Apple Updates .Mac.

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Author: Seff, Jonathan

When large Web sites such as Yahoo and Google started offering free e-mail accounts with huge amounts of storage, as well as online community features, Apple's .Mac (www.mac.com) began showing its age. But now Apple has updated its suite of e-mail, online storage, and Web-hosting tools with several improvements and new features.

Each $100-per-year .Mac account now gets a total of 1GB (up from 256MB) of combined iDisk and e-mail storage, while the $180 Family Pack â€" which includes a master account and five subaccounts â€" provides a total 2GB of storage. (Users can purchase an additional 1GB of storage for an extra $50 a year.) Note that .Mac doesn't provide a connection to the Internet â€" you need separate high-speed or dial-up access to use it.

For people who share large amounts of content on their .Mac HomePages (small software developers, for example, or people with lots of movies), even more important than storage is bandwidth.

The latest version of .Mac includes 10GB of data transfer per month for individual accounts, up from 3GB (and members who purchase the additional 1GB of storage get a total of 25GB of data transfer every month).

Apple (like other companies that host data for customers) gives .Mac users a set amount of bandwidth for the transfer of data from an account per month. Hit the limit, and you can't transfer any more data until the next month. Apple still doesn't give you any way to see how much bandwidth you have remaining, or a way to pay for more if you go over your limit, however. .Mac also includes Backup 3, the latest version of Apple's backup utility. The update adds preset backup plans for iLife content (including purchased music), Home folders, and other essential files; automatic backup scheduling to CDs and DVDs; incremental backups; advanced file restoration; built-in Spotlight searching; and the ability to back up more than one Mac to your iDisk.

Another addition is .Mac Groups, a community feature that allows many .Mac members to connect with one another. Group members can e-mail everyone in a group with a single address; share iDisk space for posting images, movies, and other files; create group Web pages; and make shared iCal calendars.

Online retailers such as Amazon.com usually sell .Mac subscriptions at a discount â€" as low as $78 at press time (you can also renew a current account this way).

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By Jonathan Seff