.Mac: Extend Or End Your Subscription?

M any of you who signed up for .Mac last year are probably weighing the merits of renewing your subscription to Appleis iNet services. You are likely recalling how much youive been using the once free service, and perhaps weighing the pros of the perks and benefits Apple offers against the con of another US$100.

David Zeiler of SunSpot.Net pondered the same questions and voiced his musings in an article titled, Dot Mac Revisited. From the article:

Most former iTools members that signed up for .Mac last year have until the end of the month or early October to renew. Should a member choose not to renew, all of the useris files stored on Appleis .Mac servers -- documents, photos, Web pages and movies -- will be deleted. The member also will lose his or her mac.com e-mail address.

When I wrote about .Mac last year, I noted that while it had some compelling features, the service was not worth US$100 every year -- and that it would attract few renewals unless Apple enhanced it significantly.

On the surface, it would seem that the .Mac of September 2003 doesnit offer much more than the .Mac of September 2002. For your $100, you still get just one e-mail address with 15 megabytes of mail storage and 100 megabytes of iDisk storage for other files.

Check out the full article at SunSpot.Net.