.Mac improvements: Nobody told us .Mac subscribers
Posted by Pierre Igot in: MacintoshSeptember 21st, 2005 • 11:09 am
I have been a .Mac subscriber for several years, although I cannot say I have been overly impressed by the service, especially in recent times. I just got my renewal notice by e-mail the other day and was still not sure about renewing.
But now I hear that Apple has just rolled out new features, including 1 GB of storage (up from 250 MB), a Groups feature, an updated Backup application, etc.
The thing is: This was announced on September 20 in Paris. Today is September 21. As far as I can tell, nobody at Apple has bothered to tell existing customers about this. You’d think they would be the first to know, wouldn’t you?
Why do I have to hear about this through third-party press reports? It doesn’t exactly make me feel like I am “part of the family,” if you know what I mean. In this day and age, with instant communication by e-mail, there is no excuse for not letting us know at least as soon as the new features are announced to the press. It’s not like they don’t have our e-mail addresses!
September 21st, 2005 at Sep 21, 05 | 12:06 pm
That is rather odd…
The .Mac front page is obviously quite explicit about the changes, but I gather they are waiting for another issue of “.Mac News” to let everyone know.
I am quite thrilled about the changes though… finally shifting my email over to be routed through their IMAP. (Gmail is nice, but POP pretty much forces me to have access to my mail only at one computer, and I need a GUI client for email.) What I would give for Gmail’s interface in a GUI app that could connect to IMAP.
-RS
September 21st, 2005 at Sep 21, 05 | 1:45 pm
Yes, of course, we’ll be told in the next .Mac News issue. But I don’t think I should have to visit the .Mac home page to be informed about this. I don’t visit that page very often…
The new features are nice, but I think most .Mac users would agree that basic improvements such as faster iDisk mounting would be greatly appreciated too.
September 22nd, 2005 at Sep 22, 05 | 2:34 am
Some say iDisk performance has improved; I honestly didn’t have much of a problem with it before, but then by and large my data was placed on it (and pulled off of it) by other applications than Finder.
The space is nice, I like backup 3 (never used 2, so no idea how much of an improvement it is), I like the ideal of .Mac groups, but I need the ability of non-members to post to the list (not recieve mail from it). Ideally ___@groups.mac.com could be the single email address my friends use to get an email to my girlfriend and I, but for that to happen they shouldn’t have to be members. Those that want access to the email (my gf and I) already are…
-RS
September 26th, 2005 at Sep 26, 05 | 2:50 am
iDisk ” speed ” is still dismal. However, the increase in storage has been the deciding factor in my decision not to close my Mail account. I have yet to take a look at backup, although I really should ….
September 29th, 2005 at Sep 29, 05 | 5:14 pm
I always assume they do this to stagger the load on the servers — the folks who read it in the press go hit the servers and play around with everything, and a couple days later when it hits the e-mail newsletter, the second wave comes in.
September 29th, 2005 at Sep 29, 05 | 6:20 pm
If so, I’d expect them to start with the subscribers… But then, I am not a marketer, obviously.