Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Rumors, WWDC, Internet Tools
Believing the hype on .Mac-Google
Forget about not paying attention to other people; sometimes I don't even pay attention to myself. Just four days ago, I went on record in the TUAW predictions post for WWDC with "the .Mac offering becomes an Apple-branded version of Google Apps Premier." Mayhap I should drink my own Kool-Aid, if I'm going to go to the trouble of mixing up a pitcherful.I'm not that far out on the edge with this prediction, as there have been plenty of hints; Wired's Fred Vogelstein quoted Apple board member & Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the strengths of the companies in collaboration, the D blog picked that up and ran with it based on El Steve's comments about .Mac's decrepitude, and ComputerWorld pushed the meme out to far left field by raising the possibility of integrating iWork with Google Documents and Spreadsheets for blogging (not unlike the existing gApps and Zoho plugins for Office on the Windows side) or virtualizing Leopard-Lite into the browser. Something, as they say in the coffee business, is brewing.
Yet I found myself today -- today, Sunday, T-16 hours and counting from the Stevenote -- setting up SpanningSync for my mother's iCal/gCal integration and getting ready to whip out the credit card for a $25 one-year subscription . McFly, hello, anybody in there? For crying out loud, everybody including me and my kid sister thinks there's going to be some sort of Google integration with Mac OS X/.Mac announced tomorrow, so I smacked myself soundly in the forehead, put my wallet away, and left Mom with the 15-day demo until everything's sorted out. It's like the rule that you don't buy yourself anything right before birthdays or holidays... you just have to pay attention to what's going on around you. Or, failing that, the things you actually say.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tony Pitale said 10:27PM on 6-10-2007
Some ideas about this connection. Apple added Jabber support (googletalk?) and has not added any other protocols, aside from the standard AIM and .Mac, of course. The recent addition of youtube videos to apple tv (transcoded, no less). The rumours of a google tv to go along with google video search may have been overblown but, they were exciting none-the-less and even more exciting would be a tie-in to apple tv. Such an app would give the apple tv a real shot at taking off as a replacement for the set-top-box with the equivalent of iptv.
Obviously, the iPhone has Google Maps on it, but oddly, has yahoo push email. This seems contrary to this new google/apple ideal.
Parallels between apple and google: iPhoto + Picasa, iChat + Googletalk, Mail + gMail, iCal + gCal, google documents + apple pages and many, many others. Some of these are services and some are applications, some are both. Some of these are applicable, most are probably not.
Whatever happened to Sherlock?
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Stephen Miller said 10:38PM on 6-10-2007
I don't care what they do with .Mac as long as they do SOMETHING with it. I use it but it really, REALLY needs an overhaul.
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ThunkDifferent.com said 10:59PM on 6-10-2007
oh i hope! Keep us updated on Google/.mac if you hear anything, i do hope that something is done with .mac, gmail imap integration/clouds in the sky, oh my!
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adam Jackson said 11:16PM on 6-10-2007
Have you seen this?
http://digg.com/apple/Steve_Jobs_Keynote_bullet_points_for_WWDC07_iPhone_home_announced/
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Ben the Dog said 1:36AM on 6-11-2007
To be honest, one of the only things keeping me with .Mac is the email address. i have given it to so many people, it would be a complete pain in the rear to change it. However with 6 months left until my next renewal, if nothing happens with dotmac tomorrow, then I'll happily use the next 6 months phasing out the .mac email address and finding another hosting plan. I've already given up on most of the .Mac "features" (including "one click publishing" in iWeb - I now just use an ftp program to drop it on iDisk).
Slightly OT - I was also pretty gutted when Steve said that "push" email on iPhone would be available to Yahoo mail subscribers. That was a bit of a kick in the teeth to those who supported (AND PAID FOR) .Mac services.
We shall see...
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El in AZ said 3:24AM on 6-11-2007
The Yahoo! Mail thing is the odd man out in all this. I'm lucky enough to have my.name@yahoo.com, but on the (much newer) Gmail, I couldn't even get close. Had to go with myname.iphone@gmail.com .. just in case they go that way.
The .Mac e-mail address is my primary reason for keeping the service. I know there's a thousand free routes to go, but I NEVER get spam on .Mac and I like being able to effortlessly sync my two Macs, while also being able to access it all from the web.
T-minus 9 hours 30 minutes 'til Steve takes the stage and some answers start shaking loose.
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Tom said 4:59AM on 6-11-2007
Google is working on something related to Apple, but it's not this.
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dallas.com said 5:35AM on 6-11-2007
I assumed that they used Yahoo mail because of ties to ATT having ties to yahoo.
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Cleve said 7:21AM on 6-11-2007
Computerworld agrees
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9024099&intsrc=hm_list
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Michael Rose said 8:01AM on 6-11-2007
#10 -- yes, Cleve, that ComputerWorld article is linked in the main post. :)
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mike said 1:39PM on 6-11-2007
.Moogle?
{mooooo(f)}
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Charlie Wood said 3:22PM on 6-11-2007
Michael,
I hope this morning's WWDC keynote will let you buy a Spanning Sync license without reservation. :-)
Regards,
Charlie
Spanning Sync
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Michael Rose said 3:29PM on 6-11-2007
You got me, Charlie -- my $25 (actually, Mom's $25) will be en route later today.
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Richard said 7:04PM on 6-16-2007
You make me laugh.
Ooh, ooh, improve .mac
And here you are paying $25 to sync your calendar. And thats all it will do. Nothing else.
Makes the Amazon $69 price for .Mac look great in comparison.
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