and that's a pain in tha arse - - I'd just gotten my site linked too fairly well), and Apple doesn't care. Like Sun's CEO said about
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
The Microsoftification of Apple has officially commenced.
Apple users: grab your ankles, get ready for the ride.
jack's bicycle is music to my ears
Yet another overpriced product in Apple's lineup...
looking at the .mac homepage, it appears that the $50/first year will provide a "full mac.com email" account and that a "full mac.com account" gives you more idisk storage. it doesn't say the free accounts are going away.
am i looking in the wrong place?
go get it
for $108.00 he gets a shell account which is orders of magnitude cooler and more useful...
Not to flame, but I've never understood the appeal of shell accounts if you already have your own Darwin shell prompt. You'll probably get FreeBSD or something, and I don't see that as having different enough capabilities to Darwin to make any difference.
Will I retire or break 10K?
...how come the page saying you've got to subscribe to mac.com or you get shafted is also translated in different languages on the various regional apple.com/mac.com pages?
As a long-time, loyal PC guy, I was finally starting to soften up on the Mac issue. In fact, I was going to recommend someone I know to purchase a Mac. But between their new ad campaign and stunts like this, I've decided that I'll quietly point that person to dell.com.
Why? Because moves like this lead me to infer that Apple is slowly turning into another Microsoft, albeit one with a much smaller market share. They're not thinking different, they're thinking with the herd. "Dotcom is dead, cut costs." When you take away all the really cool services and such that Apple offers, you're left with an overpriced box that can't run 90% of commercially available software.
They've managed to both irritate their existing customers and squander their slow courting of folks like me. Somewhere in Texas, Michael Dell is still smiling.
I'm tired of all the people who complain about having to pay for what they use - this ain't a charity. If all you want is email then by all means go to yahoo and get your email. Remember they will be adding to .mac, and it already does things that itools didn't do, like ical.
.mac is this:
As Steve pointed out even yahoo charges if you go over some rather small limits on your email with them and all the internet storage co's are dead. I get perfectly fine email from my ISP, I never used itools, so I won't now and won' t pay for it.
The point of
"this is costing us an arm and a leg, so if you think it is too cool to live without then pay for it and we'll make it worth your money, and if its no big deal then split and stop costing us money"
When Bill Gates looks in the mirror, he sees Steve Jobs (and vice versa).
Damn! All this time I thought it was just FUD when people said Apple users were a bunch of long haired hippie commies. ;-)
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
I would like to tell a little story about myself and why Apple is losing me as a customer and why I will be informing as many people as possible of my decision. It is up to you to read this, but if you attempt to suppress it, I will only try harder to inform as many people of my decision and the underlying reasons.
I have been a Mac user for many years now. Since 1991 in fact. I have been a solid supporter of Apple through all of the bad years. I bought the Public Beta of OSX and a copy of OSX when it came out. I was amazed as the supple beauty, power and simplicity of OSX. I love the Aqua GUI and the unix underpinnings. I found the integration of iDisk on the Desktop seamless. I defended Apple's high prices against questions from interested x86 users who were wondering why exactly Apple hardware was so expensive. They also pointed out that there is not exactly a multitude of Software available for Mac OSX. I pointed out certain added value items you get when you own a Mac, such as 20MB free online storage with iDisk, an email address that works, a free homepage and desktop integration of the iDisk.
But..
Today I read that Apple will be charging $100 a year for this service, and has added functionality to it in an attempt to sell it to the Mac public. Let us look at what Apple claims. Apple claims that it costs too much to provide iTools as is. I noticed yesterday that Apple is profitable. Apple certainly has not lost any customers due to iTools. Apple claims that the various services cost:
Anti-virus: $50
* Backup: $40
* 100MB of online storage: $60
* 15MB of email storage, forwarding and POP/IMAP access: $40+
* Home page creation and hosting: $60
I have had my own remotely hosted domain (in the USA) in the recent past where I had:
*100MB of file storage
*10MB of email storage
*15 email addresses using IMAP
*My own top level domain
*Full Linux functionality i.e. PHP,Perl,MySQL
*SFTP access
*SSH access.
*Vastly improved transfer speeds compared to homepage.mac.com or iDisk
I had all of this for less than $80/year.
I am not very well off, but have been saving to buy a new Powerbook G4 and software. I had the feeling that Apple was worth it as they seemed to provide me with more value for my money, especially in times when the economy is as bad as it is.
Microsoft has been criticized heavily for it's subscription plans and Apple seemed to not want to try to abuse it's customer base. With the fact that x86 machines are much cheaper than Apple's and the choice in software much greater on Windows there now comes this final straw, it seems, that makes Apple as much an abusive company as Microsoft ever was.
If this plan stays as is within the next two weeks when I purchase my new computer I will buy an x86 machine and stop worrying about Apple's feeble chances in the software market.
.mac: cyber-slavery for the rest of us
A domain name registration and a years worth of hosting.
.Mac -- isn't this what you really want anyway? yourname@somethingcool.com seems preferrable in every way. Plus, Apple can't take your website away from you.
I'm no uber-geek. I'd been using free hosting because I saw no need to get my own domain name. Last August, I decided that I ought to just buy my own website. I used Powweb (www.powweb.com) and for roughly $100 I got a 150megs of disk storage, web based email and, oh yeah, a website of my own.
So, all these people thinking about
Well, 95% of itools users use only email, and nothing more. $100 is lot for just email, for this money I can have email with unlimited size and at least 10 mailboxes with my own domain!
Also, as a European, I find that Apple is trying hard to make my life harder and harder. At first it was 10.1 Update, that wasn't available there. It had to be sent from US by friend for me. Now, not only $100 is a lot for email, but my bank charges $30 + 1% for wire transfers to US. Will I pay that for my @mac.com address? Not a chance in hell.
to add a commercial feel to an above post... .mac: priceless .mac
Anti-virus: $50
Backup: $40
100MB of online storage: $60
15MB of email storage, forwarding and POP/IMAP access: $40+
Home page creation and hosting: $60
Look on Steve Jobs's face when NO ONE uses
There are some things money cant buy. For everything else, there is
I wrote more or less the exact same letter to them in 1995. At that time however, the subject was their broken promise regarding the "new operating system" (that never really ended up being released anyway) being able to run on the *extremely expensive* hardware that I had just purchased. I never received a response. It was not the first time Apple had LIED TO and SCREWED its users, and, *obviously* not the last. I turned away then and never looked back.
When I see people advocating the mac these days, I just feel sorry for them, because I know how dicked over they're going to feel eventually.
What was it that Scotty said? "Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me."
Sounds like you need to blame your bank, not Apple. I purchase domains from joker.com (a German GmBH) and I don't incur any additional fees from my bank when I use my bank card (Visa debit). Same goes for any credit cards I have.
... :(
I doubt that Apple is purposefully trying to make your life harder in Europe. It typically takes them a little while to localize the European versions of their systems, since the localization process doesn't run in parallel with development (this would be cost prohibitive). It isn't started until the software reaches GM (gold master) stage which means there will be a delay before its ready.
Obviously, this sucks for the geeks out there (like me) that want to have every update the minute its released
i'm sure you all remember that first mac commercial where the woman through the hammer at the talking head. it might just be me but doesn't macs new ad campaign seem like they have now taken the role of the talking head.
Nice analogy between two over-priced items (Apple products/services and Starbucks) that have cheaper alternatives.
"Yours, with tears in my eyes." ??? Is that a joke? What?? Do you want this to sound like satire?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
An AC posted getting a free email account is possible through someone else (I think M$ was quoted, haha). Yet some people fail to realize that those "free" web-based email programs are a conduit for huge advertisement ads. So it comes to personal choice, do you want flashing ads, or pay for something sans ads?
Some people are managing to run their businesses using the webspace of the mac account storing software for people to DL. I have my personal domain name go to my mac account and have since ditched using a remote host saving $20 a month!
So will I use this? H*** yes!
Well, it's about ten bucks a month. Though I agree with the poster who said that iTools should be a perk for people who buy Macs (even though to be honest with you, I think Mac OS X makes it worthy of the price), and that it's kind of crappy for Apple to offer this for free and then start charging, I would actually sign up and pay for it if I got all of the features at other hosts. Namely, I want to use .htaccess, mod_rewrite, mod_perl, mod_php and have access to MySQL or something. You know, these are getting to be pretty standard offerings for hosting.
But I wish they'd offer a $15/year option for people who just want their measly 5 MB email and 20 MB of storage.
"First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."
If you bothered to go to Apple's site, you'd see for yourself:
o ns umer&cty=US&lang=en
http://www.mac.com/WebObjects/Welcome.woa?aff=c
Sorry to shatter your Macinista illusions, but yes Virginia, Steve Jobs is as big a scumbag as Bill Gates...
I realise nobody at Apple with the power to change policy will ever read this (and in fact teve Jobs may the ONLY person with power to change policy, anyway, I have an alternate suggestion:
.mac. For example, I only use my mac.com email. I have Norton AntiVirus, and don't need Virex. I have Retrospect and don't need their backup software. I realistically don't nede 100MB of online space. But I liked having an email address that (I thought) would remain constant despite any switches in ISPs/location etc. That being said, it's not worth $100US per year (with a 50% discount the first year) to have just an email account (and I don't need 15MB of email store either BTW).
.Mac should be tiered so if you don't need all its features you can get a subset without forking over $150 Canadian each year.
Offer multiple levels of
So, I say Apple should offer "lite" versions of these services for free or reduced fees. ie: 5MB POP3 email for free, or upgrade to 15MB for $20/year. If you want the iDisk as well, add another $20/year. Or whatever. Point being, I think
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
The fact that people like you seem to be the majority of Mac users is the main reason I'll never buy a Mac.
well, actually, they did: the new .mac service comes with 100 megs of storage, plus 15 megs for e-mail... it also comes with a retail copy of macafee antivirus, and backup software that will save to cd-r, dvd or idisk... all in all, a pretty decent deal for $49/$99
i thought, therefore i was...
First off I'd like to say that you guys are really disappointing. You complain that Apple has done something wrong by saying you're intelligent to take $8.33 and multiply it by 12 months and come up with $100 a year. They show their price up front and you call it a mistake? Come on, half of you are saying that you would pay $8 a month and not $100 a year. I think I have lost all respect for those people.
.mac deal, then M$ is going to have to do the same with their hotmail. When M$ starts to charge for their e-mail, Apple drops its .mac price. The ever arrogant M$ would never drop their price b/c they don't want to look like they are following Apples lead. *shrugs* And besides, who in the world would pay for a hotmail account anyways?
Second, this just might be a brilliant move on Apple's part. Think about it. If Apple makes money on this
BTW I'm not doing that as a Coward. I'm just having a few problems with these comps and my account.
Again, I'm going to wait before I say that Apple's done something wrong here. Who knows, they always have something new up their sleeve.
-Gast
Before there was a semi-mathemtical equation dictating the link between monthly bandwidth limitations and what you paid for additional web space...
Does anyone know how the new prcing structure will change this?
There's nowhere else in my vicinity where I can get an Iced White Chocolate Mocha with soy milk. I can make it myself, of course (and I do, on occasion), but that takes *my* time and typically isn't as good, as my equipment doesn't compare to Starbucks'.
.Mac - I could pull together my own mix of services for less the $99/yr, but it wouldn't be as nice as .Mac.
Same equivalent to
Agreed that Apple has a right to charge whatever they want. Heck, they *could* charge $100,000 for their computers but I am guessing they wouldn't sell very many and that pricing scheme would probably lead to their bankruptcy. But -- they *could* do it if they wanted. The same is true for this service. I think the original poster was just wondering why $100? What are we getting for our $100?
Free (as in beer) e-mail? So what.
Some extra storage? So what.
Cool interface? So what.
Of course, I say "so what" but many out there may not agree with me. The question for apple is the same ole economics 101 question we all ask when pricing a product: How many of these can I sell at this price?
My guess is -- not many. But again, that's only a guess.
The good news is that all of these pricing decisions even out over the long term. If Apple has mispriced this service, it will be obvious in a very short period of time (ie: nobody will sign up). If they have priced it correctly, Apple makes a lot of money by signing up lots of people. Either way, there is resolution over the long term. Most things are like that (MPAA, RIAA, etc).
Most places I have seen that offer similar services (I use pair.net, $9.95 a month for 50MB of disk, 10 email addresses, ssh access, etc., YMMV) charge 8-14 dollars (US) a month. $8/mo x 12 months is $96 a year. $14/mo x 12 months is $168 a year. Neither of those includes the backup software, the antivirus software...
Not allowing people to pay by the month is a poor choice, but it's not the massive screw job everyone is making it out to be.
I think the biggest loss is for the families that use itools to communicate. For example, if a family of four uses mac.com as their email address so they can keep in touch they will have to pay big bucks.
Consider this situation: A family bought a mac because their school has one. When you plug the mac in you go through a registration process which includes signing up for iTools. They think this is cool and everybody gets an email address and other feature benefits. Now they are left in the cold because they can't afford the$400 dollars a year to keep it up once they have grown acustomed to the service in which they share items generated in part by Apple products in the first place (iMovies, iPhoto, etc).
There new strategy seems a little short sighted to me.
I'm sure I'll buy it -- don't get me wrong. I'm just a little disappointed. One of my favorite things about the Mac was all of the stuff we got for "free" -- kickass OS, free developer tools, Mac.com. Now the cool integrated experience of e-mail and webpages isn't free. As I recall, too, it was a big plugging-point for iPhoto -- free integrated homepage pictures. Apple isn't out of line, just a bit disappointing.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Thank you for killing the server I get my e-mail from.
I would agree with this assessment if Apple would offer portions of .Mac at lower costs (or free). I, like the author of the original parent to this, only use the mac.com email. While $100/yr may not be too much for 15MB email, 100MB storage, anti-virus software, backup software, web page hosting, syncing calendars, phones etc, $100/yr is too expensive for those of us who just want a 5MB (I don't even need this much email space since I use POP) POP/IMAP account. That's ALL I use from iTools now, and I would pay something to maintain this, but not $100/yr.
Additionally, he was disputing Apple's initial claims of "free for life" and then the quick switcheroo to "expensive for life".
I want an email address that stays the same regardless of my ISP or location, and can be checked from the we, but I don't want to pay for all those other feaures which I will not use.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
I'm English
:)
I have a warped sense of humour
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
Sign the petition against Apple charging for .Mac at:
l
http://www.petitiononline.com/iTol/petition.htm
Macs are for people with money to burn.
I'd love to check out OsX, but for now, I have to make due with machines that I cobble together myself. Maybe one day I can afford a shiny new iBook, but I'd rather eat and pay my bills.
Mac Users are not WinTel users. If apple is going to treat us like WinTel users we might at well go take it up the butt by the stick of Bill. But we don't like Bill's stick and that's why we are Mac Users. We don't want to be Bill Users.
The other big sucky thing here is this is like the ATM BS. First they give it to us for free until we are hooked on using it. Then they start charging us a buck fifty here, two dollars there. It's BS.
Thank the digital maker this is apple. Almost everytime apple has done something stupid like this and we that Macrotariate shouted loud enough apple changed their game plan. So that's our job now. Let them know this donkey ain't gonna fly!
Here's the link to the PR release regarding .Mac on Apple's site:
a c. html
:)
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/jul/17dotm
Why oh why do they put the phone numbers for PR people on public PR releases?
This is so sad. Apple comes out with a great updates on the iMac and iPod, lots of cool stuff with Jaguar, and what does everyone post about? The BS with .Mac. It steals all the thunder from the cool stuff. How could they be so stupid?
And you believe this why, Mr Chamberlain?
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
Also note that the backup software is probibly NOT on the server but on the Mac. It writes to CD's and DVD's as well as the iDisk. Beginning to sound like SystemWorks with a calendar.
What is not not clear is what Apple can give me NeXt year to convince me not to drop .Mac when I've had a year to move registration addresses to my ISP account.
Better be "Insanely Great"
I'm not going to fault Apple for charging for iTools services. I can't remember an "email address for life" promise when I signed for the free account I've used since OS X Day One. Apple is probably within their legal rights to change their TOS, and for-pay iTools is certainly a better business model.
.Mac services don't seem worth $99 TO ME. They might be to you. The big iTools draw was (again, to me) the IMAP mailbox. I dump all my other accounts there, even though I've never used a Mac.com return address. I prefer Norton to the "free" virus software offered with .Mac; would rather backup critical files to offline media; and have no need for shared calendaring right now. I'll move my website to a host offering IMAP boxes, and let Mr. Jobs toast my old iTools account.
.Mac tools? If you buy 10.2 and not .Mac, do you mind having OS features you can't use?
I bet they're betting few users will actually abandon the platform because there's LESS free beer. They know that while they'll lose the bulk of their current uers, thousands will sign up. The paid base will grow slowly as new (and less outraged) OS X 10.2 users decide they want the convenience of a one-stop service that's tightly integrated with the OS.
Mac software is still a great value in comparison to Windows. We get a ton a very good bundled software, and it's still free. iTunes 3.0 is out today, and it's part of the OS. There's also iDVD, iMovie, Mail, and quite a bit more. OS X is still far cheaper than Win XP; it's less draconian; and it's a better user experience. It also has an Open Source community to support it.
I'll stay with Mac, and will likely plop down the $129 for 10.2. It's a full install, and the new features are compelling. 10.2 will really pressure Redmond.
On the other hand, the new
Y'all need to make the same choices. Do you NEED the 10.2 upgrade right now? Do you NEED the
The final consideration is Apple viability. Are you financially (not just philosophically) committed to a rival *commercial* OS to offset Microsoft's hegemony? Do you want a non-MS OS where you can run mainstream commercial applications unlikely to find their way to Linux anytime soon? If so, pony up the bucks. Apple's next quarter is gonna suck in a magical way. If you want them to stay healthy, pay for what you use. This is a commercial war, not Open Source.
If you can't answer "yes" to the last paragraph, that's fine. Maybe you stick with OS X 10.1x for now, or go find another email address. Or--and this is a great option--look into one of the PPC distros. I'll probably convert my older iBook to Yellow Dog or something when I upgrade to newer Apple hardware.
Which I'll need to do now and then. Selling computers is what Apple is all about, and moving units is a driving force behind OS innovation. It pushes the hardware requirements, and that keeps folks employed in Cupertino.
Sorry this is so long.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
After reading this over, .MAC doesn't sound anything like .NET - It sounds more like .AOL
.MAC service sound like a good deal.
I know people who pay $20 per month for an ISP service, THEN pay an additional AOL fee of $12 per month, or $144 per year.
Makes the
Search engines seem to ignore periods in names. Thus, .NET and .Mac are viewed as NET and Mac, which is nearly useless.
They may fail simply because people cannot search for information about them.
I wonder what the history of funny tech product names is (punctuation, capitalization, etc.)? Anybody know of a website that has such? Was dBASE the first funky name?
Table-ized A.I.
But to Apple, this isn't just a free giveaway that they get no return on. It serves as advertising, at a relatively low cost compared to big TV and magazine ads. Basically, Apple now wants the user to pay to support this part of Apple's marketing machine, when formerly the user didn't feel this cost as a separate bite (it was intergrated into the cost of buying a Mac). The fact of it suddenly being an additional charge over and above the established cost of owning a Mac -- that's going to damage their community more than can ever be repaired.
And as others have noted, you get no goodwill from slapping a hefty charge on what used to be free. I think they could have avoided most of the controversy by adding a couple new features at a MONTHLY charge instead of charging a hefty annual sum for the same thing you can get free elsewhere. ($8.99/month is not nearly as painful to the average wallet as $100 in a lump, even if it's for the whole year.)
Now, if you are providing free services but have no product that these services serve to promote, then yes, the user should be willing to cough up or find another provider, because it's not your job to go in the hole with no hope of a return on your investment.
But that's not the case with Apple. IMO they believe they have all Mac users by the balls and can make 'em pay every time they squeeze.
[Disclaimer: I'm not a Mac or mac.com user and really couldn't care less what Apple does, but it's a bad precedent for commercial to consumer relations everywhere.]
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
What a stupid decision by Apple... They believe that their customers were suckers enough to buy their overpriced, over-hyped, under-delivering products, that they'll bite on this scam??!
Those price comparisons crack me up!
My hosting company charges $10/month, no set up, nothing for UNLIMITED space (starts @ 125 MB) and UNLIMITED bandwidth, as well as UNLIMITED Email Accounts and FTP accounts and forwarding! So, while that may cost even $120/year, you're getting full-fledged hosting on your own domain, and all of those features. That's the wonderful thing about capitalism, though- It relies on the dumbest common denominator. Meaning that, as stupid as all of us know this is, there are at least a dozen Mac users out there for every one of us who's just fine with that, and think they're getting a bargain.
What's nutty to me about these posts is that though no Mac user paid for iTools, I'm hearing Mac make threats about switching over to Windows.
;The ones who will pay will and the ones who will, will get quality services since the ones who going elsewhere will free up vast resources.
To be honest, Apple has come to the same conclusion that Yahoo, MSN, AOL and many others have: It costs money to run free hosting services!
Let's wake up a bit to reality: The "iApps" are still free. And I doubt very much that Apple is going to lose money with Mac users, since they weren't making any money with iTools anyway! Far from it, the ones who won't pay won't
You know, it's not the fact that they're charging that annoys most of us, it's that they gave it free, and then threw the price in our faces. Goodbye Apple.
Yes, you have to pay, deal with it. They are paying to maintain the server, pay for the bandwidth, techs, upgrades, electricity, floor space, etc. Incase you missed it, the internet economy failed at giving things away for free and took the broader economy with it. Yes, people will be pissed. Will they stop being Mac heads? I don't think so. Will they go find alternate hosting? Maybe. The deal they have going on this site is as good if not better then many other hosting options out there for those of you who don't want to know how it all really works. That being the case, I don't think that 8.33 a month is going to send you to the poor house for a service you can't live without, to me it looks like quite a bargain...
I realize you were joking, but I think it is relevent to say that The Glorius Communist Party of Cuba has outlawed the PC. And printers, and internet access. Its really par for the course of a totalitarian dictatorship. See also North Korea. http://www.infoanarchy.org/story/2002/4/3/12442/38 899
Smoking is an expensive, slow, and unreliable method of suicide.
Sorry Apple, I get disk space, home page, and email from my ISP bundled with my broadband access. And that works with windows (not just 2k, but 95/98 as well).
So what's so compelling about iTools that I should pay $100 a year?
Nothing.
Sure, it's your server, you can charge for access if you want. And I'm free to not be your customer if I don't want. Have a nice life.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
is a stupid penny arcade filter
I don't necessarily believe it, I was just throwing that out there. Contrary to what everyone appears to think now about Apple, they are not the most money-hungry company around. There are skankier, slimier, swindling companies out there. Apple is simply trying to offset the cost of developing, running, and maintaining the .Mac application. .Mac is not an email service - if that's all that's needed/wanted, there are plenty of other providers out there that will give you email forwarding or POP/IMAP access for a small fee or for free. Feel free to run to them in hordes and drive *them* out of business.
Popularity is expensive - if iTools only had a few thousand or even a hundred thousand or so users, I don't imagine that this would be an issue. But the infrastructure, support, maintenance, bandwidth, etc. needed to support 2.2 million users is quite significant, I'd imagine.
Cheers.
Followthis link for a place for feedback specific to the .mac subscription, so it may be a good place to speak your mind. I am feeling pretty betrayed by this, as I have a dozen websites I maintain for various non-profit organizations on homepage.mac.com and I don't see anyone springing to pay for those.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
I've noticed a theme here....
recently it's always been "I won't buy ANY proprietary systems blah blah....especially from apple"
and today we have
"and I was JUST about to buy me a mac too....oh well....not now"
I find it tough to believe that any of you people saying this were seriously gonna purchase anyway, so no loss, really.
http://mac.com/[my silly username]/ wouldnt work. The corect url would be: http://homepage.mac.com/[my silly username]/
on .Mac.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/mac/gtm.html
Let Steve know what you're thinking!
...///...
At this link there is a petition going to ask Apple to reconsider the $100/year fee for those who thought Apple was serious when they said "email address for life".
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
I'll assume the $10 per month, because the $50 is only for existing users for the first year.
I'm with paradise.net.nz. I get a good dial-up plan that has free web-space, and e-mail. It's NZ$20 per month. That's just under US$10 per month.
Unless you really want the server space and virus protection. It's way too expensive....And most people prolly just use the e-mail.
I don't care about yahoo or hotmail. Just because someone else does it. Doesn't make it OK. When I got my iBook. I was under the impression that I also got my iTools with it. They were part of my purchase IMHO.
Apple has always been a leader in personal computing. They've usually (if not always) predicted the trend WAY ahead of everyone else and they take the risks that no one else really wants to (like the Newton, USB, and colored cases, and now .mac). There's no reason to be mad with Apple for this move of theirs. If anything, it's just an indicator of what's going to happen to the rest of the PC world in a few months, maybe a year.
We live in a free market economy in case you guys forgot! The whole "free Internet" thing was a scam from the beginning. Going forward, paying for content and services is going to make things better for everyone in the long run and not just better for the big guys. If the Internet has taught us anything, it's that the technology helps level the playing field for the smaller competitors. When the Internet was all "free", only the big guys could play in that ballgame. But if they're forced to play by the same rules as everyone else, Internet technologies will help the smaller service provider play on a more level field. The result will be greater variety of content and services that serve everyone's individual tastes better. (That's what ebay is all about.) There are even places now where mere individuals can get in on these new trends by making it easier to sell your own content and services (vtechmedia and keen come immediately to mind).
No one likes to pay for something they've been getting for free, but c'mon, didn't we know deep down that this just wasn't going to be able to keep going like this forever? Apple is leading the way again and they're probably right (again).
Why should we believe it, when we're already lied to once? It's strongly implied, both in ads and the included documentation, that iTools came as part of the package when I bought the computer. As far as I'm concerned, I bought iTools when I bought my iBook. What's next....is my iBook going to pop up a window in a second, requesting a credit card number so I can pay $100/yr to continue using the computer I already bought.
I, personally, don't care how much it costs them...no one forced them to make the offer in the first place. It's lame, and people will notice. Apple's users are very loyal...but we don't like getting dicked over any more than the next guy, and this is a dick-over if I ever saw one.
"When I got my iBook. I was under the impression that I also got my iTools with it. They were part of my purchase IMHO."
;-)
When I bought a house, I was surprised that I had to continue paying monthly for electricity, water, central heat, phone service, garbage collection, sewage, etc. And then I bought a car, I was P.O'd that I had to pay for oil changes, gasoline, washing, parking, etc. They were part of my purchase IMHO.
It's amazing that people expect to get everything for free -- why not donate your services to your employer and stop collecting a salary?
Just check
www.ductape.net.
They offer an IMAP email account for free.
And you get a kewl domain too...
AND yout get telnet login.
~Henq
Apple will be raking in over 200 million a year on this scheme then. I wonder how much of that will be profit.
I was thinking of replacing my 4 1/2 year old PC with a Mac, but paying more for the Mac than a PC and THEN paying an extra $100 a year is too much. Yes, I know I don't have to pay the extra $100 a year, but if I actually owned a Mac I would want the iTools.
I would have ended up paying an extra $500 on my current computer(or $600 if I decide not to get a new on at the end of the year)if I had to pay an extra $100 a year for something like this new Apple scheme.
Look like I'll be getting another PC when I replace this one. I wonder how many other people will change their minds about Macs because of this scheme.
Only if you drag all your apps onto the dock. In which case things can get just a tab crowded.
I'm a long-time Mac user and I am totally underwhelmed by the whole .Mac thing. In fact, this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
.Mac homepage, iDisk, Virex (virus scanning? On a Mac? What are they thinking... oh yeah, I'm so affraid of all 4 of the Mac viruses out there), backup storage, email access, etc. Fuck that.
I don't have a problem paying for services, but why do iTools users have to purchase the whole package? There are no options to buy just what you want. You don't go to the store for milk and have to buy yogurt, sour cream, eggs, cottage cheese and dairy creamer just to get the one thing.
I only use Webmail, but I have to pay for
And let's look at their "web-hosting." I see no indication that you can run Perl scripts, PHP, database services, or use a whole host of other goodies that most web-hosting services offer. On top of that, you can't even log in to your site via FTP (at least, as far as I can see... maybe, I'm wrong.)
Paying for services isn't a big deal. I'm not one of those whiners who has a fit when something free on the web disappears. Webmail is fantastic, even in its beta phase. I'd gladly pay for it, but not $100 a year to pay for a bunch of silly crap I have no intention of using. That's ludicrous.
Besides that, iTools was once advertised as part of the Mac OS purchase experience. I love how that has just quietly disappeared.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
It's so funny how people can just come up with an analogy and look as if they have made a good point.
The things you talk about are not expect to be part of you purchase. The computer and software industry (and 100's of others) is different. It's very common to include packages, related services etc.
It does the job, is free, and can be used via web or imap...
I seem to recall promises in the 80s that the Apple2, and specifically the Apple2GS, would not be abandoned. Um... yeah. Let's see, two products from the same company that compete with each other...
I find it really amusing how many people step up to bitch and moan about the new cost.
I have a mac.com account, but I've never used it for anything important. I trust my own web/e-mail service, and that of other ISPs I have accounts with, for important things. That's because I'm paying somebody for service (or doing it myself), and thus I have a reasonable expectation that the services will be provided.
Even more though, I find it absolutely hilarious how people are threatening to not buy Apple products now because of the price increase... "oh Apple, I would have bought a Mac, but now I'm spiteful and angry so I guess I'll build a [linux/windows] box." Get over it; you have a choice:
spend $50 per year (about one hour of billable time at my consulting rate) to get the service you want, or
spend countless more hours of work and frustration over the year on your non-Mac platform getting your work done, while pretending to feel smug about denying Apple one sale
Personally I'd drop the 50 bones and save many hundreds of dollars worth of my time, but then, I'm not one who based my life around the free service to begin with.
To sum up my rant in one common phrase: Il n'y a pas telle chose comme un diner gratuit.
-ben
(please pardon my grammar)
myselfmusic
This is really sad, I already have virus software that I like, I already have my backups sorted out, because I am running OSX I can host my own email and web services. I _DONT_ need mac.com, however it was cool becuase even though I dont agree with everything they do I still prefer the Mac hardware and sofware to the alternatives out there. I am a bit of a mac evangalist at heart, every time I gave someone a mac.com email address I was promoting Apple and often it would result in some Apple related discusion.
Now I will go back to one of my own email address's and Apple will miss out on that free promotion. If they had a $20 a month email account I would pay for it, I love mac that much, but $100 to promote Apple, get real.
Please someone a Apple be reading this, introduce a cheap email only account to keep those mac.com addresses in use and reduce the damage.
: Why is Apple charging for iTools?
Providing email and storage solutions for millions of customers comes at a considerable cost. In addition, using the Internet today requires more storage space, better ways to share, and new ways to protect your important files. To continue providing iTools services as well as a new set of must-haves for computing on the Internet, Apple is charging an annual fee.
Bought individually, comparable products would cost you an estimated $250 If you're stupid:
Anti-virus: $50 If you're stupid
Backup: $40 If you're stupid
100MB of online storage: $60 If you're stupid
15MB of email storage, forwarding and POP/IMAP access: $40+ If you're stupid
Home page creation and hosting: $60 If you're stupid
Apple have only a few things going for them.
- Microsoft Office. The downside here is that MS Office is priced too highly to be attractive to most users.
- Photoshop and Adobe's dependency. With over 30% of their revenues coming from Mac users, Adobe needs Apple.
- A brand loyalty second to none. Mac users love their machines, and some users even want to marry them.
Apple stand to lose their most important asset, their brand loyalty, by pursuing this new policy. Currently only 10% or 2.5 million Mac users have upgraded to OS X. With 25 million Mac users all told, and with an iTools storage capacity - including e-mail and webspace - of 15MB per user, Apple can easily keep all of this 375MB on a single machine. If Mac e-mail users were limited to only 1MB, they could still store up to 1,000 text-only messages, while the capacity requirements would be trivial.
Apple may need additional cash flow, but going after their loyal customers is not the way to do it.
Rickster
radsoft.net
Uh.... 25,000,000 x 15,000,000 is 375,000,000,000,000 or 375 Tera bytes... not 375MB... and that is one hell of a file server whoever you are :) .
It's already mirrored -- The WayBack Machine.
[insert witty comment here]
So this means that paying for a startrek.com adress is ridiculous too? Nate
Only if you drag all your apps onto the dock. In which case things can get just a tab crowded
:-)
Ah, then you just need to buy more widescreen cinema displays
If you think you had alredy pay for iTools services when you bought your Mac.
And you don't want to loose your mail "for life". Sign this petition :
http://www.petitiononline.com/iTol/petition.html
Number of signatures grows crazy fast !!
But I don't have something it wants!
http://pixelcort.com/
see here:
. ht m
http://help.apple.com/mac/5/help/mail/pgs/mac43
I don't see how searching through the hard drive to find a program is any easier than a big button that says "start."
You can drop a folder on the Dock. The folder can contain aliases to your programs. When you click on the folder you get a popup menu just like the START menu on Windows. But you're right, Mac installers don't install shortcuts anyplace for you.
However all programs are installed in the "Applications" folder by default, and there is a shortcut to this folder in the Finder's toolbar. It is thus very easy for users to find the installed application and drag its icon to the dock, or make shortcuts (aliases) wherever they'd like.
One of the key features of the Mac OS has always been to leave such things up to the user. Software vendors are discouraged from putting aliases on the user's desktop or auto-launching the installed software, leaving it up to the owner of the computer to decide in what manner they want to access and launch their software. It's one thing about the Mac I've always appreciated.
The START Menu - in contrast - ends up being messy very quickly. Not to mention the fact that most vendors install their software in a folder named after the vendor and not the software title. So if you want to find a program you need to remember that it was published by McAffee or Microsoft, or whoever. That is certainly NOT an intuitive thing, but a marketing thing.
So on my Windows boxes I've always ended up reorganizing it to suit my needs. Unfortunately, such innocent customization is often enough to confound Uninstallers and thwart software updates.
As a highly-literate computer user and programmer I find Windows to be obtrusive and controlling, and lacking simplicity and elegance virtually everywhere. Obviously your post is a troll, calling people who dislike Windows "nimrods." Obviously there is a lot you need to learn about the various systems out there and end-users' motivations for choosing one platform over another. Sometimes it comes down to aesthetics. Mac OS is simply more elegant.
-- thinkyhead software and media
you took the words right out of my mouth and saved me a ton of typing ;)
i feel EXACTLY the same and too have been evangelizing for the Mac for the past 10 years. I, too, am at my wits end with Apple.
I finally convinced my wife that I needed a laptop for my freelance work and was just about to plop $3000+ on a Titanium Powerbook. well that $3000 is staying in my bank account for now - no way is Apple gonna see it.
Maybe the PC users are right when they say Mac users are deluded fools. Steve Jobs certainly makes me feel like one.
Lets all go tell apple how we feel about their bait and switch technique.
here is the form to do it.
I plan to leave them another "polite" note regarding their scam every now and then, just to make sure they know.
Use the form below to send us your comments. We read all feedback carefully, but please note that we cannot respond to the comments you submit.
You can't take the sky from me...
You just wrote the best thing I've read all day.
If anyone is a little upset about the .mac pricing structure, a couple petitions have been set up to protest it.
My petition, which I haven't really publicized much and therefore doesn't have that many signatures, is at:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/nodotmac/petition.ht ml
There is another one which another guy set up which has significantly more signatures, and it is at:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/iTol/petition.html
Hopefully we can keep iTools free....
Apple said "It will be free for life." Apple was mistaken: this stuff costs money. Most people probably don't need dot-mac. Fine, don't buy it. Get a free email address someplace else.
Personally, I use several Macs in several locations, so I like the idea of central dot-net-like services. I work for a Mac software development house, so I need to keep up with Apple's various offerings and learn to incorporate them in our software. This is worth $0.33 a day to me.
(Of course this year I basically got dot-mac for free and a discounted copy of Virex. Good for me, because I've never bothered to get virus protection before.)
I'm sure Apple could have tied ads to their services and offered them for free, but that's another level of management they'd have to deal with - and Apple doesn't like to pollute their desktop and web site with ads. Besides, ads have been universally proven to be a poor revenue source on the net.
It bothers me a lot more that so many people are complaining about this. This is the reality of the internet. Everything costs money, and more and more sites are moving to a pay model. Wake up: All such web services are luxury items. Nobody really needs them. It's amazing how many people are willing to sacrifice their dignity (assuming they had it in the first place) to save a few dollars for things they don't need, just because they *want* it for free. Sad.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Oops. Typing too fast. Anyways, you get the idea...
Apple has never stated that they would continue iTools forever and they are under no obligation to continue to offer iTools forever.
.Mac. This new service will offer some of the same features as well as new features. This new service will cost money.
iTools has now been discontinued. A new service will take its place called
Its really that simple. If a computer comes with Prodigy for life and Prodigy stops providing the service, that's that. Maybe it sucks, maybe its a good thing. Either way, its discontinued and that's it.
http://www.petitiononline.com/iTol/petition.html
Almost 18,000 signatures so far. This has the potential to become a massive P.R. disaster for Apple.
Sign it today! http://www.petitiononline.com/freefwd/
The .mac addresses were good PR for Apple. They should have retained free email forwarding at the very least. After all, the initial iTools marketing copy said the @mac address was "yours to keep."
Then they wouldn't have gone back on their word and not pissed a lot of people off--each one a potential paying subscriber who will never be.
actually looks like it would cost you this: .mac will be put back into the .mac division. they plan to keep expanding the features available. i do not know what i would need that they will come up with, but Apple has a tendency of suprising me. .mac would cost the family of 4 $79. yes, it's an unexpected expense but i think it's worth trying it. if the money seems that wasted to you, there is free email and webhosting out there (though less exist all the time). if youw ant the other features... you might find some of them for free too. not sure. i personally mostly just use itools for email, but i'm going to take the plunge and invest the $49. i've blown $50 on much dumber things before, so i don't have that much to lose.
1 full account ($49 this year, $99 next)
then $10/year for each additional email address you want on the account.
i do not know if that means you get only idisk, homepage and whatnot. it almost seems like the deal you get with some ISPs..... kinds strange considering you can get cheapo dialup for about the same price.
anyway there has been plenty of arguments on here pro and con, and while i am saddened they are taking the free email away, i know it was much abused by people that have 7 or 8 accounts (yes, i only have 1). if you are someone who does or would buy virus software, it's included. it does add features to the currently existing itools (people already are saying good things about the backup features). the story has also been that most of the money raised on
a little offtopic, but not too much.... i was at Macworld thursday and after seeing the demo of and playing with 10.2 i can not wait to get it. the $129 is not even an issue to me right now, i just want it asap (and yes, i bought 10.0 and i don't have a lot of extra money in my world). i am as excited about 10.2 as i was to initially jump to OS X March of last year.
anyway, the first year of