Tuesday, July 23, 2002
I was extremely furious about the change from free iDisk to .Mac when it was announced at Macworld New York. I have signed the online petition as well. However, after reading Adam Engst's column on www.tidbits.com, I find that he makes very good points on the value of .Mac.
Essentially, I'm suggesting an iTools/.Mac compromise in which .Mac has all these additional features while iTools just has limited features that serve as a trial or attraction for people to adopt .Mac if they are willing to pay for it.
1. Why not adopt Adam Engst's suggestion of keeping the mac.com email address free? This significantly reduces the bandwidth and disk space requirements of a free service but still helps promote the use of the Mac.
2. Adam Engst pointed out that .Mac features are built into Mac OS X itself and into applications like iPhoto: "It doesn't look good if high-profile functionality like having the iDisk be available from a Finder menu or HomePage publishing of Web photo albums simply doesn't work if you're not a .Mac member. It's poor user interface, and a poor user experience." So why not continue to offer free iDisk space but only, say 10-20Mb worth? People might still opt for the 100 Mb that .Mac would offer. And all the new features would only be available on a paid .Mac account.
3. This allows you to still attract students like myself and other users who wouldn't pay for a .Mac account because it's too expensive, but would love to enjoy the Mac experience anyway. I think that you are still trying to attract people to buy the Mac and iTools was a very strong attraction in the past. Buying into .Mac doesn't make sense without buying an iBook or iMac, so if you can attract buyers in the first place and alienate your existing customers in the process ... then what's the point?
This was a very risky decision for you guys to make, right in the middle of the initially popular "switch" campaign. Instead of having millions of unpaid supporters who would have helped your campaign for new users, you're losing 70% of them. See Tidbit's poll on this subject.
This is the first time that Apple ostensibly aped Microsoft rather than the other way 'round.
Think different. Not like Bill Gates.
The Sith have inflitrated Apple's finance department, Obi Wan.
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