.mac backup?

**plastic** · September 2nd, 2002, 05:51 AM

I guess in some ways we were looking at the average cost for a student. This is why the basing starts because $99 for an average student from an average family seems like an awful lot of money, given the unemployment rate and family income has been reduced because of the slowing economy. In Asia, the situation is even much worse as compared to America. So I guess this is how the bashing began. Apple might want to look at special packages that is more affordable for students or modify their marketing strategy. That would help lots and win hearts back.

**Ghoser777** · September 2nd, 2002, 10:54 AM

I think that's part of the reason why the dropped the price to $49 (at least for this year). People complained and the market took care of the situation. I believe they will be integrating more technologies into it in the future, like iCal and whatever big thing is next. No, think about this one:

$99/year = $8.25 a month. That less than most IPs charge you for a 56k modem connection per month. Add in that there's plenty of people that will be connecting to the their .Mac account over broundband, and suddenly $8.25 a month isn't too bad. Really, that's just one hour of work for me (I make $8.40 an hour), and at worst two hours of work at atny other college job. If you really want a .Mac account, I really can't see it as being such an economic hinderance.

I'm a college student too, but this $8.25 a month is a lot less than what I'm paying off my iBook loan per month and what I'll have to be paying my student loans with.

Oh, and one more thing - if all you want is an email account, just find like 4 other people on campus that want one and buy one .Mac account. I'm pretty sure it supports up to 5 email accounts. $8.25/5 = $1.65 per month, or about the cost of a bag of chips and a 20 iz drink.

Matt Fahrenbacher

J5 · September 2nd, 2002, 11:53 AM

To be honest.. I don't want a .mac account. I'm not a student either. My complaint is that something like "backup" should have been a part of Jaguar. The ability to backup to an idisk would be a feature of .mac. The money isn't the issue, it's the fact that you never finish paying for it (vs paying off your ibook loan). Backup is the first thing I've seen in .mac that I want, but I don't see why I'd need an internet service to burn cd's, other than pure economics.

I got the sourceforge approval for "opendotmac" today. It sais it will take a few days for the dns to get going. I'll put up the list of features I've started once the dns's are working.

j5

**plastic** · September 2nd, 2002, 12:32 PM

J5, keep us posted. Thanks.

**Ghoser777** · September 2nd, 2002, 12:37 PM

They don't burn CDs, they just keep a duplicate of your info on their servers in Cupertino or where-ever. Not all backup has to be on CDs or other types of removeable media.

Lots of other things aren't ever paid off, like utilities, property tax, food, etc. The fact that you keep using Apple's resources (aka bandwidth) justifies a monthly fee. They don't charge me forever for my iBook because if I keep using it, it won't cost Apple a dime more.

There's nothing wrong with providing a backup alternative that fits your needs better than what apple is providing, but I sense way too much venom in this discusision. Apple can't make everyone happy, and when they try, they end up with Watson-esque fiascos. Should people be outraged if Apple incorporates an idea that other third party developers have been working on for some time? They're screwed no matter what they do.

You can argue that it probably would have been a good idea to include, but I think I could argue successfully that more people are going to use the anti-virus feature of .Mac than any backup feature we're talking about. That's not to say it isn't a good idea, just it wasn't a priority. And what ever whole apple leaves open, the market place should rush to fill, like you're attempting to do.

Matt Fahrenbacher

**mr_mac_x** · September 2nd, 2002, 09:31 PM

Originally posted by Ghoser777
They don't burn CDs, they just keep a duplicate of your info on their servers in Cupertino or where-ever. Not all backup has to be on CDs or other types of removeable media.

Nobody ever said that Apple would burn CDs for you. But what they did say is that if you want to burn your own Backup CDs and DVDs with your own CD/DVD burner, why should you need to be connected to the internet and paying for an internet service package?

Of course, I can't answer that question, so I would like to see a third party Backup style application.

**Ghoser777** · September 2nd, 2002, 09:53 PM

I thought that was what J5 was getting at, but I guess not. Anyway, .Mac is an internet service, so its no suprise that the backup feature built into .Mac is an internet service.

So, this idea that apple bundling an internet backup solution with an internet package is somehow a bad thing is beyond me. Should they have made one that lets you do local backups? Sure. Oh well. Maybe they should make a defragger to, and every other application that a third party makes right now. There's no reason why they have to implement every solution possible, they just need to provide several attractive ones. And I'm sorry, backup to CDs isn't probably making everyone all giddish when they buy a new mac. iMovie and other digital hub apps will. That's where there priorities are.

Plus, does everyone realize there are already a couple back up apps for OS X? Search on vt and u'll find several, such as:

Synchronize Pro
Dantz Retrospect
FoldersSynchronizer
and many more

So if you want a free solution, that's fine. I'm just trying to calm people down - this isn't a huge Apple blunder by any means.