Viral .Mac feedback - copy and paste this, let's make Apple listen

done.

done

Feedback Submitted

I sent mine. Lets hope something comes.

With Apple's focuse on ease of use, and sharing you would think .mac would develop into a great community hub for .mac members. I for one would love to see something like the Opera Community that has sprung up from the Opera web browser. That thing is just a browser and they have such a great design for a community.

I want to see what other people are doing with iweb. I want to read other .mac member's blogs. Let me see what other .mac members are doing.

http://my.opera.com/community/

Submitted. And to the person who doesn't agree, just wait until you've been paying $99/year for about five or six years. You quickly begin to see the alternatives floating around - but nothing quite as cohesive as .mac. So you keep spending your $99 and keep thinking "It'll get better, It'll get better." Then they throw you a bone - a JamPack or something. But you've still got this "I'm paying $100 a year for this?" feeling. Then they add something like "Groups" - which is great…but I'm still trying to find a good use for it (right now I run my daughters soccer blog, and blogger does just fine with a Flickr account for pics - I guess groups could make this easier?)I really like .Mac - it's just getting harder to justify the cost for what basically comes down to backup software and a .mac e-mail address. I've been on this boat since it was iTools - and free. And I had no problem supporting .mac then, but over the years the price tag hasn't kept up with the features - at least not for me. I say, give it to us for $69 or $49 or spruce things up a bit and make me once again feel like I'm getting my $100 worth.

And for those that were lucky to pick up a cheap .mac subscription via e-bay or whatever, that's great - but to keep all your account info intact, you'll have to go through Apple to continue your service - for the same $99 that the rest of pay.

I actually was once a paid user of .mac, was using it for 1 year and then was fed up with Apple and didn't renew it. And I was not using it for almost 2 years. Then.. I got a job where I finally could use Macs, and my Macs at home grew to two computers (iMac and PowerBook), and I needed to keep all these machines in sync (mail, bookmarks, and the most important - keychains and address book, not forgetting iDisk). At the same time, Apple kind of improved the service by adding 1Gb of storage, and the best in its class backup software (Backup 3.0). So I signed up for a new .Mac account (the old one was PLAGUED with spam), and I can say that yes, it is definitely not a cheap service, but for me it worths the price (again, I would definitely be HAPPY to pay around $60/year and not the bloody $100, but oh well..).
All my Macs are in sync, to the degree of sychronized Transmit bookmarks and Yojimbo notes, so I can, for example, create an FTP server bookmark in Transmit or a note in Yojimbo at work and open it at home after synching.
Also, iWeb publishing is pretty nice after Apple have fixed these annoying publish problems. I have my own web-site running WordPress blog, but I publish all my photos using iWeb on mac.com site - simple and easy.
Regarding iDisk - it was really slow until may be 3-4 months ago (like ~50kb/s upload/download speeds max), and then suddenly upload and download speeds jumped to 300-400kb/s (I'm in Japan so it could be that just some of Japanese users have some luck)

So, basically - yes, .Mac is expensive and if you have just a single Mac - I don't think you really would want to pay $100 for the service. But once you start using most of .Mac services, I doubt you will find more easier to use package for the price.

Done!

Sent...
and I agree. I only wish I didn't have so many personal contacts using my .mac account address.

The only way Apple is really going to listen is if you cancel your subscriptions. Just this month I let my subscription expire and I don't miss it in the slightest. With Google's Firefox synching, box.net storage, Google Calendars, and GMail, there is nothing left to get except crappy backup and virus software. Waste of money. iWeb is aweful rendering .Mac hosting just as useless.

FYI: Letting your .Mac subscription expire means you lose mail and other account stuff, but your .Mac account name for iTMS remains, and you never lose your username. So if you go back 6 months later you can have the same username/email address.

Actually, the most powerful message you can send is to no renew your subscription -- which is what I did last month. Don't reward sucky services with your money. You do have a choice, even if it hurts a little.