Image not in archive — .Mac
Back in 2002 Apple offered this free service called iTools, a simple backup solution with some adequate email. It didn't last long because in July 2002 Apple announced .Mac (dot-mac). .Mac was immediately criticised as being expensive and nothing better than the previously free iTools. Due to a lack of advocates Apple tweaked with the package a little and eventually caved to pressure and released a referral program allowing a 20% discount for the next paid year of .Mac for every customer they referred.
As time has passed Apple has slowly expanded the .Mac service but to this day it receives negative views due to its price, these comments were particularly deep seated after Google released its free 1GB Mail service, .Mac's 100MB storage was no match. Currently two of the five iLife applications integrate nicely with .Mac allowing users to share photo's and movies easily online, backup software is included and users can synchronise Calendars, Contacts and Safari Bookmarks between several computers using iSync.
Finally on the 20th September 2005 Apple upgraded .Mac to include 1GB of storage from the previous 250MB and released Version 3 of its Backup software, it also added .Mac groups, a facility for friends and family to chat across the world in private.
Image not in archive — Backup 3