My recent letter to Apple:

Dear Apple,
I knew it was too good to be true! I sign up for .Mac, but hardly use it over the years. Then iLife '06 comes along with great new tools for blogging and podcasting. So I get into doing both. (This is a great way to promote .Mac and iWeb.) I put up a blog and a video podcast. I also upgraded to the family plan so that my family could more easily have their own web presence ($179.95/year instead of $99/year) My video podcast started to do well and I was quickly eating up my 25GB/month bandwidth limit. So I upgrade my .Mac to the 4GB storage-250GB/month bandwidth plan ($99.95 more/year - new total $278.95/year). My podcast continued to do well! This month I hit the bi-monthly 125GB limit in the first 6 days of June. Rather than charge me a overage fee or sell me a bigger plan, Apple's solution is to SHUT ME OFF for 10 days until 6/16. Greaaaaat. So now I'm in the process of moving my podcast to a "real service." Thanks Apple for punishing me for my success!

P.S. You also made it so easy for me to redirect my iTunes RSS feed to the new host with iWeb - NOT!

__________________________

MUG members, while it may sound like I'm sour on .Mac, I'm really not. I still think .Mac is a wonderful solution for the average user. I just want Apple to realize that to come out with great technology is one thing, to back it up with great service is another. They are the only provider I know that punishes you for being successful. Other providers use that as an opportunity to extract more money out of you with bigger plans or overage fees (both of which are better than shutting your service OFF).

There also doesn't appear to be a way to downgrade back to 1 or 2GB of storage/25GB bandwidth/month.

You just have to wonder ....?

So on Monday I go to the Apple store and buy a iMac use it , then go back the next day and buy a G5 tower, use it, then the next day I figure I reall need a XServe and the guy at the Apple store refuses to sell it to me.

Same logic ----

Or, you go over your cell phone minutes and you receive a voicemail stating that your service has been shut off until the next billing cycle because you went over. Nope, nada, no more phone calls until next month. Would you still use that wireless provider?

The good news is that the folks at the iTMS have responded to my letter and are working with me to get the issues resolved.

My NEW Podcast location is up and running: http://creativesuitepodcast.com
Hopefully subscribing to it via the iTMS will be fixed tomorrow.

quote:

Originally posted by Calvin:
You just have to wonder ....?

So on Monday I go to the Apple store and buy a iMac use it , then go back the next day and buy a G5 tower, use it, then the next day I figure I reall need a XServe and the guy at the Apple store refuses to sell it to me.

Same logic ----

Wow!
I must say that I'm impressed! "Pete" from the iTMS worked with me most of the day today to not only get my issues resolved with .Mac, but to also get my request through to get my account downgraded (back down to the basic family plan per my request). He was even able to get my sites "unblocked" and everything is working again! It certainly renewed my faith in Apple. They admittedly have .Mac pricing issues to work out and this problem caused a healthy discussion with the powers that be.

Please help my ignorance,,,,why do you need extra bandwidth? with web sites.......Overusage? etc....

My Creative Suite "VIDEO" podcast was there and chewing up 125GB of bandwidth in just 6 days.

quote:

Originally posted by janp:
Please help my ignorance,,,,why do you need extra bandwidth? with web sites.......Overusage? etc....

OK, now I really feel good. I just got a call from a .Mac representative to make sure that everything was OK and to my satisfaction. Wow! They even issued a refund for the extra bandwidth charge.

The prominent Thank You is a beautiful thing to see, Terry. One of the negative types would have started a lawsuit by now. Apple doesn't always have the best tech support, but when given a chance to rectify things, they generally come through.