.Mac
From WikiMac, Everyone's Mac Knowledgebase
.Mac is a service provided by Apple Computer. It includes electronic mail (Mac.com email), a website (HomePage), iDisk, an addressbook and bookmarks that are accessible over the Internet, iCards and some other services.
The original incarnation of .Mac was an offer of free mac.com email addresses from Apple, which could be configured to forward your normal email address. The appeal of a free email address which was easy to remember and, in addition, showed where one's loyalties lay, was clear.
In a separate development, Apple released iDisk, which was also free and allowed any Mac user to access a remote drive that acted exactly like a drive mounted locally on their Macintosh. It was restricted in size, and the availability of paid-for upgrades soon arrived, but for a long time remained a free and useful source of both backup space and software downloads, which were available from a separate read-only folder on every iDisk.
Eventually, in what some perceive as a swipe at Microsoft's much trumpeted .Net, Apple announced the release of .Mac, and suddenly all the mac.com email addresses were set to expire unless the users paid to join .Mac. There were the inevitable complaints from Mac users who were now to be charged for something which they (mistakenly as it turned out) believed had been told would be free for life, but the addition of Norton Anti-Virus and Apple's own Backup software, along with several other new features, to the existing email domain and iDisks encouraged many users that it was worth the money.
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[edit] iLife Integration
.Mac sync's seemlessly with the iLife suite of applications offered by Apple.
[edit] iPhoto
With iPhoto you have the ability to export a photo album directly onto the iWeb feature of the .Mac service. Apple has always made outstanding interfaces and the integration of .Mac into iPhoto is just that.
[edit] iMovie
iMovie allows users to export movies directly into webpages or the .idisk with the click of a button. Sharing movies has never been easier.
[edit] Service Changes
- On August 14th 2007 the .Mac service has upgraded their user storage from 1GB to 10GB and from 2GB to 20GB for upgraded users.
