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.Mac adds VersionTracker and iBlog to the benefits
MacMerc.com writes "Today, .Mac users will see that a free VersionTracker Plus subscription, a discount of half off VersionTracker Pro subscription and software, free iBlog Blogging Software, and a discount on SmartDisk FireWire Drives have been added to their Member Benefits."
I, like virtually every Mac user, was shocked and disappointed to hear that iTools was making the move to .Mac and coming with a nice hefty fee. I figured I'd use it for a year, and in that time start using my alternate email account for everything.
After having used .Mac for this long, I have to say I don't know that I could do without it. Having 100mb of webspace is a nice feature- it's a great fileserver for images and text and the like, although the lack of server-side support for things like PHP makes it somewhat less useful for actual site hosting. iSync is wonderful, and saved me just today when I had to format my System partition due to some strange and unfixable corruption. The email is great as well, giving you plenty of space and access to your email from any computer running a modern OS via webmail. That alone may be worth the $100 a year; however, that fails to account for many other oft-overlooked features of .Mac.
The freebies, while put down frequently by .Mac subscribers and non-subscribers alike, are a nice way of showing that Apple cares- think of them as gifts. You don't expect them, you don't buy .Mac for them, but they come to you anyway, and if even one is useful a single time, you've gained something extra from them. The VT+ subscription is very cool; any Mac user should know that VT is an extremely useful tool even without +/Pro access. Also, the $20 off coupon for resubscribing, while not as nice as the $50 off for iTools members the first year, is certainly nice. If you want The Sims or Everquest for some odd reason, you can get those instead.
.Mac is great, and these new offers make me even more glad I shelled out the $8.33 a month for it.
It looks as if Apple is trying its hardest to sell some .Mac memberships. My guess is that these types of benefits will extend themselves to future Apple software releases and OS updates. I wonder if Apple will eventually start charging non-.Mac users for future software releases along the lines of iPhoto and iCal. I am not a .Mac member but am considering purchasing a membership.
If that's the case, I have no beef with it--I was under the impression that to continue to be able to backup to CDR or DVD-R, one had to continue the .mac subscription to keep that ability from "expiring."
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.