Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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...
"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.
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
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
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.
Then how do you access the Internet to get to your Mac.com e-mail account and your iDisk? Broadband? It's very likely you're already paying your ISP for these services already. Maybe not the online file storage, but almost everyone offers web space, e-mail accounts, virus scanning on the e-mail accounts, etc. I knew Apple users would be quick to dismiss this as no big deal. Apple could raise the prices on all their computers by $2000 and they'd shrug it off and say you get what you pay for. heh.
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.
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.
...all of which you get in the UK for free, on a free dialup account.
It seems that what Apple wants to concentrate on is a feeling of class and exclusivity - which it certainly will get if they provide expensive services like that. Apple's market is pretty much a captive one - many Mac users simply love their Mac for the way it works; in the graphics industry, Macs are still used, because they're the best at what they do. Those iTools users will probably cough up, because there's no alternative, unified service.
I'm not sure of the commercial sense of the fact that 1GB of additional storage costs $350 a year to add - a 20GB external USB drive is $150 on Amazon.
In any case, it's always been the way: Macs are more expensive than PCs, but they do things in a much nicer way. Similarly, iTools/.Mac/whatever does what so many other services do, and sure it's more expensive, but it does it a little more nicely.
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
I'm criticized for being on the hopeful side sometimes, and this would otherwise be the same case, but I've grown wiser and hold Apple to lower expectation.
....silly, yes, but for the last couple of years, some mac zealots have pondered what would happen this MacWorld - 5 years after the infamous SOS deal with M$ - 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....
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.
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
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.
There is a big difference in having a 650 MB CDR sitting in your desk and 100 MB of storage space sitting up on an Apple server.
If you had a fire? Theft? Water damage? All your computers (and disks) go with it. If Apple is hosting your back up, you can get it back.
It is the first thing an IT department with a backup strategy gets to. OFF SITE BACKUP.
Comparing a 100MB to lets say, getting a rackspace server ($250 a month) I say it is not a bad deal. They should, of course, keep the old email and storage. Booting people after 90 days is going to hurt.
BZ
That should be .GNULIN
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.
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
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.
Great.... one of the selling points of Jaguar is that silly iChat program, which will now only be availabe to the lunkheads who buy into this .Mac crap.
"Instant Messaging with iChat Apple's iChat integrates seamlessly with AOL Instant Messager. Your Mac.com Email address is your iChat (and AIM) screen name. With iChat, you'll enjoy a terrific graphic interface that includes photos, dialog balloons, and more."
--
Insert Witty Sig Here
I thought I paid for my mac.com email account when I bought the computer. Those of us who use Macs paid a premium, and I thought that the iTools services were a perk.
Oh well, I have an ISP and a backup system. No need to use iTools anymore.
Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
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
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!
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.
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.
You could be right - take a look at the '.Mac - FAQ' title graphic. Notice the poor font quality - especially the 'M' - this looks like someone has taken the Garamond font and condensed it ~80% to get something similar to Apple Garamond.
Also take a look at the page source: it's very sparse; no comments etc. Now take look at the HTML source of an Apple Press Release notice all the comments, META tags, DOCTYPE et al. I guess we won't know for sure until Jobs speaks but this announcement should be taken with caution for now.
--
Reverse outsourcing: it's the future
well done for bringing up Hotmail - I remember back in '96 or '97 thinking how great it was - free and easy as it was. Now? You can pay for an upgrade to make it vaguely useful in terms of capacity, but the spamming is so extreme that if I look at my Homail inbox now I see 608 unread messages, 604 of which are spam and 4 are messages from hotmail telling me my account is full. Even better, my Junk folder shows ANOTHER 571 instances of spam. By contrast, apart from ONE very regular (twice a week) Korean spammer, my iTools has been COMPLETELY spam free for nearly 2 years. That's a service worth paying for, even if it isn't worth $100.
That was classic intercourse!
There is a big difference in having a 650 MB CDR sitting in your desk and 100 MB of storage space sitting up on an Apple server.
You are correct. The CDR is larger and more reliable.
If you had a fire? Theft? Water damage? All your computers (and disks) go with it. If Apple is hosting your back up, you can get it back.
This is silly. For a couple bucks a year I can cram a lot of offsite CDR backups in my safety deposit box. Failing that I can swap offsite storage with my buddy.
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
they are called Local ISPs, and they usually run between 9.00 and 19.00 a month
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
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.
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
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".
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?
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
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
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?"
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.
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 >:(
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.
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.
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?
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
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?
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.
Just check out this .Mac webpage explaning membership and benefits.
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.
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.
After the free-for-life Performa support fiasco, the odds that Apple would ever again make such a claim are absolutely nil.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
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
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.
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.
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.
Not true; iChat works with existing AIM accounts as well as .mac accounts.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
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.
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."
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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."
Not to flame, but I've never understood the appeal of shell accounts if you already have your own Darwin shell prompt.
hah.. like the old saying goes.. if you have to ask, you wouldn't understand..
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
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
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
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...
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
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