Hum, with a 12 month update cycle like iOS, I would not be surprised if this and future updates are under $10.
I seriously hope Apple doesn't go the iOS way for their OS. Even for the current Lion, many developers, including major ones, didn't bother or simply didn't have the time to make their applications up-to-date, hence the multiple bugs still seen in Lion.
Better off sticking with the previous version until the current one is mature. I don't think Apple customers like to be treated like beta testers.
I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to just go entirely free, as they did with iOS updates.
Why?
Because they want you to upgrade. If you hear Mountain Lion is available free on the Mac App Store, you're going to go and download it. While you're there, you might notice some other apps. Apple takes at least a 30% cut on anything you decide to buy while you're there.
Why else?
Because Apple has new features in the new OS. They'd like it if developers used the new features. Developers will only use the new features if most of their users upgrade to the new OS. New features = new developers = new customers = revenue to Apple all around. Charging for an OS update is a shot in the foot.
They made paid releases until now, yet people adopted them very fast. So price isn't a major concern. Considering how clearly more powerful they were, and that they've been sold standard on all new Macs, this expand their user base almost effortlessly.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A405)
If you have a Mac laptop, just go somewhere with Internet access (Starbucks, a fast food restaurant, etc.), download it, and make a DVD or thumb drive backup.
FYI, the Lion Internet recovery system
doesn't support the captive portals that are commonplace in Starbucks or places like these.
Only WEP, WPA(2) are supported. 802.11x authentication, standard in large, corporate settings as well as universities, isn't supported. One does not provide a download as the only official restore method without supporting common authentication and encryption methods. Sorry Apple, this was botched.
-also
Data limits?
I may be a cynical hater but...
+1.
Here in North America as well as most other countries, we do have data caps that are commonly very low. For example, one with only a 3G mobile connection couldn't download Lion without concern.
The optical drive is only really going away on the Mac mini, where it likely won't be missed as most Mac mini customers don't actually do a whole lot of optical disc related tasks whereas a much larger demographic of iMac, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro users do. That and given Apple's need to keep the mini...well...mini, you can't fit two hard drives and an optical drive in that enclosure. The optical drive is touted as a feature on the current generation of MacBook.
You seem to forget the multitude of people who actually took advantage of the Mini's "smallness", silence and good looks to place it where it fits well: as a home theater PC. No ODD means you can't use a present-day Mini as a HTPC, which is sad.
Plus, Apple would have been able to fit the ODD is they didn't make the Mini so thin. Sure it's beautiful, but loses practicality.
Pros, which makes sense as MacBook Pros are higher-up on the Mac food chain than either the Mac mini or the MacBook Air. Similarly, people have made the argument that the Ethernet port is also on the extinction list, when this couldn't be further from the truth; it might not be on consumer machines, but contrart to popular belief, Apple's customers aren't all consumers.
Where do you actually take that assumption from? Consumers having only one PC at home typically place their modem right next to their computer in their apartment, and plug one into the other.
As for XP, Microsoft maintained support because its customers demanded it. Similarly, if Apple wants any kind of foothold in any sort of business market (and believe me, they do), they will factor in industries that need a stand-alone OS restore media, factor in industries that still rely on the optical drive, and factor in common cross-platform technologies that rely on things that this community foolishly considers obsolete like Ethernet.
Customers realized they had no choice if they wanted a more stable and mature PC. Although ugly and antiquated, it was XP or the highway.
But considering how easy it currently is to produce a restore USB key or DVD, Apple could at least provide a simple tool to make such media. Windows Vista and Seven provide it for consumers to run as soon as they install their machines. Apple can do it, and call it "Administrator's installer", or whatever name implying exclusiveness. They already do it with Server Tools, which are mostly GUIs for built-in capabilities.
Or sell a restore, read-only USB key with the OS on it, but PLEASE put a reasonable price tag on it. It is effectively the most versatile install method for Macs since all have a USB port, but the Air and Mini don't have an ODD. More than double the OS' value for a key isn't fair, even to Apple's standards.
You're arguments all amount to an exaggeration of the problems that users with only dialup access face. For the most part, it involves downloading a 3.5 GB file one time. Compared to the time it takes to download system updates that can be 1 GB or more this isn't a lot to ask.
If you don't have broadband access, you can take responsibility for your own situation and maintain good backups. Then you won't have to download the entire OS again just because of a hard drive problem.
People without broadband aren't responsible that their regional ISPs refuse to invest in better network. Until there are government incentives to build the missing parts the way they did in Europe, digital divide will remain. Sometimes all you need is a good kick in the butt to get to work.
Same goes for caps. Greedy ISPs want us to think it costs much money to move bytes around. Truth is, moving a gigabyte costs penny dust. Yet some charge over $8 per exceeding GB, and older plans still sport a shameful
2 gigabytes monthly cap. Fair competition isn't always available everywhere. I agree that high-speed, unlimited Internet should be a right, as it is in Sweden (or is it Norway?), but North american governments don't have any gut.
Which most people don't know how to do. Also, people were never dependent on a bootable back-up before. Why should it be a necessity to get up and running to a desktop environment for anyone?
There was also a time when people only had diskettes to backup their computer. There was a time it was enough. There was a time people didn't bother update their computer since it could run for years using the same software and not see any significant change.
I personally backed up my first computer using CD-RWs, and everything fitted. Yes, I'm that young.
But technology evolved, and now you need, at the very least, stacks of DVDs to burn your data. But a clone is much more practical.