Question about Max OS X upgrades

[Jon P. Inghram]

Lets say, for example, someone has a Mac mini already, and then next month (according to rumors at least) Tiger comes out. Do they have to pay the full price to upgrade to 10.4 from 10.3?

[KeiFront]

I'm not sure about it but I believe they have to pay the full price. http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/

Only when one buys a new mac and Tiger (10.4) is already released they receive a free upgrade. It sometimes happens that Mac are still preinstalled with an older version (Panther 10.3).

[Wombat]

Yeah, I'd wait for 10.4

Also, it might be worth looking into, but Apple might have some price protection - if you buy a machine X days before 10.4 comes out, you might still be able to get it.

[Jessterw]

If you purchase a new Mac in a certain period of time prior to the release of Tiger, you will be eligible for a free upgrade. This is true of the new iLife suite as well (or was as it were). It's generally a month or two prior, but I've no knowledge of the specific time period for free upgrades to Tiger.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Ok, I had told my parents to get a Mac mini when and if they get tired of their current HP, just didn't want them to have to end up paying an extra $150.

[UtwigMU]

This is the joy of Apple which looks great, is supercomuter, comes with perfect OS, is open unlike evil Microsoft and comes with ton of free apps and OS compatibility support is great.



The 150$ OS upgrade per year is called the Apple tax, there's also Apple tax in paying too much for hardware manufactured by ECS/PCChips group among other "reputable" Taiwaneese/Chinese makers, who also make hardware for "Wintel" PCs, only Macs are "better".

[Jon P. Inghram]

This is the joy of Apple which looks great, is supercomuter, comes with perfect OS, is open unlike evil Microsoft and comes with ton of free apps and OS compatibility support is great.



The 150$ OS upgrade per year is called the Apple tax, there's also Apple tax in paying too much for hardware manufactured by ECS/PCChips group among other "reputable" Taiwaneese/Chinese makers, who also make hardware for "Wintel" PCs, only Macs are "better".

I'm an Amiga user by heart so to me PC's and Macs are abominations (and that includes Unix/Linux/BSD/insert other Unix variants here) but unfortunatly there's not much choice anymore.

However, from what I have read it looks like OS X is much nicer for people who would rather not know what's going on "behind the curtains" which sounds perfect for my mom.

[Sasq]

It is nice to use, very easy, help and explinations are good.
and while it hides most things behind the curtains, it is still possible to get into the core and do Power User level things when needed.

[Kurt]

I'm an Amiga user by heart so to me PC's and Macs are abominations (and that includes Unix/Linux/BSD/insert other Unix variants here) but unfortunatly there's not much choice anymore.

However, from what I have read it looks like OS X is much nicer for people who would rather not know what's going on "behind the curtains" which sounds perfect for my mom.

There's always the new Amiga with Amiga OS 4. Still pricey but there's hope...

As for Apple...well...you can buy into Macs if you can afford to buy a new Mac every 3 years (because they won't support your old mac for much more, i.e. no new features, impossible to connect to the internet because they won't update whatever components Mac OS now _absolutely_ needs for TCP/IP -IPv6- etc , not to mention hardware changes).

Every point release is a _new_ OS in their eyes, so it's full price, and don't buy a Mac in December, wait for them to chop the price by 25% in January/February. Can't tell you how much customers are happy when they come back to us to see Apple has slashed prices 3 weeks after they bought it (and they don't warn the channel of course, but we're used to it by now...).

[Wombat]

There's always the new Amiga with Amiga OS 4. Still pricey but there's hope...

As for Apple...well...you can buy into Macs if you can afford to buy a new Mac every 3 years (because they won't support your old mac for much more, i.e. no new features, impossible to connect to the internet because they won't update whatever components Mac OS now _absolutely_ needs for TCP/IP -IPv6- etc , not to mention hardware changes).

Every point release is a _new_ OS in their eyes, so it's full price, and don't buy a Mac in December, wait for them to chop the price by 25% in January/February. Can't tell you how much customers are happy when they come back to us to see Apple has slashed prices 3 weeks after they bought it (and they don't warn the channel of course, but we're used to it by now...).

What's your point? I don't see MS adding new features all the time for free. And Apple charges for point releases? So what? 10.2 vs. 10.3 is like W2K vs. WinXP. Did you expect MS to give that away for free?

You're complaining about price slashing? Maybe they should be like MS in this regard? Never, ever, drop their prices?

[Kurt]

What's your point? I don't see MS adding new features all the time for free. And Apple charges for point releases? So what? 10.2 vs. 10.3 is like W2K vs. WinXP. Did you expect MS to give that away for free?

You're complaining about price slashing? Maybe they should be like MS in this regard? Never, ever, drop their prices?

Simply, I can browse the Net even in Win3x (possibly DOS but frankly, I don't feel like trying). Try the TCP fun with that old Mac (not mentioning the SLIP/PPP mess). I don't expect Apple to give away it's OS, but even MS doesn't release a new OS every year. Point releases should be treated like SPs - free.

Price slashing of 25% when you just bought a computer is hard to swallow. Not talking about software.

You're right that XP is close to 2K, but at least it's different enough so yo uwon't mind the change (even elcome it) and 2K is old enough so you don't mind paying for the new soft. Not the case with OS X 10.0/10.1/10.2/10.3. That's 600$ in 4 years, even MS doesn't charge that much, and you MUST upgrade to 10.3, especially if you have erm...10.0/10.1/10.2 (10.2 is borderline tough). Then what, 10.4? 10.5? etc. Don't mistake me, I love Apple products, but I've never like the way the company acts. It's a bit like Matrox...they have this chance to be grand...but then act like total asses.

[Jessterw]

You also have to look at what you get with each release of the OS. There are enough new features in Tiger to make it worth the price.

Oh and there are people still happily running previous versions of OS X and even OS 9 and prior that can access the net. A large number of print houses do in fact.

[Kurt]

You also have to look at what you get with each release of the OS. There are enough new features in Tiger to make it worth the price.

Oh and there are people still happily running previous versions of OS X and even OS 9 and prior that can access the net. A large number of print houses do in fact.

I'm sure about that, but ti's not the exactly the point.

What I'm saying is this: with Apple/Mac you usually have to upgrade your OS so you can install current apps (check the requirements on the boxes). To be able to upgrade the OS, you need to have equipment that is supported by such OS. And that's a problem because Apple has a very short support cycle. Microsoft is 7 years (usually) and then you get extended support (= you pay for it).

So it basically amounts to this: you have to buy a new Mac every 3 years to run your apps.

A practical example: my Mom has an 2nd generation iMac (Strawberry if you must know) and a nifty Powerbook G4. Guess what? She can't connect both of them using the Mac OS 8.1 on her iMac. Already putting MacOS 8.6 is not possible as her iMac is not supported. BUT she needs Mac OS9 to connect easily to Mac OS X (she's got a ZIP drive, so it's not really an issue).

The iMac is a G3 266MHz with 256MB RAM. If it were a PC of equivalent "power" I could put win2k on it and do pretty much all I want. But no, it's a Mac. So, the only thing I can do is buy a new one, more powerful, supported by Apple. I find that kind of sad -then again, Apple NEEDS the new sale, every time...

[Sasq]

just feel the urge to point out that OS 8.1 was released 1998-03-02

quick finger count... 7
so exactly when did she buy the iMac?

[UtwigMU]

Comparable box to 98 imac 266 would be PII 350/128MB/6GB/Matrox G200 or TNT or V2 - I remember it was also cheaper or you could get much better specs for same money as with imac (probably by now upped to 256 or 512MB, 348MB or 768MB, depending on the board was the max). Such box would have no problem running Windows 2000 or Windows XP (provided you have 256MB or more RAM and enough hdd space) and you would only have problem running apps such as Adobe CS, AutoCAD (SSE3 requirement, which can be fixed by dropping in ~500MHz PIII for 15-25€ 2nd hand) and Adobe Premiere Pro.

Apple is more expensive and it depends on you whether the extra price is worth it.