Tonight, we will all say "goodbye" to .Mac, a service that has been a small part of Apple for almost 8 years. iTools, .Mac's predecessor, was launched on January 5, 2000 at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco and was a free service that included a HomePage, iCards and the much coveted @mac.com e-mail address that is commonplace today (as well as the forgotten 'KidSafe,' which was a database of kid friendly websites Apple compiled so you could make sure your children weren't up to no good on your Mac). As more users came to the service and the cost of bandwidth went up, Apple began charging for the service and called it .Mac. The name ".Mac" was born at the Macworld Expo in New York on July 17, 2002 and provided several new services including: a beefed up iDisk (with a dizzying 100 megs of space), Backup, and a free copy of Virex. On September 17, 2002, Apple announced that it would discontinue the free iTools service in favor for .Mac.
That brings us to, well, tonight. Apple is scheduled to take down .Mac and replace it with a newer, rebranded service named "MobileMe." While some scoff at the name, TUAW can't help but see the other side of the picture: look how far iTools has evolved over the past 8 years. So, join us in saying, "So long old friend, we hardly knew ye."
Do you have a favorite story to tell about iTools or .Mac? Be sure to mention it in the comments below! Apple is scheduled to take down the .Mac service between 6 p.m. and 12 a.m. pacific time.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
7-09-2008 @ 7:09PM
amiga_tone said...
Guys I know this is a US site, but any chance you can post times in GMT as well? It's confusing just trying to work out times especially when so many launches and stuff are announced? Please?
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7-10-2008 @ 9:44AM
homagetogorto said...
Might be better to take matters into your own hands with http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html
7-09-2008 @ 7:20PM
Scott Rouse said...
6pm and 12 *am*
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7-09-2008 @ 7:30PM
amiga_tone said...
Which would make that 9am AEST and .MAC stil lives on....
Hmmm...
A bit later perhaps?
7-09-2008 @ 7:21PM
Shervin said...
i love my .MAC email, and I will never use me.com.
goodbye and respect to .MAC ("X"@mac.com)
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7-09-2008 @ 7:23PM
Phelim said...
@amiga_tone 6pm PT= 2am BST
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7-09-2008 @ 7:23PM
macbook pro user said...
I haven't used .Mac other than the 60-day trial (which I'm on a second one of now), but I will certainly miss it. MobileMe seems to be better, although I don't have that much of a use for it (I use a paper calendar and can sync files already with Dropbox).
Someone should make a tribute video to it...
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7-09-2008 @ 7:36PM
Ross said...
I've been a .Mac user for almost 5 years and am glad not to be saying goodbye to my @mac.com address although seeing "MobileMe" on my iPhone where .Mac used to be takes some getting used to ;)
As an iPhone user, the new service is a lot more useful though - just a shame about the namechange.
Then again, I guess we'll get used to it just as we did the loss of the PowerBook name.
Farewell .mac
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7-09-2008 @ 7:38PM
Lee McCartney said...
Another vote for @mac.com email addresses, @me.com just isn't the same ;(
I'm happy that I will still be able to use the @mac.com address for the moment, the next question is how long will it be before Apple pull the plug on .mac completely and turn off the email addresses as well as the other features that are being lost in the migration to MobileMe?
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7-09-2008 @ 7:41PM
scott penton said...
yep, .mac will be missed, I've been a member since Apr. '01, remember when they switched to the pay service they gave us itools users a discount on the new fee. But, like everything in technology it all keeps changing, some day we'll be saying good bye to mobile me. It goes on and on and on.....
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7-09-2008 @ 7:46PM
Wii-Maniak said...
What no one has guessed yet is the iPhone 3G is on sale tomorrow morning in new zealand, which means we are most deffinatly getting iTunes 7.7 and the iPhone 2.0 software.
YAY!!!
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7-09-2008 @ 11:27PM
Victor Agreda Jr said...
Wii-Maniak, you might be surprised to discover who did guess 3g will be on sale in New Zealand 1st...
7-09-2008 @ 7:46PM
Wii-Maniak said...
What no one has guessed yet is the iPhone 3G is on sale tomorrow morning in new zealand, which means we are most deffinatly getting iTunes 7.7 and the iPhone 2.0 software.
YAY!!!
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7-09-2008 @ 7:47PM
gldfsh419 said...
I got my first Mac (iBook G3) exactly one month before .Mac was introduced. I bought .Mac that following October, at the demise of iTools, and have been a user ever since. I heartily agree that the "@mac.com" email address is nice, but I've already coined a pithy new alias for the "@me.com" domain, and I'm OK with the changes. I'll miss bookmarks, but I have the luxury of using Safari at work, and I understand I will be able to make that sync with MobileMe, so I should be fine.
My partner's pretty busted up about the loss of iCards, and I can't say that I blame him much. They were nice to have for the occasional email greeting. Change... sigh.
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7-09-2008 @ 7:48PM
Daniel Martel said...
Been a .mac member since day 1. Has always been useful for syncing everything. Kudos to Apple for the service!
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7-09-2008 @ 7:56PM
Dustin Craig said...
I have been a faithful iTools and .Mac User. I've absolutely loved the services Apple has always provided with them. I'm worried though, I have been using the Sites folder in my iDisk as a hosting folder for my sites I've made with HTML and not the Homepage service Apple gave. Will sites hosted at http://homepage.mac.com still exist as that URL, or are we forced into iWeb (Not that I'm complaining about iWeb, mind you, I love iWeb too.)
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7-09-2008 @ 7:59PM
niclet said...
On dotMac Canada/French it says:
"Lancement de MobileMe
10/07/2008 de 3:00 à 9:00 HAEC"
That's tomorrow the 10th! Can't wait any longer.
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7-09-2008 @ 8:00PM
Nadim said...
One hour to go, fellas!
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7-09-2008 @ 8:04PM
Jarques said...
I wonder if this is when they'll release iTunes 7.7? At 6? Who knows..
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7-09-2008 @ 8:12PM
Eric said...
What happens to the 60-day trial of .Mac that comes with each computer?
I'm only on day 12 of mine...
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