If I buy an iMac in XXX can I upgrade to lion in YYY for free??

[Mad Mac Maniac]

I'm not familiar enough with the history of the Mac OS X updates, but I'm assuming that since OS release dates are known in advance that Apple has some sort of policy that allows a free upgrade if you bought a new mac within a timeframe.

Like for example, say Lion is relased on <random date> June 20th. Will apple say that all new Mac purchases since <random date> May 1st will be able to upgrade to Lion for free?

If so then A) do they announce this ahead of time? B) on average how recent do the purchases need to be?

[spinnerlys]

As Apple will not really divulge that information before the announce the final release date, as far as I remember, we don't really know. But when Leopard was announced to be released at the end of October, it was also announced, that every Mac purchased one months before the release, will be allowed to get a low price update via contacting Apple and sending them 10€ to get a Leopard upgrade DVD. The upgrade DVD was not a retail version of Leopard like the upgrade DVD of Snow Leopard, as it needed to have a prior installation of Mac OS X on the Mac you want to install that Leopard upgrade on.

I don#t remember what the terms with Snow Leopard were though, but as I bought no Mac short before that, I just got the 29€ version available almost everywhere on launch day.

[Mad Mac Maniac]

Ok so although I did search before I posted this, I decided to try to search more extensively. I was able to find the Leopard announce date and here's what I discovered.

Announced on 16 October 2007.

Released on 26 October 2007.

On 16 October it was announced that all Mac's purchased from 1 October to 29 December were eligable to purchase Leopard for $9.95 plus tax.


So I guess that is the best indicator. I don't know if it was handled differently for other OS launches.