For those of you who have known me for a significant amount of time, you have likely received some form of Apple iCard from me. I used to love that service dearly. It was part of the .Mac suite of webpages from Apple. The beauty of the site is that it was populated with beautiful images, enabled you to use it whether on a mac or IBM (shudder), included absolutely no spam whatsoever, and was embedded as an image into an e-mail message that was sent to the e-mail you specified. It was simple, beautiful, and just darn worked.
Now, I have the unfortunate frustration of trying to find another solution that is similar and as easy on the receiver as iCards was. 
No fun, Apple. So, Apple iCards is no iMore because of the introduction of Apple’s often frustrating often hated MobileMe push service for the iPhone. [ptooey]
Sad day indeed.
3 Comments
For those of you who loved Apple’s iCard service, here’s an online petition for you…
http://www.petitiononline.com/06291970/petition.html
I am very upset with Apple for nixing the .Mac services… especially iCards.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/macsmiley/2652541101/
They were simple, they were elegant, and they didn’t plaster recipients with advertisements, HTML, and flashing GIFS.
I got responses from sending iCards I never got from sending emails… not even emails with pictures. The combination of whimsical images and text in one small, savable JPEG in the iCard message was hard to resist.
Despite a couple of homemade alternatives, iWant Apple iCards Back!!
There are actually two petitions clamoring for Apple to bring back iCards. Feel free to join the chorus! Here’s the second one:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ic110608/petition.html
Meanwhile, Apple seems to be doing everything in its power to block feedback about .Mac/MobileMe.
Apple’s Discussion moderators deleted this comment from an iCards thread, so I’m plastering it all over the Web:
“Everyone, call Apple Customer Relations at this number to complain (I found it was the best # to call after trying several). They say number of complaints matters:
1-800-767-2775 ”
— k2graphics
Hi k2,
Thanks a ton for stopping in and leaving a comment. I appreciate it. I’m with you 100%. The only thing that worries me is that Apple really can’t care too much about something they offered for free, that most people didn’t even know about. That’s the problem.
But, perhaps if enough people raise up and ask about it, they’ll see the error of their ways. Heck, they could even put a little ad link discretely at the bottom of each e-mail with a link to the Apple Store or something. I hate suggesting any type of ads, as it seems these days ads are prolific and pretty horrible. But, make it discrete enough and I’d still use iCards.
Sad day indeed.
Stop by anytime, k2. I appreciate your comment!
-Allen