Apple should offer option of .Mac as separate services

The thing I really want in .Mac is industrial strength SPAM filtering. I use OnlyMyEmail and it works amazingly well at $3 per month but something like it should be part of .Mac.

And .Mac subscribers should get a discount on new OS releases.

Tough time for mac, Microsoft serious about zeta

Apple should be able to build an iSync style feature without the need for any third party server, i.e. .Mac.

I suspect that it is iSync keeping .Mac alive, and I think it's appalling that this feature cannot be accessed by every Mac user with 2 Macs. If Apple had never created .Mac, I'm sure that they would have created a serverless syncing feature in OSX. Instead they artificially restrict this to a slowly dying online service because they know its about the only thing keeping it alive.

I also know the profit margins that Apple dealers make on .Mac, and I can tell you that Apple should cut out the middle-men and sell .Mac directly for less than half the price it is now. And if they made it more reasonably priced, they could offer a 6-monthly auto-renewal subscription and take the 'big decision' away by making it easier to stay with .Mac.

I only use .Mac for iSync, which I can't live without. I never use my iDisk (other than iSync) or homepage. I find .Mac mail completely useless due to their lack of spam filtering; I have my .Mac mail forwarded to my Gmail account so gmail's superior spam filtering can sanitize it.

I have subscribed .mac for a while, but really, I don't get it. I liked the easy and simple web page created by iPhoto, but most of the iWeb stuff looks like it was lifted out of an old Kodak how to book. pbase offers 1200 mb of space for $60 and no ads. Flickr is $24.95 for 2 gb monthly uploads. Smugmug has unlimited storage for $39.95. And two of these look better than iWeb and presumably also make a profit. The options of .mac are nice, but I don't understand they would cost so much more. Isn't server space and time the main cost any of these net sharing options?

Ok, first. Only an idiot pays $99/year for .mac. It has been available from Amazon for ever at $79 and I just purchased a family pack upgrade a month ago for $120. Both the users and Apple need to realize this and just change the renewal price to reflect this reality and 30% of the people will stop their complaining.
About 2 years into .mac Apple increased storage by a factor of 4. I'd guess that a similar upgrade is in the works for early next year and another 40% of the people will stop their whining.
All that is left is for apple to start giving more member benefits like they did in the early days (special discounts on iLife/iWork or plugins for iMovie, iDVD and Garageband as well as special deals from shareware developers) and although some of that last 30% will still complain, it won't really matter because they will still pay their annual dues.
Really the only recommendation I have for the .Mac team (besides what I said above) is that the family pack should be more flexible. Using a new $80/year pricing with family at $160. You could instead say that any .mac user can add any number of 1/4 sized accounts (ok limit it at say 20) for an additional $20/year. Lets face it. Your, mom, grandmother, and Aunt Sue don't need large amounts of storage but would benefit from being able to share contacts, calendars, photos, etc.

I just let my .Mac account expire this past week. It was painful but I have no way to justify the $100 for syncing and some pretty templates. I found the google browser synchronizer for Firefox and installed it at home & at the office. It forces me out of beautiful Safari into less elegant Firefox, but now I have my bookmarks, cookies, history, tab preferences, etc all available cross platform. I never really used the iDisk for anything useful that I couldn't replace by sending myself emails to my GMail account. So while I'll miss the iPhoto publishing I suspect I'll survive the loss of that too. They just didn't have the value proposition that they used to. Apple needs to catch up to the Web 2.0 times.

I too worry about the price, but I cannot live without .Mac sync. Simply the best way to sync two macs. iDisk is useful but not indspensible. I could easiliy live without the web hosting services and email.

I would add a Web version of iWork to compete with Apples new found friend Google!

#15 David-

Oh, sorry I forgot to mention that in the end, I like with your idea, though I don't think it will appeal to Apple.

I don't really agree with your reply to me, though. As I've seen in much of the discussion on this topic, .Mac is popular with a lot of IT folks who have the disposable income to not worry about $99/year, have a lot of computers to sync, and think it's worth it. I am in that camp up to the point of it being worth $99 for no major upgrades in the past year or two. The economist in me is seeing Apple get too comfortable and not competitive on the web services front.

In my family and circle of friends, I am the computer geek that everyone goes to, and I have successfully migrated most of these folks to Mac (and I begrudgingly support Windows because I have to). I recommend everyone take the 60-day trial of .Mac, and only one person of all those people has stuck with .Mac - they are not technical people, and they find the range of services .Mac offers far too complicated. My sister has stuck with .Mac mainly for syncing her two Macs' address books and bookmarks, and iDisk to keep financial documents which both she and her husband want to be able to work on. But iSync has been nothing but a thorn in her side the past few years. She can rarely keep it working for long.
She also used iPhoto with the Homepage button to make simple photo galleries of her grandkids' photos, but Apple actually REMOVED that functionality in iLife '06-- extremely arrogant of them to force everyone to use iWeb. It has taken her most of the year to adapt to the new program.

No one else I have moved to Mac has kept up with the .Mac. It's not for regular folks in most cases, other than e-mail, it's for geeks. And since .Mac doesn't offer ISP services, everyone already has an e-mail address with their ISP. I have resisted speaking out against Apple and its ever lamer .Mac services, but they all figure it out on their own-- either too expensive or not anything they need (with one computer).

And 1GB backup? My point with the USB flash drive comment was only to point out how inadequate 1 GB is. When they ask, and they do, if they can backup their whole hard drive to .Mac, of course I have to say 'no,' not unless they pony up MORE money for more space, and the speed is ridiculously slow.

(#17 - sad but true)

i was one of the first itools people. i was so angry at apple when i was forced to pony up to keep my "free email for life." every year i'm reminded of that betrayal above all. this year i left... all i ever wanted was an option to keep my email address. but now no more feeling like the cliché of the abused girl who won't leave her selfish guy.