Why I use .mac
Yes, that is right - I use Apple’s series of tools available to Mac users for US$100 a year. There are a great number of reasons behind this and I am willing to explain them all in great detail. They range from secure instant messaging, superior back up services, synchronization between other Macintosh computers and IMAP-based e-mail account. I use those services mainly but there are other services which I use just because I can and I have found good uses for them.
Address Book - Okay, so other than syncing Address Book with - there are two things you can do with Address Book and .mac (Address Book Sharing and .mac Address Book). Address Book Sharing is an option where you invite someone to have access to your address book. I haven’t tried this yet, but it sounds a lot like Photocasting. And .mac Address Book allows you to view your Address Book from a web browser. The only real grievance I have is that it doesn’t display the display pic for your contacts. This is a very annoying hindrance and I hope the .mac development team works on allowing us to see the display pics.
Backup - I will admit that I don’t back up as often I should. In fact, I am very bad about backing up and this has cost me a lot of my site’s history. Either because I didn’t know that I would need or want it. But this just means that I don’t know how to backup, which is sad considering it is a very important skill to possess. Fortunately though, this works wonders with my LaCie Disk and my iDisk.
E-mail - Okay, I love the idea of having an IMAP e-mail service. This is because I can just read the messages on the server. I wish that Google had turned Gmail into an IMAP-based service instead of a POP service. This would be nice because my messages would be synchronized between Macs (when my girlfriend starts living with me, I am going to get a desktop Macintosh as well). In addition, the fact that the .mac web mail interface is the spitting image of the Mail application in OS X, that makes things a lot simpler for less advanced users.
iChat - So, when you have .mac - you can actually initiate secured chat sessions. This is pretty awesome because there are some things I want to say to people that would I want to be private. Aside from the video conferencing features that are integrated into iChat by default (one other reason why integrating iSight cameras into iMac desktops and MacBook laptops is a very good idea). But Apple SHOULD integrate sync of chat history logs into .mac.
iDisk - When you buy the standard .mac package, you get 1GB of space (500MB in e-mail, 500MB for your iDisk) but you can also buy more space - up to 4GB in fact. This is pretty awesome because that gives you a lot more space in your iDisk. Plus, you can use your iDisk anywhere via the web or via other computers running Mac OS X. (I am going to provide access to my public folder to people who support the blog).
iLife - .mac is the perfect companion to iLife, with integration with iPhoto, iWeb, Garageband, iMovie and iDVD. This is pretty cool seeing as I used to be a PC user and the worst part of having a PC was the fact that they were so very unreliable and I would generally lose important data like photos or music. Even though I have found macs to be more reliable, it is important that my digital life be protected from problems like this.
iPhoto - Okay - there is one and only one feature of .mac that makes iPhoto better and that would be Photocasting. However, it would be nice to have a way to share my photos further - but even my small iPhoto library is around 300MB of size. This is not good and even though I have rid myself of some of the images that I do not need, I am still around that 300MB mark. I wonder why that is…
iWeb - And you can host a website on .mac as well. Yeah, I know - I hate WYSIWYG editors. But it is very useful in the event that you need to make a website and make one very quick. I have put together a quick little page using iWeb and I think it’s pretty cool for the resources used. True, it will never beat The Darkest Evil or kylekorleski.com, but I am going to use any and all resources I buy because I am not the kind of person to waste resources.
Other Applications - Apple has given developers incentive in providing .mac functionality in their applications. If they do, they can earn affiliate benefits if someone purchases .mac benefits from their application. This is basically extra cash in the pockets of the developers and more value to .mac is added. It’s a win-win situation. Applications like Transmit and MacFamilyTree have already taken integration with .mac to an awesome level. However, applications like shadowClipboard and Adium could do a lot better by providing sync services with .mac.
Photocasting - iPhoto has an amazing feature called Photocasting. This is very awesome because it allows me to share photos with friends. And not only that, but my friends would have the power to keep it private based on the fact that it is a service provided by Apple. So essentially - Photocasting is a great service that works wonders to share your life with friends and family around the world.
Synchronization - .mac provides a sync service which is VERY useful if you have more than one Mac. It allows you to sync Address Book contacts, iCal Calendars, Keychains, Mail Accounts, Mail settings (such as Rules, Signatures and Smart Mailboxes), Safari Bookmarks and data from third party applications (i.e. Transmit Favourites). Personally, if you own more than one Macintosh and would like to keep your contact’s info the same across all your Macs. An example where this would be very useful is at a trade show. Let’s say you meet someone in your industry that is pretty cool to talk with. They hand you their business card and you insert their info from their business card into Address Book on a .mac enabled laptop. You go to the hotel that night and sync the data with .mac. Now, that data is synced or will be synced with your other macs so when you sit down at your desktop mac at home, their info and possibly, a contact picture, will be there when you open Address Book.
So basically, you can say that I am a faithful user of .mac solely because of the fact that it integrates with Mac OS X so well. In fact, it does a lot better job than Spymac Club did. But I would say that it would be a good idea to do a bit more - including integrating a Flickr-like service into .mac that would allow us to share our iPhoto data with other .mac members. Come to think of it, it would be a great idea for Apple to work with Flickr to integrate Flickr functionality with .mac and provide your Flickr library in iPhoto. Also, eventually, it would be nice to see our contact’s display pics we set for them in the web based .mac address book. We can see them in other Address Books we have synced with our .mac account but not the web-based one.
Tags: address_book, Apple, apple_mail, backup, bookmarks, calendars, email, favourites, ichat, idisk, ilife, iphoto, iweb, keychains, macintosh_computers, mailboxes, mail_rules, os_x, photocasting, safari, service, signatures, smart_mailboxes, sync, syncronization