.Mac Upgraded!

As of 12 AM Tuesday morning, .Mac has received a serious upgrade. Standard members now receive 1 GB of combined email/idisk/web storage, while upgraded members and family packs now receive a total of 2 GB.

Backup has received a major upgrade to version 3, offering a host of new customization and features such as: Preset backup plans for iLife content and other Mac essentials, automatic scheduling to CDs and DVDs, incremental backups, advanced file restoration and the ability to back up more than one Mac to your iDisk.

One major new feature I have yet to play with is Groups – "your place to get connected with friends and family online." It looks like you can set up a dedicated .Mac page for a specific event or organization that can be a sort of home base for announcements, photos, a calendar of events and more.

This is all I can tell for now, but stay tuned for more new features and tidbits on what Apple's upgraded with .Mac. Here's hoping they listened to previous complaints from users, and who knows – maybe they even listened to our podcast. Feel free to let us know your initial reactions to what's new, what's changed and what still needs an upgrade in the comments!