| So now that you know what you can do with .Mac and how the iApps fit to enhance your .Mac experience, let's look at what you get with your .Mac membership: -
A Mac.com email account with 15 MB of storage space on Apple's .Mac servers. You can access your .Mac mail over the Web via IMAP, or download messages directly to your Mac using POP. In addition to your one Mac.com email address, you can also have up to five email aliases at any given time, which you can use as a way of masking your real Mac.com email address to protect yourself from possible spamming . -
An iDisk with 100 MB of space for storing, backing up, and sharing files. Your iDisk is also used for serving up your .Mac HomePage, which can include Photo Album pages you create with iPhoto or the movies you create with iMovie. -
HomePage web building tools (based on Apple's own WebObjects technology), which you can use to build your own web site and host it on the .Mac servers (http://homepage.mac.com / membername ). -
Backup, a Cocoa-based backup and recovery application that lets you back up data from your Mac to your iDisk, CD, or DVD, or to an external or networked drive. -
Virex (from Network Associates and McAfee Software), anti-virus software for Mac OS X. Virex can be used to scan email attachments and the files on your hard drive for viruses, in order to protect your Mac from viruses that plague other systems. -
Address Book, iCal, and Safari Bookmark syncing with the aid of iSync. Once your contacts, calendars, and bookmarks have been synced to your iDisk, you can gain access to your vital information using any web browser from any platform, including Windows and Linux machines. Once synchronized, your iCal calendars can be viewed over the Web, making it easy for your friends , family, and colleagues to keep track of what you're up to. -
iCards (send electronic postcards) that you can send to your friends and family, as well as create custom iCards from digital images on your computer. -
Easy access to .Mac's Customer Support team. You'll also be able to discuss problems with other .Mac users and get answers from Apple's customer service representatives. -
The .Mac Learning Center gives you quick access to online tutorials to help you learn more about Mac OS X, its applications and utilities, as well as .Mac itself. The Learning Center also provides access to relevant articles from Apple's Knowledge Base and TechNotes so you can stay on top of the latest happenings with Mac OS X and .Mac. -
Mac Slides Publisher, a standalone application that can be used for creating .Mac screensavers. Once you've created a .Mac slide show, that screensaver can be shared with anyone else who is using a Mac OS X system (Jaguar, Panther, or higher). -
FreePlay Music, thousands of free AAC-encoded audio tracks that you can use as background tracks for use with iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, Final Cut Express, and Final Cut Pro  | You're not restricted to using the FreePlay Music clips with Apple's applications; you can also use them with any image or sound-editing tool. The only real restriction is that the FreePlay Music clips are provided for personal use only; they are not intended for commercial use. | |
In addition to all this, .Mac members are given exclusive access to QuickTime-based training sessions to help them learn more about their Macs, discounts on select software, a free VersionTracker Plus membership, free games , exclusive sound effects from Skywalker Sound (in MP3 format), and more. When you think about it, there really is a lot more to Apple's .Mac service than meets the eye. |
