Apple’s dotMac service has become a source of irritation to many Mac users who cough-up hard earned dollars for a limited web service that belongs to the last millennium. News.com reports that many dotMac users are experiencing serious issues with the service.
The long delays in email delivery, and lack of access to the iDisk and lack of access to iWeb services had many complaining about the service on the Apple forums. My email has been delayed or has gone into the ether, prompting me to switch to a different email address for now. It was only a few weeks ago, I was complaining about the dotMac service, but for different reasons. Now it has fallen into the category of dot.Lame.
This latest post makes me want to go back to Valleywag for quality content.
sure, but when you pay $100 a year, come on you gotta have some expectations. its not a free service, and its also email which one depends on. this is a legit rant. and i don’t do that too often, unless it seriously is having a detrimental impact on my working life.
A more than valid excuse to rant about the dotMac service. Of late, Apple seems to have lost its credibility through my eyes. The shiny luster of Apple hardware can no longer mask the negative aspects which I have recently encountered. My recent “Apple: Genius Bar reps should have known” post is a small dent in my own recent and continued experiences with Apple.
On the dotMac front, Apple definitely needs to revamp the service. If I could manage to find a way to replace dotMac with my Box.net account I would be one happy camper again.
I have to concur with you comments about dotmac, I had an account for two years, but chose not to renew it when it came up just over a month ago. Spending $100 for a service which is ostensibly reproduced free by a number of other providers doesn’t make sense.
But more than that, the speed of the service is so slow, when compared to typical Google services that there is no perception that you are getting value for money. That is something Apple has been doing great with with its hardware but in the web services space it needs a wake up call.
If there isn’t a big announcement around dotmac at WWDC then I think we should start writing the obituary
Apple has made a Few Dumb Decisions and .MAC was one of them…
Pricing and lack of features was the biggest mistakes…
I am using this service for almost a year now. I am not depending on the .mac email service for my communications because I am more than happy with my provider. Other than that, I didn’t have any problems with .mac. On the contrary I love the way it is integrated in the system. I know of all the alternatives that exist but it is more of a hassle to set them up to do the same thing.
I’m another that had a .Mac account for a few years. But when my account cam eup for renewal, I didn’t see the benifit I got for the money. I can cover most that .Mac offers with free services. GMail. Box.net. etc. Although the syncing between machines is sweet.
I couldn’t agree more Om. I’ve been going thru various subscrition sites I belong to that have my .mac address listed as the contact for me – I’ve been changing them all to my gmail account. I also just went to my .mac account and “unchecked” the option to auto-renew. I will not pay for this service ever again. I just don’t see the point. I’ve lost more email in the last 4 months using that service than the entire time I’ve been on the web – 10 yrs. Not worth the cost, headache or worry.
I read this on other sites, but still don’t read what is really happening to them
Dot mac is without a doubt the worst Apple purchase I’ve ever made. The IMAP mail is unreliable, and SPAM ridden – without even an option for filtering in the webmail client. The iDisk/finder interaction is terrible – slow, unreliable, and with much less storage space than the ‘industry standard’ for a $100 a year service.
When I first joined .mac ite seemed there was a free software download or a new feature almost monthly. It would seem Apple has lost interest eventhough all then new iApps seem to have .mac further embedded.
I’m waiting for that killer app for .mac, but it’s just not happening yet.
Everyone has a gripe about some service, whether it be AOL, .Mac, MSN, Comcast – whatever. But is a former Business 2.0 writer so desperate for content that we need to rip on .Mac? Why not report on something more interesting in the industry like YouTube surpassing MySpace (and funding Limelight’s current profits) or chat about the floundering AOL converting over to a subscription model?
Rip on .Mac? People should rip on .Mac because it’s overpriced and the service is looking dated. I mean, where is the ajax goodness? 🙂 And now it’s unreliable. People should expect better for that amount of money. If the service was free, then fine, you put up with stuff like that (or move elsewhere). .Mac needs a serious update. With so many people paying money for this service it is news when it’s not meeting people’s expectations.
which email service have you switched to?
Ab: Who are you asking? I use GMail and love it.