Apple Updates .Mac

In addition to new iMacs, new software (iLife and iWork), and a new keyboard, Apple announced an update to its .Mac online service. Some new features require iLife ’08 (Web Galleries, which provide very nice ways to present photos and videos), but one big change is the amount of disk space members have. From a mere one gigabyte, Apple has upped the amount to 10 GB, with a monthly bandwidth limit of 100 GB. In addition, you can now send an receive e-mail messages of up to 20 MB with your mac.com e-mail address.

.Mac is not cheap, as there are other solutions that are free or cheaper than the $100 list price, but the seamless integration with Mac OS X makes it worthwhile. I’ve noticed that, since the update, upload and download speeds to my iDisk have improved, and an iDisk is a great way to get big files to and from colleagues and friends.

Note that while Apple sells .Mac for $100, Amazon.com has it for only $80, and you can buy it both as a first-time subscription and as a renewal, saving about $20 a year.