.Mac Storage Now 250MB 77
Lycestra writes "Apple today announced .Mac users now have 'More room for everything you do online' with an increase from 100MB iDisk and 15MB Mail to 250MB total. The space is shared between iDisk and Mail, but users of .Mac have control over how it is shared. A long overdue change, in my opinion. It's still not 1GB, and Apple openly states that for those who want it, 1GB would cost another $50 a year. I guess the Apple cup-of-tea just got a little bigger, but it still feels like it's at room temperature."
Bandwith or storage? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bandwith or storage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple operates the biggest movie trailer [apple.com] website on the internet and the most popular legal music download service [apple.com]. I don't think that Apple is hurting for bandwidth.
The issue here is that the .Mac email is different from GMail. For one, it is IMAP based (Webmail is available too). Plus, mac.com emails are completely ad free, even the webmail site. At 15MB, it was a questionable value, but 250MB is a nice bump.
.Mac also goes beyond just email too. iSync will use the .Mac service to sync your address book and calendar data between multiple Macs. It also syncs Safari's bookmarks. Really, how many times have you said: "Oh damn, I bookmarked that website on my Laptop". You can also access your address book from the .Mac webmail, so you don't have to keep multiple address books in sync.
Finally, the iDisk feature is pretty nice too, especially after the upgrade to Panther. In Panther, your iDisk is cached on all of your local computers and synchronized automatically with Apple's servers. So if you create a file on your laptop that you will need to look at later on your home desktop, just save it to your iDisk and it will automagically be synced to .Mac and then to your desktop. Plus, there is a "Sites" folder in the iDisk that also serves as webserver space. Just save foo.html to iDisk/sites and it will sync to Apple's server and then be available at http://homepage.mac.com/yourusername/foo.html
.Mac and GMail are not directly comparable services, and you get more utility out of Apple's 250MB than Googles 1GB. (GMail hacks notwithstanding).
Re:Bandwith or storage? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Bandwith or storage? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bandwith or storage? (Score:1)
Re:Bandwith or storage? (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, you'll find that Akamai hosts both the biggest movie trailer web site on the internet AND the most popular legal music download service.
.Mac service. It's a lot more complex than a simple download service.
Whereas Apple actually hosts their own
So no, there is really no crossover at all. And ability to do one does not imply in an
What do you expect? (Score:1, Funny)
What did you expect? <tongue-in-cheek>Apple hardware is more expensive</tongue-in-cheek>
spymac (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:spymac (Score:5, Informative)
Re:spymac (Score:4, Informative)
They might be using Cyrus IMAPD [cmu.edu] as their IMAP server. It uses that notation for personal folders for each user like INBOX.Sent INBOX.Trash and so on. Search through their mailing lists - it has been discussed there.
Remarkable sense of entitlement, eh? (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Remarkable sense of entitlement, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
You clearly don't own an elderly equine. Once they can't chew hay anymore, your options ( short of having them put down ) are damn expensive- feed costing $8-16 a bag, at least 6-8 bags a month. It can add up pretty fast, especially for something you can't really ride much if at all.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, *if* you know someone who'll pay you for horse meat. Otherwise, you might want to consider taking a look. In my state, it's not even legal to sell your horse for rendering. From what I've learned recently, it'll cost $140 just to have my old horse hauled away...
yea yea, I know, totally off-topic, it's just an expression, etc. It's a stupid, incorrect, outdated expression, and my post isn't terribly off-topic given that context. I'm bored, leave me alone ;-)
Re:Remarkable sense of entitlement, eh? (Score:1)
Re:Remarkable sense of entitlement, eh? (Score:2)
The Gmail comparison is unfair... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Gmail comparison is unfair... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure why other companies, especially google, haven't gotten into this sort of package deal. Something that lets you work online a little better- some sort of portal/hosting service aimed at individuals rather than businesses.
It'd be nice if they offered some basic PHP/MySQL functionality. I mean, if you're just hosting a blog or something, a full domain hosting might be overkill, and how much does it cost, really, to make this functionality available?
Another feature that might be nice is if you Apple provided the option to have your e-mail attachments automatically stripped off and sent to your iDisk. Then you leave a link to the e-mail to the attachment. Specifics would need to be worked out, but it should work.
Re:The Gmail comparison is unfair... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Gmail comparison is unfair... (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I think there's another aspect to this. Apple has positioned .Mac in such a way that, by owning a mac, it's like Apple's assuming you have an account. iDisk is integrated into the OS, and there's a .Mac button in "System Preferences". It's a little like how MS treats you like it's just assumed you'll be using their IM and Passport.
Now, I don't have too much of a problem with that. I thi
Re:The Gmail comparison is unfair... (Score:5, Interesting)
Although, I do agree that for 100$ a year, you SHOULD get 1gb, at least... I mean, there are a lot of other, cheaper alternatives (slashmail) that are better suited for your everyday geek. In fact, I think that for 100$ a year, you should get 250mb iDisk and 1gb email, and for the extra 50$, you should get a 1gb iDisk and 2gb email.
Comparisions to Gmail (Score:5, Insightful)
Which I am sure will be made, but one has to stop and think for a moment before thinking without the geek cap on and saying "you can get a gig from google or pay for a solution at a lower price". That line reminds me of the comparisions between desktop processor speeds and the megapixels in cameras, just its now storage space numbers people are pissing further and faster with.
Gmail for example, is a GB for email only while
I paid for
But I will admit, i'm being a bit ignorant towards myself, I know about hosting and such and such but I don't have the time to chase every offer on offer. I'm happy to give Apple my money knowing what they offer.
Still screaming about the 1 GB space you get from google? I got that gmail account as well so don't fret, but that 1 GB email account from what i have heard is compressed anyway. Assuming this is true, its works because you are dealing with text and the odd jpeg, its easier to compress as opposed to Apple going down that route and compressing all of your work and so forth just for the sake of a shitload of megabytes which not everybody would use.
To make matters even better, Apple lets you select how you would use the space, i have it set up for 235MB's for storage and 15mb for email.
Re:Comparisions to Gmail (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I can put up larger sized videos on my site.
Re:Comparisions to Gmail (Score:1)
Bad thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, if you're pretty limited, then you keep things tidy and erase stupid messages in the first place. Having a lot of computer storage can be a little like having a big house. It's great to have all that extra space, all the way up until it's time to clean up after yourself, and then the extra space just means more to clean.
Re:Bad thing? (Score:5, Informative)
Quicker -- but is it better?
My iDisk has become my off-site backup system of choice over here (albeit not the only offsite backup I'm using). I have data that I simply cannot afford to lose. .Mac's Backup program puts this data onto my iDisk daily.
I got bit once by not having offsite backup due to environmental damage. Several hard drives died and were unrecoverable, and my backup CDs sitting in the same room likewise were unusuable. I lost a lot of unrecoverable data that day, and I won't risk that again.
I've become a huge fan of my iDisk. I recently started doing some contract work for a company that just recently starting moving from Windows to Mac OS X, and put up the results of my work as a disk image on my public (but password protected) iDisk. Sent them they password, and they simply selected from the Finder "iDisk -> Other Users Public Folder", and voila -- they had direct access to mount the disk image.
My iDisk has been getting quite full as of recent, so I was happy to see this announcement. I don't store any e-mail on .Mac, so I put the Mail storage at its minimum (15MB), and cranked my iDisk up to 235MB. Sweet :).
Yaz.
Re:Bad thing? (Score:2, Informative)
Because of this behavior, I've had to modify the backup item selection and keep a pretty close eye on things since the fi
Re:Bad thing? (Score:2)
I have to say the only problems I've ever had with Backup have been if I've lost my connection, usually because I've forgotton the backup has been running and closed the lid to my PowerBook, or during my weekly backup to one of my Linux boxes if I've forgotten to setup the SMB share.
Both of those are my fault. Otherwise, Backup has always just worked for me (at least for backing up data -- I haven't had to restore anything yet). I have some 40MB or so of data backed up.
Mind you, I don't use Safari -- I'
Re:Bad thing? (Score:1)
I've never understood... (Score:5, Insightful)
"I guess the Apple cup-of-tea just got a little bigger, but it still feels like it's at room temperature." Bah, I don't know, that's just such a ridiculous statement. What on earth do you need to store over there that'll take up more than 250GB? There's these things called PCs that you're using to access .Mac anyway, and you can get your own hard drives for fifty cents a gig. You don't even have to upload the data to some third party to be able to retreive it later.
Re:I've never understood... (Score:1)
Re:I've never understood... (Score:2)
Re:I've never understood... (Score:5, Interesting)
But okay, so .mac does include iDisk, it seems, from looking at the homepage, so they do intend for people to at least partially use them as a datastore. This makes .mac rather fundamentally different from the email serviecs offering the ridiculous 1GB storage space though. Your gmail account isn't designed to hold data like that (regardless of whatever someone's done with gmailfs), and you can bet that they'll frown on anyone trying to use it as anything but an actual webmail client. Maybe the other free webmail services offer more, I guess.
I suppose that I'm just of the opinion that if you find something like 250MB too restrictive, you should really be going with something that's directly suited to your task (ie: just transferring the files directly to your box, or purchasing some actual space somewhere) rather than complaining that you're not getting a 1gb limit.
Re:I've never understood... (Score:3, Interesting)
iDisk isn't just for backups. It's also an extremely convenient way to exchange media files. I use it all the time to swap Photoshop resources and find it much more convenient than using FTP (since I don't use
Considering what a staple Final Cut Pro is to Apple, I could see where the ability to exchange raw v
Re:I've never understood... (Score:2)
Hmmm... 1gb of off site backup (Score:5, Interesting)
$150 a year for 1gb of off site backup. That doesn't sound like that bad an idea. Does Apple say that they will back things up and guarantee that your data will be there? If so, this isn't that bad a deal at all.
kiwi
Re:You can all thank me... (Score:3, Informative)
Not too shabby (Score:1)
I have the main .Mac account and my wife has an email-only account attached to it. She uses hers as her primary email address, but I only use mine as a backup for the rare time when I can't get to my main email. I'd rather have the option to give her more spac
Being sure what action you are inciting (Score:5, Insightful)
If the iDisk is used to sync contacts, e-mail, iCal items, Safari favorites, etc. even the original 100MB is plenty o'space. I think this a two pronged decision to (1) curb detractors with the Gmail comparison (totally Apples V. Oranges to me) and (2) prepare the world for iProfiles or whatever Apple will call the ability to log into any Net connected Mac running Tiger and get YOUR desktop, without the security risk that sensative info is stored locally.
This would be killer for schools, libraries, offices, traveling professionals, etc.
Re:Being sure what action you are inciting (Score:4, Interesting)
But the 100MB only applies to the iDisk. The previous email limit was 15MB for the entire mailbox! Trust me, that's an easy limit to hit, and hit, and hit.
This is all well and good that they upgraded, but I took my money elsewhere this year (my bank) because I feel that Apple did not treat its subscribers fairly by not informing us what to expect as far as upgrades go. A lot of people say that it's worth gambling on features in Tiger, but I say hooey to that. I'm paying for services, and if their services fail to meet my needs, I'll go elsewhere.
Now the services meet my needs, but I just spent the last 2 weeks switching my online identity, only to have the upgrade occur today. If they are okay with announcing products such as Tiger, or the iMac G5, or the Dual G5 PowerMac and making the consumer wait, why can't they respect a currently paying customer that's supposed to be a guaranteed money source by letting me know that my service needs will be fulfilled. That would have been fair to the initial subscribers (since the iTools ->
Re:Being sure what action you are inciting (Score:2)
As for me, I voted too and did not renew my
bigger tea??? (Score:4, Funny)
Umm.. don't you mean the cup-of-tea just got a little hotter? Either that or it just got a little bit bigger, but it still feels like it's at medium size.
I would prefer to forgoe the entire apple-to-tea conversion paradigm, and instead say that the Apple just got a little bit bigger, but the tea, which has nothing to do with an apple and is unincorporated, could be said to be either hot or cold, but it doesn't really matter anyways, because tea doesn't really go with apples.
Re:bigger tea??? (Score:5, Funny)
All I know is, what this country needs is taller pie.
Re:bigger tea??? (Score:1)
No - it's gotten bigger, but not hotter - it's changed in one way, but in other ways it's the same old, same old.
renewal (Score:2)
I do have a gmail account, but It doesn't offer IMAP or POP3 support. I really don't know of any free web-storage companies but it does seem that spymac does offers a better online web-hosting package... Also the
I guess like most people I will end up re-subscribing to
Email aliases... (Score:4, Insightful)
It also says "fr33 h3rb4l v14gr4!!1!two!", but I don't think they meant it. Unless they want me to test the service...
Does anyone have subscriber numbers for .Mac? (Score:1)
Re:Does anyone have subscriber numbers for .Mac? (Score:1)
Re:Does anyone have subscriber numbers for .Mac? (Score:1)
I scanned through all the 2003 [apple.com] and 2004 [apple.com] PRs, and there's no further mention of .Mac subscriber numbers.
I did find a more recent (June 01, 2004) mention of a "boast" [macworld.co.uk] of 250,000 subscibers, but I couldn't determine if they are talking about total subscribers or just UK subscribers.
I figure there are two reasons for the lack of an official Apple PR since October 2002. One, th
Re:Does anyone have subscriber numbers for .Mac? (Score:2)
iDisk to web (Score:4, Informative)
Enough with storage, we need security features (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't really care that they increase it anymore.
However I WISH they had full https access. Currently only the sign-on is optionnaly SSLed, however after authentification you are back to plain http. This means that in my company, the proxy administrators probably have a clear view of what I am sending and receiving.
Does anybody know if
Now inly if Yahoo would come out with mac clients for the address, calendar and even briefcase sync (they did have at one point a win98 client to mount the briefcase however they never fully developed it as I assume this was a bandwith hog...)
Re:Enough with storage, we need security features (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Enough with storage, we need security features (Score:5, Interesting)
No, can't be SSL (Score:3, Informative)
Interestingly, this means it's easy to set up Apple's WebDAV server on MacOS X Server such that Apple's WebDAV client can't connect to it, but the Windows WebDAV client(s) can.
Paaaa-THETIC.
-fred
Here is how you do iDisk allocation (Score:3, Informative)
--
Daniel C. Slagle
Keeper of the "Unofficial" iMovie FAQ [danslagle.com]
$10 extra accounts (Score:2)
What Apple needs to do... (Score:3, Interesting)
Right now if you happen to lose your hard disk (and didn't make a CD/DVD backup earlier), you'll lose your iTMS-purchased songs.
Which sucks, since you have to buy them again.
If Apple were to offer an iTunes backup feature, it'd definitely be a killer feature. This would be one of the last things that still make me reluctant to ditch CDs for good.
Besides, they'd save on storage and bandwidth, as they would only need to keep on the iDisk the key used to generate the end user's file from the original file. Whenever the user wants to retrieve their files, the
They could advertise "back up 20GB of iTMS songs" while it'd actually eat up only a couple MB.
By the way, if you're living in Germany or Austria, make sure you check out GMX.net, a free e-mail service that is offering 1GB (combined) for free for e-mail and file storage, or 5GB for 3 EUR/month, 10GB for 5 EUR/month.
They also have a WebDAV client and their features are unmatched worldwide.
(not affiliated in any way, just a happy customer since 1998
I dunno, I think it's kinda handy (Score:3, Interesting)
Granted, I have one referral credit as well (so I'm actually paying $79.95), but between iSync, the disk space, and all the goodies I've been able to download I've gotten very good value from my
The only thing I'd like to see addressed is easier integration of other data sources into iSync. I know that's something that Tiger is supposed to address, but I'd really like to see iSync support devices other than Palm (discounting for now the somewhat kludgy PocketMac suite of tools), and support some easy way of doing DIY sync modules. Plus I'd like to see Entourage supported in iSync by either Apple or Microsoft. That would add a little more value.
A great deal for me! (Score:4, Interesting)
I send out about 60 GB of data a day from my
I'm dropping .Mac... (Score:1)
As far as it being more convenient than FTP, BS! I can access files
Re:I'm dropping .Mac... (Score:1)
Opensource .Mac OpenBSD Server (Score:1)
What .Mac Needs (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't update your iCal calendar from the web.
You can update your address book on your mac or on the .Mac site - then next time you run iSync they are both synchronized - this is nice.
iCal can only be updated on your mac and exported or automatically broadcast to the web - where it is limited in its use as a read-only calendar.
Tiered Service... Where is it (Score:1)