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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1109
.Mac extended deadline hits, unpaid accounts to go dark
By Michael Flaminio, Insanely Great Mac
October 14th 2002
Monday is the final day for the .Mac free trial. The trial period was extended two
weeks from September 30th.
iTools users who have not yet upgraded to .Mac will lose their Mac.com accounts, for
real this time. October 14 is the deadline for iTools users to decide if .Mac is for
them. The deadline was extended from September 30. Apple stated that it wanted to give
customers more time to upgrade to .Mac without losing service. One reason for the
extension could be the release of a public beta of iSync, which uses .Mac to sync
multiple Macs together. iSync beta was released September 29, one day before .Mac was
to go pay-only.
On October 1, Apple announced 180,000 users subscribed to .Mac. Apple described the
numbers as a success, however, some rumors suggested Apple was targeting higher
numbers. Other incentives have been offered apparently to help get customers to pony
up the cash for .Mac. .Mac is also now available under special educational pricing.
The educational pricing slims a year of .Mac to $59, but requires a minimum of 10
subscribers and must be purchased through an educational institution. The educational
version also skimps out on storage space over the regular service. Apple also recently
stated that current .Mac usernames would remain available, even if service is not paid
for. This, according to Apple, will give current users an incentive to upgrade
accounts later on when the service fits the needs of individual users.
Other .Mac topics in the news lately has been the service's reliability, or lack there
of. .Mac has been victim of at least two major outages that were widely noticed by
many subscribers. Apple recently addressed service performance, stating equipment
problems resulted in service failure. Apple has committed to fix the problems and is
asking customers' understanding during the "transition."
.Mac is available for $50 for existing iTools users' first year or $100 for newbies.
After the trial period ends, all subscription will cost $100, including renews for
iTools users.
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