Is .Mac worth it?

When Apple first announced it was discontinuing its free iTools program in favor of the $99 per year .Mac service, the Mac community was up in arms. Most people could not understand why Apple would start charging for a service that up until then was completely free, and nothing like any Windows user could ever dream of.

Luckily, Apple realized this, and offered .Mac to iTools users at a discount of $49 for the first year. That incentive kept many members around for the first year, but as soon as they had to pony up $99 per year to keep using .Mac, hundreds of thousands dropped the service. Most people just couldn't see spending $99 per year for something they think they could get free elsewhere, but I see it differently. The set of features .Mac offers is worth the money, and in this article, I will explain why.

iDisk/E-mail - With .Mac, you get 250 MB of space to divide up between the iDisk and e-mail space as you see fit. 250 MB is a lot of of space to store e-mails, websites, backup data, and whatever else you may want to save. There are free services out there which will offer just as much space, so this really isn't the biggest selling point. However, the iDisk and e-mail are further enhanced by the following features:

Homepage - With Homepage, even those that have no experience building web pages can put one together in minutes. While this does not appeal to everyone (including me), some people will find great value in this program. Now, they can share their life with family and friends with ease. (Note: Homepage is not required for making websites with .Mac)

E-mail aliases - This is a recent feature, added with the bump to 250 MB of space, is very cool. You can have up to five aliases, which are great for entering contests, signing up for a product trial, or anything else that you think will direct SPAM your way. If you think you are getting too much SPAM to an alias, deactivate it, and forget it.

Backup - Backing up is an essential part to computing. Whether it's last year's finances, your lifelong novel/research, or digital photos and music, you simply cannot lose this data. .Mac offers a backup utility which allows you to backup your most important data to your iDisk.

iSync - Do you have multiple Macs? Do you wish they could have the same bookmarks, iCal events, or Address Book entries? Well, then iSync and .Mac are for you. Just run it on all your Macs, and all that data is automatically synced up. This is an amazingly great feature for road warriors especially.

iCal - If you use iCal a lot, and would like to easily share your calendar information with others, then .Mac is the ticket. Using .Mac, you can publish your iCal calendars to the web for all to see.

iPhoto - Same as with iCal, you can use .Mac to share your photos to your family and friends.

Virex - Currently, Mac OS X has no known viruse. However, this doesn't mean there will never be an OS X virus. With .Mac, you get a free copy of Virex, and free updates as long as you are a subscriber, keeping you safe just in case.

Freebies - Now to one of my favorite benefits of being a .Mac user. Every once in a while, Apple strikes a deal with a company to provide free software to .Mac subscribers (and it is free to keep if you decide to end your subscription). These range from games, to photo editing apps, to GarageBand loops. I just love free software, and the retail price of these programs is often more than the price of .Mac.

Discounts - In the same category as the freebies, Apple will negotiate a deal with companies to give discounts on some of their products. While not quite as good as free stuff, these discounts are certainly a great thing for those interested in those products.

All of these features, combined with the overall convience of using them, are what make $8.33 per month easy to swallow. I am very happy with the .Mac service, especially the web hosting and freebies. I will keep subscribing to .Mac as long as these types of features continue to be available. If you think .Mac is right for you, don't forget to let Apple know who convinced you to get it. ;)