For the .mac users, excited about MobileMe?

I have to say I think the potential here for MobileMe (me.com) replacing .mac is huge. Looks like they've consolidated all the loose ends into one area, such as iCal published calendars being part of me.com (I don't recall how many times I wished I could see my published calendars when signed in at mac.com).

Also, they've doubled the online storage to 20GB while reducing the price ($99/year).

I'm excited about this and with the 3G iPhone launch next month, it's good news IMO.

 

In combination with the iPhone 3G (especially in Canada), I'm even more excited about MobileMe.

I like the tight integration between it, the iPhone and either Mac or Windows computer.

 

I always liked the idea of .mac, but it never really fully achieved its potential. I think MobileMe does. Now that we are a couple hours removed fro the reality distortion field, I think MobileMe and the App Store both trump the iPhone 3G announcement.

 

The name MobileMe makes me cringe.

 

I just received an automated email from the .mac team saying that my account would be automatically upgraded to MobileMe in July.

I've always liked and made use of my .mac membership even though there were a few things I didn't like about it. It seems MobileMe, with the little details we have now, addresses most if not all the .mac shortcomings while making it cheaper and doubling its capacity.

Kudos to apple.

 

Well they haven't quite reduced the price, have they?

 

Well .mac was officially $119/year although you can get it way cheaper from anyone but apple (I get mine for $70). MobileMe will officially be $99/year. So a $20 drop. Not much, but something.

 

^ Sorry, I was careless; I was under the impression that .Mac already was $100.

A question, then: Is the $70 pack that you get (from amazon?) a full 12-month membership? I was somewhat confused by the comments on the amazon website, that it allows a shorter period of usage.

If it were $50, I wouldn't hesitate to get it; but even $70 is a bit too steep for me; oh well....

 

I love the upgrades, and that you can use it on a pc too. I will definitely get a membership when it comes out. w00t!

 

Oh, no need to apologize. It may well have been dropped to $99/year previously, but last time I checked on the apple site it was $119.

And the cheaper packs are the same thing. There's only one .mac membership (well two actually if you factor in the Family pack) and it's 12 months in duration. Like applecare, it should not be purchased directly from apple. Did I say that last part out loud?

 

it was currently $99/year, no price drop but who needs one? 20gb of storage space alone is worth that cost to me, especially with the ability to send link or email downloads of whatever files I want to host, yeehaw!

as I mentioned I have enjoyed being a .Mac member, I will thoroughly enjoy being a MobileMe member

 

Ah, it must have been Apple Canada that was charging $119 while everyone south of the border was paying $99. Why am I not surprised...

 

too expensive for me

 

I bought a .mac subscription a month ago and it was $109.

 

I noticed you're from Canada so next time just order it from a place like SIG Electronics in Ontario.

They have always had it for $69 ($79 if you want to use Credit/Debit card). They also have, from time to time, applecare at 50% off. I got my applecare for my MBP from them for $199 (apple was charging $399). eBay is another place but at least SIG is reputable and good to deal with.

Edit: Link to .mac for $69 here.

 

Thanks for the info!

eBay is out of the question however......I just recently closed both my PayPal and eBay accounts. I'm tired of dishonest sellers who inflate their shipping charges, and PayPal who basically does nothing even when you file a dispute.

 

I don't really like the name MobileMe , but its nice! I think its pretty well done, it really is "Exchange for the rest of us".

 

Uh oh... MobileMe is doomed:



Coincidence?

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=2006

 

yeah I am not sure why they didn't just stick with .Mac actually, I guess me.com is slightly shorter, haha.

 

In a few years they'll drop the name Mac altogether; we'll have the "iThingy". A 0-inch thick mobile device, from which it'll be possible to rent movies and buy music tracks.

 

the mobileme service is better than .mac, but its still extremely overpriced.

a service like that should only cost a few dollars / month. Like 2.99/ month.

 

it's only $8.25 per month right now, there aren't many other webhosting services that even offer 20gb of storage space for that much along side the other substantial features.

not to mention a usual discount if you purchase a 1 year plan with a new mac which brings it down to $5.75 a month for the first year.

maybe they could develop some short of cheaper system for iPhone subscribers, but hey, most of that money is going into AT&T's pocket anyway right?

i hope they haven't completely abandoned Back to My Mac however. although it isn't that difficult to setup a similar system on your Mac for free with its built in VNC, FTP, SSH, etc. services right in System Preferences.

and i don't know if anyone else has experience with this but Screen Sharing on Leopard is the best, fastest, and easiest, screen sharing client ever created, it works flawlessly with the VNC setup on my Fuji running XP.

 

something cool for current .Mac users:

you can actually already host files, photos, movies, etc. just like you would on any other website, like imageshack, etc. very easily.

here are some excellent instructions:

http://www.caddpower.com/cms/idiskfilelinking.htm

easily host basically any file or files

 

See my comment below.

No coincidence. I believe that Apple is rapidly encroaching on Microsoft with MobileMe. It's the vision of "cloud computing" realized. And M$ lags behind. This might well be the first legitimate threat to the Dark Star's hegemony.

 

mobileme is great and all, but it be much more attractive if it had more storage (at least 50GB) and higher bandwidth limits. The feature set is great though.

 

If you use a service like Gmail and google calendar and you don't have an iphone then this service seems pretty pointless and overpriced.

 

I fully agree.

 

In fact, the name also reminds me of... Mini-Me!

 

for the features they are offering right through a web browser and 20gb of storage, I think it is worth $99/year, there are plenty of ways to host information on the internet, but this is an extremely elegant way.

 

I would love something like back to my mac through a browser. I have the family pack which allows my kids to have web space and file backup space and I haven't heard if that pricing will come down or storage will go up. We already have 20 gig. Will we get 40 now (for our $180 subscription)?

As far as this being a ripoff, consider that hosting generally costs between $3.95 and $19.99 a month for raw web storage and a few crude control panel interfaces to set everything up. Dot Mac or Dot Me is accessible to a beginning level of user and includes file storage (could get this through DriveHQ), image storage (could use flickr), email (could use gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc), web storage (could use other hosting), backup (could use drivehq). But where else do you get all this in one place and done so well?

Please don't compare MobileMe to WindowsMe. Windows Me is the closest M$ ever came to a class action lawsuit for fraud. Well, some say Vista is even closer. Even if the logos share similar fonts, one is for a service and the other was for a disservice. Back when I used to build PC's, I wanted an ME install disk because it was bootable. When I saw how unstable the thing was, I dug up 98 disks which were also bootable. Finally, I moved everything to 2K which also had bootable install disks and was much more stable than any of the non NT-based options. Windows Me was a failed attempt to graft NT/2K network code onto 3.11/95/98 16 bit underpinnings and was it a total failure. It's really a distraction to compare MobileMe and WindowsMe unless Apple does something to totally botch MobileMe.

I'll probably dump the "family plan" when the kids leave for college. I might dump dot me altogether and go back to relying on flickr, gmail, etc. But for now, the seamless integration with OS X and the ability to use my home machine remotely are very attractive. The ability to do work in a browser from a windows box means my ability to get to my files is further enhanced. Mobile Me promises to be a very good deal indeed, and if it lives up to its promise, it may manage to keep me as a customer long after the kids move out.

 

I have to agree. I always wanted <del>.Mac</del> mobile me to be more robust. Its much better now, but still not worth $99; $49 seems much better.