.Mac Storage Now 250MB

Lycestra writes "Apple today announced .Mac users now have 'More room for everything you do online' with an increase from 100MB iDisk and 15MB Mail to 250MB total. The space is shared between iDisk and Mail, but users of .Mac have control over how it is shared. A long overdue change, in my opinion. It's still not 1GB, and Apple openly states that for those who want it, 1GB would cost another $50 a year. I guess the Apple cup-of-tea just got a little bigger, but it still feels like it's at room temperature."

Comments

Bandwith or storage?

[zygote]

I wonder if their hesitation to go to a gig is less due to storage space available and more the traffic that would be generated? Bandwith consumption is likely of little concern to Google, shoot they probably get worried when it drops.

Re:Bandwith or storage?

[dhovis]

Apple operates the biggest movie trailer website on the internet and the most popular legal music download service. I don't think that Apple is hurting for bandwidth.

The issue here is that the .Mac email is different from GMail. For one, it is IMAP based (Webmail is available too). Plus, mac.com emails are completely ad free, even the webmail site. At 15MB, it was a questionable value, but 250MB is a nice bump.

.Mac also goes beyond just email too. iSync will use the .Mac service to sync your address book and calendar data between multiple Macs. It also syncs Safari's bookmarks. Really, how many times have you said: "Oh damn, I bookmarked that website on my Laptop". You can also access your address book from the .Mac webmail, so you don't have to keep multiple address books in sync.

Finally, the iDisk feature is pretty nice too, especially after the upgrade to Panther. In Panther, your iDisk is cached on all of your local computers and synchronized automatically with Apple's servers. So if you create a file on your laptop that you will need to look at later on your home desktop, just save it to your iDisk and it will automagically be synced to .Mac and then to your desktop. Plus, there is a "Sites" folder in the iDisk that also serves as webserver space. Just save foo.html to iDisk/sites and it will sync to Apple's server and then be available at http://homepage.mac.com/yourusername/foo.html

.Mac and GMail are not directly comparable services, and you get more utility out of Apple's 250MB than Googles 1GB. (GMail hacks notwithstanding).

Re:Bandwith or storage?

[Anonymous Coward]

And on top of all that, the more bandwidth you use, the cheaper it gets. I have no clue how much they are using now, but I will bet they are getting rock bottom pricing for volume.

Re:Bandwith or storage?

[rainer3]

Don't forget about the iPhoto integration for creating photo albums. This is an incredibly easy to use feature that makes owning a Mac very attractive. I'm a web designer and could create just as nice an online photo album myself, but why bother when Apple makes it this easy?

Re:Bandwith or storage?

[FredFnord]

Apple operates the biggest movie trailer website on the internet and the most popular legal music download service. I don't think that Apple is hurting for bandwidth.

Actually, you'll find that Akamai hosts both the biggest movie trailer web site on the internet AND the most popular legal music download service.

Whereas Apple actually hosts their own .Mac service. It's a lot more complex than a simple download service.

So no, there is really no crossover at all. And ability to do one does not imply in any way the ability to do the other.

-fred

Re:Bandwith or storage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yahoo Domains gives you 2 Gigs for the same price as Apple's 250MB. With Yahoo you also get your own domain name -- not to mention a slew of other features. I wonder why Apple is so far behind? I would love it if .Mac offered something like .Domain.

Re:Bandwith or storage?

[ytsejam-ppc]

I don't really care about the mail account, I have plenty of those, but the extremely simple publishing of photo albums and slide shows and movies makes the .Mac worth it for me. My time is worth so much more than the $100 that .Mac costs. I connect the camera to the mac, pick the good photos and publish them to a new online photo album in something like 8 clicks. It's either lazy or smart.

What do you expect?

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

It's still not 1GB, and Apple openly states that for those who want it, 1GB would cost another $50 a year.
What did you expect? <tongue-in-cheek>Apple hardware is more expensive</tongue-in-cheek>

spymac

[therubberduckie]

http://www.spymac.com/ already has this... for free

Re:spymac

[gdbjr]

Too bad spymac has a slow interface and last time I used it, it was down more them it was up. I paid the extra $$$ to get the 3GB version which includes IMAP. When I tried to use IMAP the amateurs at Spymac create a Inbox with the Sent, Drafts and Spam folder in the Inbox. How stupid is that?

Re:spymac

[rsax]

When I tried to use IMAP the amateurs at Spymac create a Inbox with the Sent, Drafts and Spam folder in the Inbox. How stupid is that?

They might be using Cyrus IMAPD as their IMAP server. It uses that notation for personal folders for each user like INBOX.Sent INBOX.Trash and so on. Search through their mailing lists - it has been discussed there.

Re:spymac

[Anonymous Coward]

My problem is with the domain name. Spymac is not something that I'd want to use.

Remarkable sense of entitlement, eh?

[FFFish]

Maybe it's just me, but I hardly ever look a gift horse in the mouth.

Re:Remarkable sense of entitlement, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

dunno about calling it a gift... you are paying for something, since it's a service, it should keep up to maintain its value for the buck. .Mac ain't free afterall.

Re:Remarkable sense of entitlement, eh?

[javaxman]

I hardly ever look a gift horse in the mouth.

You clearly don't own an elderly equine. Once they can't chew hay anymore, your options ( short of having them put down ) are damn expensive- feed costing $8-16 a bag, at least 6-8 bags a month. It can add up pretty fast, especially for something you can't really ride much if at all.

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, *if* you know someone who'll pay you for horse meat. Otherwise, you might want to consider taking a look. In my state, it's not even legal to sell your horse for rendering. From what I've learned recently, it'll cost $140 just to have my old horse hauled away...

yea yea, I know, totally off-topic, it's just an expression, etc. It's a stupid, incorrect, outdated expression, and my post isn't terribly off-topic given that context. I'm bored, leave me alone ;-)

Re:Remarkable sense of entitlement, eh?

[mrmez]

Back in the days when horses were actually useful rather than merely a pleasant distraction and when their food was cheap and often grown by the folk feeding them, I suspect that looking a gift horse in the mouth was not done. After all, any horse old enough to be a liability back then was probably old enough that a look in the mouth was unnecessary - and they could always kill it and feed it to their other carnivorous animals (or perhaps even to their family).

Re:Remarkable sense of entitlement, eh?

[javaxman]

actually, a horse can look quite healthy at a pretty advanced age, especially if you're feeding high-quality feed, which even back in the day would be difficult to always aquire and prepare ( basiclaly, senior horse feed is chopped up really fine, that takes work ). You grow it yourself != cheap, you're talking labor costs.

The Gmail comparison is unfair...

[hai.uchida]

I think the strength of having .Mac isn't the e-mail address... It's the iDisk, which is an extremely useful tool for exchanging large files and projects with other Mac owners (I use it quite often to exchange 30mb+ Photoshop files with companies I work for.) Gmail of course has a cap on attachment sizes, and anyway it's never a good idea to send files that size via e-mail even when it works (or attachments in general at this point.)

Re:The Gmail comparison is unfair...

[nine-times]

True... Also, Gmail doesn't include pop3/imap access, free software, a homepage, a backup program, etc. The most comparable service is Spymac, which (even if you don't like the community,) is a pretty impressive service.

I'm not sure why other companies, especially google, haven't gotten into this sort of package deal. Something that lets you work online a little better- some sort of portal/hosting service aimed at individuals rather than businesses.

It'd be nice if they offered some basic PHP/MySQL functionality. I mean, if you're just hosting a blog or something, a full domain hosting might be overkill, and how much does it cost, really, to make this functionality available?

Another feature that might be nice is if you Apple provided the option to have your e-mail attachments automatically stripped off and sent to your iDisk. Then you leave a link to the e-mail to the attachment. Specifics would need to be worked out, but it should work.

Re:The Gmail comparison is unfair...

[MyDixieWrecked]

The strength of .Mac is more than just iDisk and the IMAP mail (which I was actually just looking into slashmail because of their unlimited mailbox size). .Mac also has the iSync-link for syncing your bookmarks (which isn't so hot, since I barely use them nowadays), addressbook (w00t!!!), and iCal (useful when I remember to use it... I need a new palm).

Although, I do agree that for 100$ a year, you SHOULD get 1gb, at least... I mean, there are a lot of other, cheaper alternatives (slashmail) that are better suited for your everyday geek. In fact, I think that for 100$ a year, you should get 250mb iDisk and 1gb email, and for the extra 50$, you should get a 1gb iDisk and 2gb email.

Re:The Gmail comparison is unfair...

[Graymalkin]

Tiger's server version is going to include Blojsom which is a Blosxom workalike written in Java. It is entirely possible at some point .Mac will include a blog service based on Blojsom. I think it would be a good addition to the .Mac package because to me it seems like a natural extension of simply having a website. It'd be cool to be able to just write an entry in TextEdit, save it to your iDisk, and voilà you've got a new post to your blog.

Re:The Gmail comparison is unfair...

[nine-times]

I totally agree that Apple should be stepping up their service to include a simple blogging tool of some kind.

However, I think there's another aspect to this. Apple has positioned .Mac in such a way that, by owning a mac, it's like Apple's assuming you have an account. iDisk is integrated into the OS, and there's a .Mac button in "System Preferences". It's a little like how MS treats you like it's just assumed you'll be using their IM and Passport.

Now, I don't have too much of a problem with that. I think it'd be really good if they opened up an iDisk preference that let you use another service's WebDAV or FTP site as your iDisk, and still have it as transparent, or else have it not so integrated with the OS.

However, my real issue is that Apple's treating it as though it's a sort of universal service- like everyone's supposed to use it for e-mail and web-hosting and offline storage. Now, that's fine by me, but if they're doing this, they should really be improving the service constantly to be everything to everyone. Domain hosting, PHP/MySQL, larger storage space, whatever. Even if it costs extra to get a ".Mac Extreme" (Apple seems to like things being 'Extreme'), it should be available.

In short, if they aren't going to make keep their e-mail/web hosting services competitive, and more than competitive- leading-edge innovative, then they should make sure their client-end tools work well with other, professional, higher-end services.

Comparisions to Gmail

[CrackedButter]

Which I am sure will be made, but one has to stop and think for a moment before thinking without the geek cap on and saying "you can get a gig from google or pay for a solution at a lower price". That line reminds me of the comparisions between desktop processor speeds and the megapixels in cameras, just its now storage space numbers people are pissing further and faster with.
Gmail for example, is a GB for email only while .mac isn't, its for mail, website creation, backup space and so forth wrapped into a half decent web gui and a slick interface when working offline with the various programs such as iDisk or iPhoto. I'd say it was worth it simply for the iPhoto integration, 3 clicks and your pictures are online.
I paid for .mac again last year knowing there were alternatives out there that offered a cheaper price, again my point is that with everything Apple, quality is involved. Its all the integration that makes me cough up the dough.
But I will admit, i'm being a bit ignorant towards myself, I know about hosting and such and such but I don't have the time to chase every offer on offer. I'm happy to give Apple my money knowing what they offer.
Still screaming about the 1 GB space you get from google? I got that gmail account as well so don't fret, but that 1 GB email account from what i have heard is compressed anyway. Assuming this is true, its works because you are dealing with text and the odd jpeg, its easier to compress as opposed to Apple going down that route and compressing all of your work and so forth just for the sake of a shitload of megabytes which not everybody would use.
To make matters even better, Apple lets you select how you would use the space, i have it set up for 235MB's for storage and 15mb for email.

Re:Comparisions to Gmail

[mcwop]

I think you are right and might add that with .mac you can run a site, which could be more bandwidth intensive than say a Google email account. Bandwidth does cost money, and most hosting packages have limits on it.

Now I can put up larger sized videos on my site.

Re:Comparisions to Gmail

[Anonymous Coward]

Gmail for example, is a GB for email only while .mac isn't, its for mail, website creation, backup space and so forth

So, it's even more important to have a lot of space available.

Re:Comparisions to Gmail

[CrackedButter]

depends on what you do with the megabytes you have but you bring up a good point.

Bad thing?

[adl99]

I'm not so sure the low-storage is a bad thing. Following a couple of recent hard disk KOs, I was forced to distill my essential digital life down to my 128MB flash drive, in order to have a backup. It made me seriously think about which information I both could and REALLY COULDN'T afford to lose - and I think the .Mac offers that piece of mind. Besides, an external hard disk works out to peanuts now and that's a lot quicker for regular backups. .Mac is more about essential info portability. I reckon it's fine.

Re:Bad thing?

[nine-times]

I agree. I see it all the time with e-mail. If you give people 1GB, they don't retain any sense of how much space they're taking up. When it comes time to clean up, they don't even know where to begin, and worse, when they want to look for something incredibly important, it ends up completely lost in 1 GB of e-mail and 7 GB of archives.

On the other hand, if you're pretty limited, then you keep things tidy and erase stupid messages in the first place. Having a lot of computer storage can be a little like having a big house. It's great to have all that extra space, all the way up until it's time to clean up after yourself, and then the extra space just means more to clean.

Re:Bad thing?

[Yaztromo]

Besides, an external hard disk works out to peanuts now and that's a lot quicker for regular backups.

Quicker -- but is it better?

My iDisk has become my off-site backup system of choice over here (albeit not the only offsite backup I'm using). I have data that I simply cannot afford to lose. .Mac's Backup program puts this data onto my iDisk daily.

I got bit once by not having offsite backup due to environmental damage. Several hard drives died and were unrecoverable, and my backup CDs sitting in the same room likewise were unusuable. I lost a lot of unrecoverable data that day, and I won't risk that again.

I've become a huge fan of my iDisk. I recently started doing some contract work for a company that just recently starting moving from Windows to Mac OS X, and put up the results of my work as a disk image on my public (but password protected) iDisk. Sent them they password, and they simply selected from the Finder "iDisk -> Other Users Public Folder", and voila -- they had direct access to mount the disk image.

My iDisk has been getting quite full as of recent, so I was happy to see this announcement. I don't store any e-mail on .Mac, so I put the Mail storage at its minimum (15MB), and cranked my iDisk up to 235MB. Sweet :).

Yaz.

Re:Bad thing?

[Rauser]

My issue with .Mac Backup is that the Backup app itself seems to be pretty fragile. I've had a lot of trouble in the past with interrupted backups because the program choked on some obscure Safari preference file and aborted the rest of the backup session. To me, Backup should keep on truckin' and finish its work rather than just quitting in the middle of the job--log problems, not quit!

Because of this behavior, I've had to modify the backup item selection and keep a pretty close eye on things since the files that cause problems seem to pop up randomly. Still, I've continued to use Backup since the convience factor is pretty high. It's a nice supplement to Retrospect.

Re:Bad thing?

[Yaztromo]

I have to say the only problems I've ever had with Backup have been if I've lost my connection, usually because I've forgotton the backup has been running and closed the lid to my PowerBook, or during my weekly backup to one of my Linux boxes if I've forgotten to setup the SMB share.

Both of those are my fault. Otherwise, Backup has always just worked for me (at least for backing up data -- I haven't had to restore anything yet). I have some 40MB or so of data backed up.

Mind you, I don't use Safari -- I'm using Firefox. I do have Backup setup to backup my Firefox settings directory (with the exception of the cache files, obviously). Otherwise, in 5 months of usage, I haven't run into a single problem that I didn't cause.

Yaz.

Re:Bad thing?

[adl99]

I think you misunderstood me - What you are using .Mac for is exactly what I'm saying it's good for - you've put your esential backup into 100MB up until now. Presumably you have a reasonably recent HD (~20GB) and a mirror of that is what I'm advocating for the hard disk.

I've never understood...

[cjpez]

... the fascination with having 1gb of storage somewhere. Seriously, what are you storing there? Even if you're uploading pictures and movie clips, that's a *lot* of pictures and movie clips. Email itself is small as hell, gmail's 1gb limit is just ridiculous. I'm a complete packrat when it comes to email, I've been keeping basically everything since '95 and there's no way I need a whole gig for it.

"I guess the Apple cup-of-tea just got a little bigger, but it still feels like it's at room temperature." Bah, I don't know, that's just such a ridiculous statement. What on earth do you need to store over there that'll take up more than 250GB? There's these things called PCs that you're using to access .Mac anyway, and you can get your own hard drives for fifty cents a gig. You don't even have to upload the data to some third party to be able to retreive it later.

Re:I've never understood...

[cjpez]

What on earth do you need to store over there that'll take up more than 250GB?

Er, make that 250 MB . Heh.

Re:I've never understood...

[angle_slam]

250MB is not a lot of movie clips or music. It's about 3-4 albums encoded in VBR. So if you rip on one computer and want to transfer to another, you're limited.

Re:I've never understood...

[cjpez]

But what are you doing using something like .Mac for big file transfers like that? The data has to be uploaded from your one box and downloaded from the other. What's the benefit of having a middleman in there? I guess if you're not comfortable with being able to set up some kind of server-type situation like that, but if you're interested in having a generally large data storage facility, you're better off getting an actual dedicated fileserver somewhere in the end.

But okay, so .mac does include iDisk, it seems, from looking at the homepage, so they do intend for people to at least partially use them as a datastore. This makes .mac rather fundamentally different from the email serviecs offering the ridiculous 1GB storage space though. Your gmail account isn't designed to hold data like that (regardless of whatever someone's done with gmailfs), and you can bet that they'll frown on anyone trying to use it as anything but an actual webmail client. Maybe the other free webmail services offer more, I guess.

I suppose that I'm just of the opinion that if you find something like 250MB too restrictive, you should really be going with something that's directly suited to your task (ie: just transferring the files directly to your box, or purchasing some actual space somewhere) rather than complaining that you're not getting a 1gb limit.

Re:I've never understood...

[hai.uchida]

What on earth do you need to store over there that'll take up more than 250mb?

iDisk isn't just for backups. It's also an extremely convenient way to exchange media files. I use it all the time to swap Photoshop resources and find it much more convenient than using FTP (since I don't use .Mac e-mail, I have no problem creating a temporary password to let a client or collaborator have access to my iDisk.)

Considering what a staple Final Cut Pro is to Apple, I could see where the ability to exchange raw video files (or DVD Studio Pro or Motion projects, which also tend to be huge) via a 1gig+ iDisk would come in handy... Uploading and downloading would of course be time consuming, but it would still be faster, cheaper and less hassle than using FedEx.

Re:I've never understood...

[cjpez]

I see what you're talking about to be something altogether more specialized though. If you want to be able to use some kind of datastore solution for raw video files (where you'd need a hell of a lot *more* than just 1GB), that's a specialty application. That's an iDisk which belongs in a different class of service and belongs in a different pricing scheme. What .mac seems to be right now is a general purpose utility for people to have email, a homepage, an address book, and some storage to keep some documents perhaps, or the occasional album in mp3 that you want to transfer to somewhere else.

Primarily what I'm objecting to is the implication in the main article that because Apple isn't providing 1GB of space for what I see as a generalized, low-level service, they're somehow slacking off and offering a sub-par service. If someone *wants* to be using some huge amount of online service, then they should be buying a service which makes sense for their purposes, not complaining that an average-consumer-grade email/homepage/storage service doesn't have enough room to keep their entire Grateful Dead concert bootleg collection.

Hmmm... 1gb of off site backup

[GreenKiwi]

Hmmm.

$150 a year for 1gb of off site backup. That doesn't sound like that bad an idea. Does Apple say that they will back things up and guarantee that your data will be there? If so, this isn't that bad a deal at all.

kiwi

Re:Hmmm... 1gb of off site backup

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make sure you encrypt any sensitive data you might want to backup there. Easy to do with an encrypted disk image.

You can all thank me...

[Anonymous Coward]

My account is up for renewel in a couple weeks, so I've been getting that "Renew Today" button when I login lately. I was just about to do it over the weekend when I thought, Nah, I'll hold out and see if they offer me more to keep my business. Lo and behold, they crumbled under the pressure!

If I weren't paranoid about spam and such, I'd list my .Mac account name so you could all thank me with a referral bonus. But I guess good cheer will have to suffice!

Re:You can all thank me...

[DebianDog]

Actually you can create unlimited e-mail aliases now and "preserve" your real email address. Another new feature.

Not too shabby

[Van Halen]

Email-only accounts were also bumped to 50 MB each, but it appears that this amount is fixed. While it's nice that you can partition the main account between iDisk and email, it would be even better if you could partition space among all accounts.

I have the main .Mac account and my wife has an email-only account attached to it. She uses hers as her primary email address, but I only use mine as a backup for the rare time when I can't get to my main email. I'd rather have the option to give her more space since she'd be more likely to need it.

No biggie, though - I imagine we won't be filling up either anytime soon!

Being sure what action you are inciting

[amichalo]

Apple is taking the appropriate steps to ensure the product is used for what it has been marketed (advertised as, priced at) to be. Apple wants people to use the iDisk as an extention of the iApps.

If the iDisk is used to sync contacts, e-mail, iCal items, Safari favorites, etc. even the original 100MB is plenty o'space. I think this a two pronged decision to (1) curb detractors with the Gmail comparison (totally Apples V. Oranges to me) and (2) prepare the world for iProfiles or whatever Apple will call the ability to log into any Net connected Mac running Tiger and get YOUR desktop, without the security risk that sensative info is stored locally.

This would be killer for schools, libraries, offices, traveling professionals, etc.

Re:Being sure what action you are inciting

[PsychoSpunk]

even the original 100MB is plenty o'space. I think this a two pronged decision to (1) curb detractors with the Gmail comparison (totally Apples V. Oranges to me)

But the 100MB only applies to the iDisk. The previous email limit was 15MB for the entire mailbox! Trust me, that's an easy limit to hit, and hit, and hit.

This is all well and good that they upgraded, but I took my money elsewhere this year (my bank) because I feel that Apple did not treat its subscribers fairly by not informing us what to expect as far as upgrades go. A lot of people say that it's worth gambling on features in Tiger, but I say hooey to that. I'm paying for services, and if their services fail to meet my needs, I'll go elsewhere.

Now the services meet my needs, but I just spent the last 2 weeks switching my online identity, only to have the upgrade occur today. If they are okay with announcing products such as Tiger, or the iMac G5, or the Dual G5 PowerMac and making the consumer wait, why can't they respect a currently paying customer that's supposed to be a guaranteed money source by letting me know that my service needs will be fulfilled. That would have been fair to the initial subscribers (since the iTools -> .Mac switch occurred), and it wouldn't have lost any money. It'd be kind of a 2nd year anniversary party, and Apple's got gifts for everybody!

Re:Being sure what action you are inciting

[amichalo]

I see your point and understand why you would be miffed that you were caught in the unescapable product cycle cyclone that anyone buying a product from a stereo to a cell phone to, well, .Mac gets swooped up in. There is no avoiding it. You did the right thing, you voted with your wallet because the current offering wasn't meeting your need.

As for me, I voted too and did not renew my .Mac account that expired September 1st. Because of the 30 day 'we hold your data' policy, I am reconsidering the $8.66 / mo. investment before Oct 1 so all my data stays intact.

I think .Mac is a wonderful service still growing into its own. It seems very chicken and egg though. Apple doesn't want to really push R&D into building out the service until more peopel subscribe, but people won't subscribe without all those cool little services.

bigger tea???

[parrillada]

I guess the Apple cup-of-tea just got a little bigger, but it still feels like it's at room temperature.

Umm.. don't you mean the cup-of-tea just got a little hotter? Either that or it just got a little bit bigger, but it still feels like it's at medium size.

I would prefer to forgoe the entire apple-to-tea conversion paradigm, and instead say that the Apple just got a little bit bigger, but the tea, which has nothing to do with an apple and is unincorporated, could be said to be either hot or cold, but it doesn't really matter anyways, because tea doesn't really go with apples.

Re:bigger tea???

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Umm.. don't you mean the cup-of-tea just got a little hotter?

All I know is, what this country needs is taller pie.

Re:bigger tea???

[Sunnan]

Umm.. don't you mean the cup-of-tea just got a little hotter? Either that or it just got a little bit bigger, but it still feels like it's at medium size.

No - it's gotten bigger, but not hotter - it's changed in one way, but in other ways it's the same old, same old.

renewal

[Sophrosyne]

I am a little unsure if I want to re-subscribe to .mac...
I do have a gmail account, but It doesn't offer IMAP or POP3 support. I really don't know of any free web-storage companies but it does seem that spymac does offers a better online web-hosting package... Also the .mac only software is one incentive to stick with .mac (you never know what they may release in the future).
I guess like most people I will end up re-subscribing to .mac just so I don't have to go through the trauma of changing habits (or e-mail addresses).

Email aliases...

[Mattintosh]

I just got my "Enhancements to your .Mac account" email, and it has something interesting near the bottom.

And you can now use aliases as email addresses either for fun or as protection when you need to provide an email address but aren't entirely comfortable with the requester. If your concerns turn out to be justified, you can then simply remove the alias and create a new one the next time you face a similar situation.

It also says "fr33 h3rb4l v14gr4!!1!two!", but I don't think they meant it. Unless they want me to test the service... ;D

Does anyone have subscriber numbers for .Mac?

[finnatic]

Just wondering, does anyone have subscriber numbers for .Mac?

Re:Does anyone have subscriber numbers for .Mac?

[ravenspear]

Not sure about specifics now but I remember Apple saying it was a few hundred thousand a while ago.

Re:Does anyone have subscriber numbers for .Mac?

[Chiron Taltos]

The last time Apple issued a press release about .Mac subscriber numbers was in October of 2002 and they had over 180,000 subscribers.

I scanned through all the 2003 and 2004 PRs, and there's no further mention of .Mac subscriber numbers.

I did find a more recent (June 01, 2004) mention of a "boast" of 250,000 subscibers, but I couldn't determine if they are talking about total subscribers or just UK subscribers.

I figure there are two reasons for the lack of an official Apple PR since October 2002. One, the numbers haven't increased dramatically since then, so there's little to report. Two, iLife was announced shortly after the October 2002 PR, then followed by the iTMS announcement in early 2003. Quite a number of Apple's PRs have been about those two items, which are, admittedly, better PR eye-candy.

Re:Does anyone have subscriber numbers for .Mac?

[DebianDog]

I thought Steve said over a million during his keynote at WWDC-04

iDisk to web

[Twirlip of the Mists]

The most convenient part of .Mac for me is the ability to drop a file onto my iDisk on one of my Macs and then be able to view or download it on any Internet-connected computer via an http: URL. Very handy, very easy, very convenient.

Enough with storage, we need security features

[OlivierB]

I have been using Yahoo's 50 MB email service. It recently became 2gb. Which is I think more than enough, especially since I use pop3 and download everything to my machine.

I don't really care that they increase it anymore.

However I WISH they had full https access. Currently only the sign-on is optionnaly SSLed, however after authentification you are back to plain http. This means that in my company, the proxy administrators probably have a clear view of what I am sending and receiving.

Does anybody know if .Mac offers full SSL access to their services? ie the address book, calendar, mail and Idisk? If it does I am signing up right now.

Now inly if Yahoo would come out with mac clients for the address, calendar and even briefcase sync (they did have at one point a win98 client to mount the briefcase however they never fully developed it as I assume this was a bandwith hog...)

Re:Enough with storage, we need security features

[gellenburg]

Everything is SSL, including WebDAV (for your iDisk & iSync).

Re:Enough with storage, we need security features

[biftek]

Everything is SSL, including WebDAV (for your iDisk & iSync).

As far as I can tell, the actual WebDAV isn't SSL. The authentication seems to be, but not the actual remove webdav mount (the webdavfs package at http://opensource.apple.com/ seems to confirm this). Could be wrong, but I couldn't see any evidence of it.

Re:Enough with storage, we need security features

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if it were SSL, you ought to be using an encrypted disk image anyway if you're storing sensitive data on your iDisk. Kind of silly to encrypt the data in transit when any underpaid and disgruntled .Mac tech can take a look at your personal files once they're on the iDisk.

Here is how you do iDisk allocation

[DebianDog]

This is how you alter your iDisk allocation

--
Daniel C. Slagle
Keeper of the "Unofficial" iMovie FAQ

$10 extra accounts

[mbbac]

The $10 extra accounts were upped from 10 MB of mail space to 50 MB mail space. Unfortunately, the $10 users cannot partition this 50 MB between mail and iDisk. If they could, I would renew my account so that both my wife and myself would be able to enjoy iSync and the Web based Address Book and Bookmarks applications.

Re:$10 extra accounts

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry, some jackass already beat ya too it (#10388809)

What Apple needs to do...

[killbill!]

... is to add an iTMS backup storage feature to the iDisk.

Right now if you happen to lose your hard disk (and didn't make a CD/DVD backup earlier), you'll lose your iTMS-purchased songs.
Which sucks, since you have to buy them again.

If Apple were to offer an iTunes backup feature, it'd definitely be a killer feature. This would be one of the last things that still make me reluctant to ditch CDs for good.

Besides, they'd save on storage and bandwidth, as they would only need to keep on the iDisk the key used to generate the end user's file from the original file. Whenever the user wants to retrieve their files, the .Mac server would recreate it on the fly from the iTMS servers.

They could advertise "back up 20GB of iTMS songs" while it'd actually eat up only a couple MB.

By the way, if you're living in Germany or Austria, make sure you check out GMX.net, a free e-mail service that is offering 1GB (combined) for free for e-mail and file storage, or 5GB for 3 EUR/month, 10GB for 5 EUR/month.
They also have a WebDAV client and their features are unmatched worldwide.
(not affiliated in any way, just a happy customer since 1998 ;))

I dunno, I think it's kinda handy

[jht]

I upped my iDisk to 235MB (the max), since I don't even use the mail account. Between the iDisk (which I use heavily), and the sync features, I'm perfectly happy paying my $100 per year for the service.

Granted, I have one referral credit as well (so I'm actually paying $79.95), but between iSync, the disk space, and all the goodies I've been able to download I've gotten very good value from my .Mac account. I thinkk the $100 asking price is the absolute most I'd pay, but it's good for starters at least.

The only thing I'd like to see addressed is easier integration of other data sources into iSync. I know that's something that Tiger is supposed to address, but I'd really like to see iSync support devices other than Palm (discounting for now the somewhat kludgy PocketMac suite of tools), and support some easy way of doing DIY sync modules. Plus I'd like to see Entourage supported in iSync by either Apple or Microsoft. That would add a little more value.

A great deal for me!

[Archeopteryx]

I use two 1 GB .Mac accounts to host a high-bandwidth site and would have paid the original price!

I send out about 60 GB of data a day from my .Mac accounts.

I'm dropping .Mac...

[Bob Davis, Retired]

I for one am NOT going to renew my .Mac subscription. Backup will work perfectly after the first check, so I am good there. The storage space is OK, but I have other computers that are permanently attached to the internet, that I don't need to pay to access. Their attempts at spam filtering are miserable. The iDisk was OK, but not that revolutionary. After getting gmail and libgmail up and running, I have NO reason for .Mac any more.

As far as it being more convenient than FTP, BS! I can access files on my FTP server with a URL as well!

Re:I'm dropping .Mac...

[jaysmall]

I'll go the opposite way here. I went two years since purchasing my PB at work without .Mac, thinking I didn't need it. Then I bought a second Mac to replace a pathetic old Wintel box I had at home, and went without .Mac there for a year. Mind you, I could just FTP to my Web site, as you suggest, but now that I've signed up for .Mac I find the freeware alone to be worth the price. iDisk is convenient, and I use it from Mac and Wintel environments. I really don't use my .Mac Mail account, so I don't care whether spam filters work there or not (they work great on Mail.app for my master accounts, and that's where I prefer to manage e-mail anyway). .Mac is a substantial suite of products. No one feature makes it worth the price. But for some people, selected combinations of the features available get it over that threshold.

Opensource .Mac OpenBSD Server

[Benn Cizauskas]

As previously posted (months ago) You can create your own .mac type server following the example of this user. http://www.drijf.net/dototto/ Doesnt have all the features of .mac but supports a few. Worth a look if you are mainly after the backup features.

What .Mac Needs

[aflat362]

I am a .Mac member. My biggest gripe about the service is this:

You can't update your iCal calendar from the web.

You can update your address book on your mac or on the .Mac site - then next time you run iSync they are both synchronized - this is nice.

iCal can only be updated on your mac and exported or automatically broadcast to the web - where it is limited in its use as a read-only calendar.

Tiered Service... Where is it

[yofan]

I just wish they have an email only service. Even at the current market rate ($19.95/yr.), I can stomach. But $99/yr. for a lot of things I don't use is hard to swallow.

No, can't be SSL

[FredFnord]

Why can't it be SSL? Because the Apple WebDAV client DOESN'T WORK OVER SSL.

Interestingly, this means it's easy to set up Apple's WebDAV server on MacOS X Server such that Apple's WebDAV client can't connect to it, but the Windows WebDAV client(s) can.

Paaaa-THETIC.

-fred

No no no

[Anonymous Coward]

So Apple upgraded their storage..whoope....etc

No troll here but I geninely feel sorry for those conned into signing up for .Mac services. I used to have an account in the old days when it was free.

But these days it is simply impossible to justify. You can buy a great web hosting reseller account with a ton of bandwidth and disk space for about half the price or less of a .Mac account. With all the email storage you want. So what is the point ?

The point is I suppose Apple have deliberately crippled the mounting of FTP discs to be 'read only' and to misrepresent quota data etc. This, I can only guess is to make the iDisc look good but this was a terrible move by Apple. People need choice. Not iDiscs.

With the ability to mount FTP discs on your system with the priviledges of your remote account would be a great feature that Apple could have been proud of. Unfortunately as it is, iDiscs, .Mac email etc has come to represent much of what is flawed about Apple in recent years.

As for 'backing up' to a remote server. You have got to be kidding. Perhaps some data could be backed up with the strongest encryption possible but no one here could seriously trust their data and their privacy to any 3rd party server out of their control...unless you are barking mad..

Re:No no no

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah should also not forget with a good reseller hosting package you get: IMAP, POP3, 3 different types of Webmail, remote backups for your sites (although you would still want a local backup of course), Spam filtering, Spam Assassin, and of course all the goodies you would want to run your sites like CGI, PHP, MySQL, cron jobs, etc, etc etc

Makes .Mac seem like really bad value to me anyway....