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Switch - Or Bait & Switch?
“Charles, your .Mac trial account will expire in 74 days” was the message that greeted me when I logged onto my mac.com email account at Apple’s new .mac Webpage. That would be the “trial account” that’s been one of my main email accounts for the past two years or so, ever since Apple inaugurated its free iTools Web services. All in all, there were few surprises in the MacWorld Expo keynote. The 17” iMac was pretty much expected -- a nice addition to the existing G4 iMac line, and a decent Value at $1,999, especially when you consider that a 450 MHz G4 Cube with128MB of memory, a 20GB HD, and CD-RW combined with a 17” Apple Studio Display would have set you back $3,098 Just a little bit more than a year ago. We now have a date for the 0S X 10.2 Jaguar release, August 24th falling squarely within the “late summer” target previously promised, and probably not coincidentally, also the 7th anniversary of the it much ballyhooed release of Windows ‘95 on August 24th, 1995. The issue of whether Quartz Extreme will be supported by machines with 16 MB of video RAM has been clarified (the answer is yes, but 32 MB is recommended for “optimum” performance. QuickTime 6, which was released just prior to Expo, and iTunes 3, were also anticipated, it has were larger drive capacity iPods. Windows support for the iPod had certainly been exhaustively discussed, and it was a logical development now that the initial wave of iPod mania in the Mac community has been satisfied. The iPod will be an excellent vehicle for showing the Apple flag, as it were, to the great PC unwashed. The price cut on the low end ‘Pod was also predictably welcome. iCal and iSync are interesting and useful enhancements to the “digital hub” concept, but hardly “get up in the night and write home about it” revolutionary innovations. No, unfortunately the biggest surprise in the keynote (although it had been rumored for several days prior) was an unhappy one, the announcement that Apple’s heretofore free iTools online services package is to be terminated September 30th, and replaced by a new, for-fee .mac service, at the hefty annual tariff of $100 (with an initial 50% discount for current iTools users). In my estimation, Apple has made a serious miscalculation with this change of policy, particularly as it pertains to the mac.com email service. There are an awful lot of Mac users out there with mac.com email addresses that never used any of the other iTools services. I’m one of them. Like more than 80 percent of Internet users, I’m on a dialup connection, which is all that’s available where I live, and Apple’s Websites are among the slowest. The mac.com POP 3 email service was one of was the main iTools attraction for me. But even for folks who used iTools more extensively for personal Websites, file backups, iPhoto albums, and what have you, going from a free service to a $100 service on two months’ notice is changing the rules in the middle of the game pretty drastically. I can’t recall whether Apple never made any undertaking that iTools would remain free forever, but many say they did (see petition below). At minimum, they never implied that it wouldn’t, and this change of policy has the distinct odor of bait & switch, even if that was not the original intention. There’s an old saying; “a government big enough to give you everything, is a government big enough to take everything away,” or something like that. I guess that goes for big corporations too. A smaller player would not likely have risked antagonizing its patrons this way. It and I’m sure many iTools/mac.com users ARE going to be antagonized. The reactions I’ve heard so far are unprintable. In his notes from the keynote floor on Wednesday, Applelinks’ Kirk Hiner reported:
Kirk may be right, but I’m not so sure. I can imagine that an awful lot of people who have invested time and effort in creating iTools Websites will not deem the privilege of maintaining them to be worth $100 per year, or even $50 for the first year. I know that I am emphatically not willing to cough up either figure for email service, which is, as I said, the only iTools module I’ve ever personally bothered with. New wrinkles like anti-virus and backup services don’t really entice me either. Apple, somewhat defensively, claims on their .mac Website that they are offering $250 worth of value for $100. I suppose that might be true if you paid top dollar for all of the .mac features as separate services, but I don’t see $100 for the value -- let alone $250 worth. 100 U.S. greenbacks translates to about 160 Canadian loonies, which is more than I pay for six months of Internet access. Which means that I now am faced with the chore of migrating my several mac.com email accounts to other services; notifying correspondents of the address changes; and so on, a process I have already initiated. This is a more than trivial inconvenience. Multiplying my annoyance by several million iTools users, regardless of whether they grit their teeth and pay the ransom to keep their Website and email address, or bail out for greener, cheaper pastures, and you have the makings of big-time negative PR and bad Karma. What were they thinking? Incidentally, some have grasped at the straw of this statement on the .mac Help document:
The meaning of this is somewhat cryptic, since the “Email Account Management button” was nowhere to be seen when I was there. Maybe there will be a .mac “lite” email-only service, but I’m highly skeptical, especially in light of this note:
Note that word: "purchase." That reads to me like even if you pony up the hundred bucks, you get only one email account, and if you want any more you’ll have to lay down even more cash, to the tune of $10 or $20 a year for each account (I’ve seen both prices cited). This is especially rough on families (like mine) where each member has had their own mac.com account. While going to a fee-based Web services policy might arguably be the right or even necessary move for Apple, and of course they are within their rights to do whatever they please, making a lot of your customers mad that you for causing them unexpected expense and/or significant personal inconvenience cannot be regarded as an intelligent business decision. Jobs rationalized that other erstwhile free email providers, such as Yahoo, have begun charging for some features email services. However, Yahoo at least still offers Web-based email access for free, allowing former POP 3 users (like me) who passed on paying the new annual fee to continue checking their Yahoo accounts. Apple is forcing users to pay up or cutting them off cold. Since the previous service was free, revenues generated by the new, for-fee service will be all increased revenues for Apple on paper, even if, as I suspect, there is a mass exodus in terms of numbers of people using .mac compared with the free iTools service. But what cost the loss of good will? My gut evaluation is that at least grandfathering existing free email accounts would have made good sense. Mac.com was a good email Service with a convenient and fast SMTP server for outgoing mail. I shall miss it. However, there are still some good free email alternatives. For example, there are dozens of -- probably hundreds of -- free Web-based email services that let you manage your email on a web page with a browser. We offer a good one right here on Applelinks. You can register for an applelinks.net email address here: It however, if you prefer POP 3 email management with an email client like Eudora or OS X Mail, here are some candidates to replace your mac.com email address: MyRealBox I’ve been using MyRealBox for a couple of years, and except for a few hiccups it has proved quite dependable and fast. MyRealBox also offers SMTP support for outgoing mail. MRB does not allow advertising and it supports any standard based email client. Novell hosts this service to showcase its NIMS product, and to test NIMS in a real world environment. There are currently over 150,000 users despite the fact that Novell has never advertised the existence of the MyRealBox. MRB currently runs on three NetWare servers. NIMS also supports the Linux and Solaris operating systems. However, MyRealBox has a few quirks, such as not accepting any Yahoo! Groups email messages. Features: HotPOP HotPOP LLC is a privately held company based in Newton, Massachusetts. Founded in 1998, HotPOP offers email accounts, from a selection of domain names, with a combination of features not found with other providers. Features: Signup is easy. Just fill out the form and survey and you are ready to go. An email will be sent to your old address with your password and some helpful information. If you are using a POP account, you can log in right after you configure your client. I’ve had a HotPOP account for several months, and it has been completely reliable so far. subDIMENSION http://www.subdimension.com/freemail subDIMENSION freemail accounts are for personal use only, commercial use of our service is prohibited, and there is a zero-tolarance policy regarding SPAM of any type.Ê subDIMENSION is a collaboration of professional web developers, content contributers and users from around the world whose goal is to form a community based on the ideas of its constituency with the website being a collection of tools for its users to communicate and interact -- not just on subDIMENSION, but on the Internet at large. I signed up for a subDIMENSION account a few months ago and so far no problems. ___ GMX This is a German-based free email service, and like most things technical and German, it is very well done. You can get free POP 3 and Webmail access (GMX FreeMail Classic),Êwith 10 MB of server storage space, and anti-SPAM protection If you don’t have German, you will find the following free Web translation services extremely helpful for the signup procedure: I do have some German, but I still found them a great help. I’ve had a gmx emal account for about six months, and it has been completely reliable. ___ ZapZone The ZapZone Web-based E-mail service allows you to pick from a wide variety of available domain names, or to make up one of your own. You can check your mail at your own domain Web page, or sign up for free POP 3 if you agree to have one advertisement per month sent to your email address. Seems fair to me. In six months of use, I have no complaints. Inbox.lv Inbox.lv is the largest provider of free Web-based email in Latvia. Inbox.lv offers 8MB of storage space. If you do not sign in to your @inbox.lv account for 60 days, or if you do not sign-in within the first 10 days, your account will b e marked “inactive.”Stored e-mail and addresses will be deleted, and inbound mail will be refused. If your account stays “inactive” for over a period of 90 days, it may be permanently deleted. Inbox.lv can be viewed in a variety of languages. You can make the language of a Inbox.lv session match the language of the Sign In page used to begin that session. You currently have your choice of: English, Latvian and Russian. Inbox.lv offers both Web-based and POP3 access to mailboxes and messages. I’ve been testing Inbox/lv for a couple of months, and so far it’s been reliable. No SMTP support, though. You have to send mail through your ISP’s server. FreyasLand This is another service of Zapzone, but with a less complex signup procedure. HowlerMonkey This one is a bit different, in that you are required to provide your valid home address and wait for HowlerMonkey to send you your login and password info by snail mail. This is an anti-SPAM strategy, and I suspect it works well. I’ve never received any SPAM I can recall from the howlermonkey domain. Both POP3 and outgoing SMTP services are offered (POP before SMTP authentication) and you get 3MB of disk space for storing messages. The service places a text ad on the bottom of every message passing through the system. If it’s intresting, read it, there is usually a link in it to click on if you want to visit a web page to learn more. No interest? Drive on. Beats paying bills. Only 10 recipients per email. HowlerMonkey SPAM policy: “We AGRESSIVELY fight spam, and will do anything in our power to make a spammer’s life unhappy. if you are looking for someone to help you to spam, you best look someplace else, we crave your gonads as a neck tie. You are a parasite, and a public nuisance, and usually refuse to pay the fees of a ‘legitimate’ mass mailing firm.” SoftHome http://www.SoftHome.net/services/email.html Softhome is a dedicated email service. I’ve had an account with them for several years. There is also an upgraded for-fee Professional service available ______ And finally, if Apple is in any mood to grant a reprieve, you can share your thoughts in the .mac farrago here: Note, however, that MacInTouch reports that:
MacInTouch reader Jim Longo noted: “I have watched dozens of mostly polite posts disappear from the OSX .Mac discussion forums at Apple. I can’t believe that after making such a horrendous decision they can’t stand up to the criticism.” And The register’s Andrew Orlowski notes that “Apple sysadmins have been furiously busy deleting the complaints that flooded Apple’s own technical forums...” This may help get their attention:
You can sign on here: A. David Cooper, MacDirectory Editor, writes:
The entire article can be found here. More reaction:
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