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costabunny

macrumors 68020
May 15, 2008
2,466
71
Weymouth, UK
I would say mainly because they want to get iAd out to as large a consumer base as possible.

just my opinion here of course....
 

nlensander

macrumors member
Mar 7, 2010
46
0
They are giving it out free because the majority of people stuck with their 2nd generation or 1st generation before this and they will have to upgrade to be able to take advantage of the multitasking

Just a thought
 

Hadron

macrumors 6502
Apr 13, 2010
325
247
They are giving it out free because the majority of people stuck with their 2nd generation or 1st generation before this and they will have to upgrade to be able to take advantage of the multitasking

But they're offering it free for the 2nd generation touch (though it won't multitask), which reduces their incentive to upgrade.

It might be that they want to sell books to more people, but I fear that the person who suggested iAd as the motivation may be right.
 

Mugambo

macrumors 6502
Jul 4, 2009
286
0
Recently, Apple announced the iPhone 4. On the page, it has a link to the iOS 4 page. It says the update will be free for iPhone and iPod Touch users. Why would apple make 4.0 free, if 3.0 cost $10? I just don't get it.

Because they will shove ads down our throats via iAds and all those ads will pay for our upgrades. That is one way for advertising to get onto the most talked about phone in 4 years! THAT is why its free.
 

Hadron

macrumors 6502
Apr 13, 2010
325
247
Is iAd a good thing to me? When I watch television I fast forward ads!!! are there any pro's for a general user.....

Unless you think it's a pro to have ads on your iPod, not really.

Steve would tell you that it will allow devs to offer cheap/free apps, and that's how you benefit. Personally I think iAd usage sounds like a good reason not to install an app. But I'd guess that newspaper apps and suchlike are the obvious users, and if it's intrusive there are other ways to get that content.
 

rdowns

macrumors Penryn
Jul 11, 2003
27,397
12,521
It's free due to as change in accounting rules. Not worth getting into the complicated details.
 

Tom B.

macrumors 65816
Mar 22, 2006
1,459
0
London
The only reason the previous major software updates were not free was the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Due to recent changes to accounting standards, Apple is now allowed to add non-advertised features without charging extra.
 

Eso

macrumors 68020
Aug 14, 2008
2,032
937
It's free due to as change in accounting rules. Not worth getting into the complicated details.

Actually, it's free because a company can charge whatever it likes for it's products, independent of any GAAP. Apple just used the GAAP in the past as an excuse to charge $10 for OS upgrades, and you believed them.
 

McDughf

macrumors regular
Mar 1, 2007
103
0
Great Britain
I don't ever remember paying for an iPhone upgrade. Granted I started with a 3G handset which came with OS2, but the upgrade to OS3 was free.
I remember apple used to charge for upgrades on the iPod touch, but never iPhone.:confused:
 

cerote

macrumors 6502a
Mar 2, 2009
843
269
I don't ever remember paying for an iPhone upgrade. Granted I started with a 3G handset which came with OS2, but the upgrade to OS3 was free.
I remember apple used to charge for upgrades on the iPod touch, but never iPhone.:confused:

They are talking about the iPod touch. Hence why it is in the Ipod section. iPod owners had to pay for upgrades.
 

GFLPraxis

macrumors 604
Mar 17, 2004
7,152
460
Is iAd a good thing to me? When I watch television I fast forward ads!!! are there any pro's for a general user.....

Yes. You already have to deal with Google ads in apps- and if you accidentally click on them, they close the app and launch you into your web browser.

This just replaces those. And it means more free apps, as ads will be easier to implement.
 

renewed

macrumors 68040
Mar 24, 2009
3,068
7
Bemalte Blumen duften nicht.
Is iAd a good thing to me? When I watch television I fast forward ads!!! are there any pro's for a general user.....

Yes. You already have to deal with Google ads in apps- and if you accidentally click on them, they close the app and launch you into your web browser.

This just replaces those. And it means more free apps, as ads will be easier to implement.

Exactly. We get "free" minus the cable bill, TV shows due to Ads, we will get more free apps due to Ads as well.

Personally I didn't see what they showed off very intrusive so bring it on.
 

macfan881

macrumors 68020
Feb 22, 2006
2,345
0
Because they will shove ads down our throats via iAds and all those ads will pay for our upgrades. That is one way for advertising to get onto the most talked about phone in 4 years! THAT is why its free.

good lord if you watch the keynote you would find your post is wrong it will be a normal ad and nothing will show from the ad unless you click it and all the ads will stay on the apps.
 

easy4lif

macrumors 6502a
Mar 31, 2005
556
1,331
Southbay CA
everyone of the reasons above me are correct and I'll add one more. 3 months from now when jobs does his ipod keynote he'll start off with how the iOS4 is running on 75 to 90% of ipods and iphones and it accounts for over "X" amount of new ad revenue for developers via iAd & it still hasn't hit the iPad but it will come oct


it will be a big F**K U to googles android and make those developers/companies that haven't signed up for iAd service, do so.
 

NJMetsHero

macrumors regular
Jul 10, 2009
232
0
iAds. It's as simple as that. They make way more money putting ads on your iPod than charging you $10 dollars each. Anyone with a 1st or 2nd generation iPod wouldn't even upgrade most likely since we don't get most of the updates. All we're going to get is iAds basically. So they give it to you for free, give you a few updated features, and they give you ads.

I don't mind ads so much. If the apps have ads, than the developers will charge less for them, or even make them free. If they need to show me a few ads so I don't have to pay for content I want, I'm fine with that.
 
Feb 15, 2009
5,486
2
Boston, MA
It's been rumored that Apple couldn't make major OS upgrades free to iPod touch users because of licensing issues. Maybe they finally got those worked out.
 

kenypowa

macrumors 6502a
Oct 16, 2008
705
53
somewhere
I would say mainly because they want to get iAd out to as large a consumer base as possible.

just my opinion here of course....

The only reason is iAd. Apple is getting 40% of the cut, which is a ridiculously high margin. By making it free iAd will be available to a huge market, which means more advertisers will be more willing to advertise..
 

OGDaniel

macrumors 6502a
Dec 24, 2009
542
0
Arizona
Is iAd a good thing to me? When I watch television I fast forward ads!!! are there any pro's for a general user.....

That's up to you whether or not they're good. Why are you asking people what to think?

And what costabunny said was right. They wanna start banking on the iAds. A year from now, the iAds will be worth 800 million-1 billion dollars.

Also, since all of us 1g and 2g touch users won't have all the features supported, instead if paying $10 for half the new features on our old hardware, the majority of us would just jailbreak. And they don't want that.
 

0098386

Suspended
Jan 18, 2005
21,574
2,908
I would say mainly because they want to get iAd out to as large a consumer base as possible.

just my opinion here of course....

Exactly what I was thinking. They'll be raking it in with iAds.

Though I am surprised they're completely dropping support for older devices. I know they don't make up a huge %age of the market but there's still a lot of them out there.
 

IJBrekke

macrumors 6502a
Oct 24, 2009
648
754
Long Beach, CA
To supplement the iAd argument: keep in mind too that the only way they could charge for this would be to have ALL iOS4 features available to ALL iPod Touch users. Only 3rd gen users receive the full benefits of upgrading.
 

Mugambo

macrumors 6502
Jul 4, 2009
286
0
good lord if you watch the keynote you would find your post is wrong it will be a normal ad and nothing will show from the ad unless you click it and all the ads will stay on the apps.

Welcome to the world of advertising.
 

Aeroplane

macrumors member
Aug 29, 2008
44
0
if Apple charges ipod touch users for iOS5 then you will know iOS4 was free because of iAds, if they don't then it was probably because the so called accounting problems...

no?
 
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