Issues with .Mac groups

Ian Hobson (apparently) - 04:39pm Sep 28, 2005 PST
via email

A note on the new groups feature which your readers may want to be
aware of:

While having many interesting features and ease-of-use via adoption
of Webdav and iCal shared calendars which puts it in a position to
comfortably beat yahoogroups (a free but ad-based service), there are
some holes.

Particularly, there is the bizarre situation in which any of the
following .mac users can theoretically use the group's iDisk:
- Primary .mac account holder and group owner
- Trial .mac account holder and group member
- Expired .mac account holder and group member
- Expired trial .mac account holder and group member.

So, if you've used .mac on a trial basis and cancelled, or just used
the id for iChat or for the iTMS then you're fine. You can open the
group's iDisk and drop photos in the photos section, files in the
public section etc. BUT, here's the strange situation. If you have
an e-mail only account through another .mac account holder, you
CANNOT access the iDisk features (your login/password information
will not be accepted). This is actually documented I believe in one
part of the site, but is not mentioned in others. Indeed in
promotional literature sent out by Apple, it is not mentioned at all.

This significantly restricts the usefulness of the groups feature for
my intended purpose as a number of people I know will be in exactly
that situation. Rather ironic that they are paying Apple for a
service, and yet are in the LEAST-functional category of users.

Regards
Ian