Filed under: Analysis / Opinion
What .Mac gets right
Now that we've lamented what's missing and wished for a brighter future, let's send some love Apple's way. .Mac isn't all bad, after all. Today, we're going to highlight some of what's good about .Mac. No bashing today, so save your griping for this post. Yes, I know that iDisk is slow and blah, blah. Today's post is about the positive, for the most part.Read on for all that's (mostly) good about .Mac.
Exhibit A: It's all built in
One of the things I absolutely love about .Mac is how easy it is to access services. Take the Finder for instance. I keep a local copy of my iDisk on my desktop, so all my files are immediately at hand (hush about upload times). Or, just click on the "Go" menu and there's your iDisk, as well as your buddy's iDisk and/or public folder (depending on how s/he has things set up). Speaking of which, I can give just about anyone read/write access to my public folder which is great for receiving those files that are too large for email (those full-rez, layered Photoshop images, for example). It's terribly convenient and so transparent that it's easy to forget that you're dealing with a remote volume (what did I tell you about your complaints over speed?!?).
Exhibit B: Plays nice with the iApps
This one kind of goes hand-in-hand with Exhibit A, but it deserves its own mention. Just like it does with the Finder, .Mac plays beautifully with the iApps. iWeb is, of course, the shining example. Once you've built your site, getting the thing uploaded and live is as simple as it can be. There's no FTP to worry about, no typing in cryptic paths or scary permissions to consider. Just click "Publish" and it's all taken care of. Which brings me to Exhibit C...
Exhibit C: It's great for n00bs
Before you get all excited, please understand my definition of the term "n00b" in this context. I don't use it in a derogatory manner at all, I'm simply refering to someone who has had limited experience within a given area of expertise. For example: My parents recently moved to Florida and my sister all the way to Houston (Don't mess with Texas). This means we rarely get to see each other (maybe once a year). Rather than miss out on one another's lives, we've all set up iWeb sites that we use to share images and stories from our respective parts of the world. Now, my parents and sister are intelligent people but have no experience whatsoever with web publishing. Yet, over the course of a weekend (via Apple Remote Desktop) I had all three of them up, running and totally comfortable behind the keyboard. Part of that is iWeb's doing, of course. But, the ease of iWeb wouldn't matter a tinker's cuss if they couldn't upload their finished products. "All you do is click 'publish' and watch it go," I said. The point is that it's great for people who have other, more important things to worry about than file transfer protocol. If you want to get the information out to your group of readers, whomever they may be, .Mac lets you do so without getting in your way.
The Learning Center is also quite well done. Again, seasoned Mac geeks like you and I may find it a little pedestrian, but for the average (read: typical) user, it's tremendously useful.
Exhibit D: The do-it-all email address
Apple made a very nice move when they allowed users to use their .Mac email address as their Apple ID (nice or insidious, I'm not sure. Want to keep that address, laddie? You'd better renew.). Want to set up an iTunes account? Use your .Mac email address. Want to place or check up on a purchase made via the online Apple Store? Use your .Mac email address. iPhoto purchases, Apple's discussion boards...on and on. I certainly don't want to try and remember a slew of different passwords. The one-address-does-it-all feature frees me from that burden.
Exhibit E: Back it up
Apple's backup is (I'm going to say that word again) so easy. The Backup application is automated and can be scheduled to back up what you want, when you want and to where you want. Sooo many people don't back up a thing and eventually will (not "may," but "will") find themselves crying. Simply taking one afternoon to schedule regular, overnight back ups can save some very real regret in the future.
Conclusion
Well, it's not so bad afterall, is it? They say you should end on a good note. Unfortunately, this isn't the end. Next we'll publish a "State of .Mac" post that will review what we've written so far and look at the current state of .Mac as we try to figure out just where we stand. Stay tuned.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Keith said 2:51PM on 8-25-2006
You forget the biggest one, at least for me.
Sync.
Specifically, the first and third party apps that I've come to depend on having be identical between my iMac and my powerbook.
Endo, Yojimbo, Mail, Safari, Addressbook, iCal, I don't have to worry about any of them because no matter which computer I sit down at, I've got the same data at my fingertips.
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Brian said 3:12PM on 8-25-2006
Good Series here Dave.
I recently cancelled my .Mac after 3 years. I'd love to pick it up again if just a few things are changed.
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Leonard Nimrod said 3:09PM on 8-25-2006
I wisht he article had more enphasis with backing up to .Mac. With Preferences, Bookmarks, AddressBook and Keychain being backed up to you .Mac account you can not only access this stuff from any web-accessible computer, but you can also put your system back the way you like it just by typing in your .Mac account info. Why would you want to do that. Your HDD fails or you reformat your HDD for some reason. Case in point, bad 3rd RAM was messing up my PB. I sent it to Apple who returned it promptly with the RAM removed, an explanation and a fresh copy of the OS installed (including iLife which isn't part of my default setup). All I had to do to get back to my comfortable sttings was to input my .Mac info and viola!
You can buy .Mac accounts on eBay for less than Apple sells them. The code is still valid regardless or what version of .Mac it says it supports. Repeat: The .Mac activation codes sold on eBay are software and time independent.
If you, like me, have got your families to move to Macs since the Intel transition you may want to think about maintaining a .Mac Family Pack and setting up either's Apple or a 3rd-party's Remote Desktop. This will save you countless hours of tech servicing. Then again, once Leopard comes out you'll be able to service OS X 10.5 via iChat's Remote Desktop feature. Oh happy day!
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James Huston said 3:44PM on 8-25-2006
FYI you don't lose your iChat ability, or iTMS stuff if you let .Mac expire.
At least it didn't between my period of having it and not having it.
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ToeKnee said 5:31PM on 8-25-2006
I predict they'll get a whole lot of stuff "more right" in the next few months as the anniversary dates for all the people who had free iTools accounts but were made to start subscribing rolls around (late Sept, early Oct, I think). It seems that's when most of the big .Mac news happens, just in time to save all those renewals.
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David said 3:54PM on 9-21-2006
It got a brief mention earlier, but here it is again ... YOJIMBO from Bare Bones software (the BBEdit guys). It's a sort of digital pinboard. You can stick anything there - PDF's, web archives, serial numbers and passwords, and of course bookmarks. With .Mac these can be sync'd to all your machines - it doesn't matter where you find the info, with Yojimbo you can recover it from anywhere. The combination of Yojimbo, .Mac and sync is almost perfect ... I just now need a del.icio.us to Yojimbo script.
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Edward said 7:41PM on 8-25-2006
Many have expressed their sorrow for the loss of the old free iTools. Since Apple is the one that has to pay the bill what are your feelings about Apple offering a free ad supported version of .Mac like Google did?
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kungfumaniac said 3:45AM on 8-26-2006
iChat encryption. Worth $100.
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rdas7 said 1:50PM on 8-29-2006
Like all things, dotMac appeals to some and doesn't appeal to others. I know that's not a profound statement, but for the price, it seems the range of services is outstanding.
• ichat encryption: Like kungfumaniac says: worth $100 on its own.
• backup software: what alternatives are there? What do they cost?
• data synchronization: for anyone who runs more than 1 mac at a time (desktop/laptop) or (home/work) the setup time this saves alone is worth more than $100. When you get a new machine, you enter your dotmac details into System Prefs and boom, the machine gets all your app prefs, data, addressess, bookmarks, etc.
• they "recently" bumped storage from a measly 100MB to almost a gig, so for most people's photo/mail/data requirements it's fine.
Of course there are going to be those who do not value one or more of its features, but you have to admit that overall, it's a pretty sweet package.
iDisk speed hasn't been an issue for me since I moved to >2Mbit cable at home. It's not as fast as a local disk (duh!) but it's perfectly usable.
I've noticed service outages here and there, but I have to say that they haven't really affected me in a major way. Maybe I'm just lucky.
I heartily recommend dotMac to anyone with a Mac.
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xaos said 10:52AM on 8-26-2006
.Mac sync just saved me a lot of work. My HD crashed, and I lost everything except for the stuff I had automatically syncing up to .Mac (Address Book, Bookmarks, iCal). I totally forgot that I had it backed up, and was pleasently suprised last night when I was able to recover that small sliver of my life...unfortunately I'm a dumbass and everything else on the HD is toast.
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fredrik said 4:32AM on 8-27-2006
Price, price, price...
Apple has always been pricey. Sure the new batch of computers is an exception but if you wish to hook the users, it really is through a service like ".Mac". Give us ".Mac" for 29.99 and see what happens. I have been a Mac user, even a "mac evangelist" for my closest frinds and family, but I would never pony up for a ".Mac" account. I think the cost is absolutely ridiculous. A service, where I have use for no more than maybe two of the offered products, for 100 bucks a year, I think it is pretty hard to swallow. Until they lower their prices, I will use my own domain hosted by GoDaddy, Gallery through menalto Gallery free from SourceForge, back up by free software etc. PLEASE lower the price, get people hooked, make users happy and act responsibly. Sure, the shareholders desrve higher revenues, but right now they just seem to be given out as un-authorized stock-options anyway ;)
Cheers,
Svinto
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eric f said 12:42PM on 8-26-2006
Before I give up .Mac, I need a replacement to their Homepage photo albums. I am a photographer and it's the easiest way in the world to upload digital contact sheets. that's all I use .Mac for.
I need:
-easy upload
-automated album creation
-Private, password protected albums
-Fast loading pages
-Albums with pages or subfolders
-Simple, Ad free pages
I've just tried the new Picasa albums, and it's pretty good, but lacks password protection for albums or the ability to organize the albums into pages or "sub-albums" the way .Mac does. Although the pages and images load very fast.
I already use Flickr, but the interface isn't intuitive enough for this purpose. It's confusing for a non-flickr user.
Can anyone suggest alternatives with such a simple interface?
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Joel Israel said 1:44PM on 8-26-2006
I don't mean to .Mac bash, but won't the inclusion of Time Machine in Leopard make .Mac's Backup a bit obsolete? As a long-time .Mac member, I'm hoping that a serious update is due soon, i.e. storage space & member exclusives (how about those .Mac widgets we were promised?)
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S said 1:49PM on 8-26-2006
Even better, eric f, try .Mac + iWeb. Upgrade to iLife '06 and use iWeb to upload your albums to nicer looking websites. You can go from pics in iPhoto to a finished, password protected website in iWeb in about 60 seconds (plus upload time). No clunky web-based interface.
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Joel Israel said 1:46PM on 8-26-2006
Oh, how about our own freaking domain names for 99 bucks a year? I mean godaddy gives youa domain with free hosting for something like 10 bucks!
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Olson said 6:16PM on 8-26-2006
According to CAD (http://cad-comic.com/comic.php?d=20060823) and Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newb#Newb_vs._noob), the spelling newb may be used to refer to users that are simply inexperienced :)
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eric f said 6:50PM on 8-27-2006
S, thanks, but your alternate solution for the homepage photo albums is not an alternate at all. I would still be paying for and using .Mac. And if I didn't own a new Mac (I do), it would be even more expensive, paying for iLife 06.
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matt said 2:53PM on 8-28-2006
Apple needs to roll out .mac services that will surpass, not match googles offerings.
Charge 1/3 of what it costs now, and sell 10 times as many memberships.
In fact, make it free for a year with a new machine - once you've used it for a year, you'd gladly pay $29.99 to renew.
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Marcus Kazmierczak said 5:15PM on 9-16-2006
I wrote a script which addresses David's request for a script to import delicious bookmarks to Yojimbo.
http://mkaz.com/archives/125/import_del.icio.us_bookmarks_to_yojimbo
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