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Should Apple make .Mac free?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the web-full-please-leave dept.

Moby Cock writes "The recent display of iLife '06 at Macworld showed that the suite has a very fine integration with .Mac, Apple's subscription-based web portal. In a recent post to his blog on ZDNet, Dan Farber argues that a .Mac subscription ought to be included with the purchase of an Apple computer. There is no doubt that web portals are huge revenue engines, could Apple be missing an opportunity here?"

5 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. It was free by FuzzzyLogik · · Score: 4, Informative

    Uhm... I don't think this is even a relevent topic. It used to be free. Then it started costing them too much money so they started charging for it. I'm sure slashdot covered it. Oh... yes they did

    --
    Kyle
    http://www.unlogikal.net/
  2. It was free for 30 or 60 days last year, too by mekkab · · Score: 3, Informative

    I bought a macmini and I got a mac.com account free for 30 or 60 days. Saw what it was about. Got some "you should pay $100 to keep this" spam, and let my account lapse.

    It was very cool that they gave me a free shot at it so I could see what I was getting into.

    --
    In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
  3. Re:Umm.. No? by E1ven · · Score: 5, Informative

    They did.

    The Nag screen has been gone since Quicktime 7, which came out a few months ago.

    --
    Colin Davis
  4. Re:One year free by SUJovian · · Score: 3, Informative

    All Apple computers do come with a free 3-month trial of .Mac, and Apple frequently offers partial rebates on .Mac when it's purchased at the same time as a new machine ($30 or so)
    http://www.apple.com/promo/getmore/

    They do try to ease new users into the .mac subscription fees.

    --
    Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog
  5. Re:Umm.. No? by adamfranco · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was actually hoping that Apple would release the server side items necessary to allow independent hosting companies to host .mac-like services. Apple would still be able to sell iWeb as the means for easy desktop publishing and still have it's own .mac accounts.

    As far as I know, much of .Mac is just a WebDAV server with Apple's own additional authentication added onto it. These instructions tell how you can spoof your Mac (with your own IP for mac.com) into thinking that your own webdav server is .Mac.

    I ended up setting up an 'rdiff-backup'-based backup system instead, so I never bothered to do the .Mac thing, but it looks pretty do-able. I just wish that Apple would make the setting of your own WebDav/.Mac server an easy configuration. Those of us who already paying for our own hardware aren't going to fork over more $$ for .Mac, so just let us do our own thing without hassle.

    - Adam

    --
    "When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers