Goodbye Dot Mac

Anyone who knows this geek knows that I'm a kool-aid drinkin' Apple fanatic. That's why it might surprise you to learn that I've decided to let my dot Mac account expire this year. I mean, just having the "@mac.com" at the end of my email address was worth the price of admission for many years (I'm aware of how sad that sounds). Here's my short explanation of why I decided to let it die.

Well, the main reason I was willing to pay for an email account every year was the extra I got with it. Initially, .mac web hosting and iDisk storage was the draw. Very quickly, I realized that ordinary hosting services were just as good or better as long as you know how to set them up and have the right software to use for website publishing. There was still the draw of online storage via iDisk that kept me renewing year after year.

Enter the iPhone. The "over-the-air" sync of calendars and contacts was definitely worth the $99/year all by itself. Now that I have that feature, I can't imagine doing business without it. Lucky for Apple too because I almost dropped my .mac (MobileMe...I hate the new name) last year after multiple serious iDisk issues but I needed to keep my iPhone's "over-the-air" sync. However, Last year, I bought a Dropbox Pro account and gave up on iDisk. It just doesn't work.

The last nail in my MobileMe's coffin was Google's incorporation of "over-the-air" sync between Google Calendar and iPhone. I've been watching my wife's use of it for over a month now and it works just like MobileMe but it's free.

Besides the emotional satisfaction I find in having "@mac.com" after my name in my email address, there's no reason for me to keep the service any longer. So when it expires in April 2011, I'll be without a .Mac account for the first time in, I think, over 7 years. I've held out for as long as I can. I've been reading people asking the same question for years..."Should I renew my .Mac?" I'm finally answering "no".