When I first started using OS X earlier this year, one of the first things I did was sign up for a .mac trial. This gave me 60 days of the full service, including the @mac.com email address. After the novelty had worn of, ohhh about 5 minutes after signing up, I didn’t use it again. You see, the problem was it didn’t actually do anything that you couldn’t find elsewhere for free. The syncing was no use to me as I only use one machine, and Gmail IMAP is perfect for me as it is.

Now, rumours are circulating that along with the impending release of firmware 2.0/3G iPhone we could also see a complete revamp of the .mac service. The changes expected are:

• Over-the-air syncing of your contacts, calendars and emails etc
• .mac syncing on Windows
• Push email !!!!!

Admittedly the only thing in there of interest to me is the push email. Yahoo do offer this yes, but in my experience it’s flakey at best, and I can’t be doing with ads at the bottom of my emails. Obviously the other two changes are to combat Exchange, with support the that to come in the next firmware.

So, all that said, will I be subscribing to .mac after the re-launch? Probably not, no. Will you?

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