Costs and bundling
Prior to iLife '04, only iDVD was a for pay item. This led people without a Superdrive to say "iLife is free" and "OS X includes iLife", which as not technically true. It may have included iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie in the install only because they were a free download anyway. This was further confused by people who bought new Macs and assumed that everything they got in the box was what came with OS X.
Post iLife '04, only iTunes is a free download, and should be the only thing that might come in the OS X installation itself in the next release. It seems quite clear to me that OS X 10.4 will not come with "free" iMovie and iPhoto. iDVD has always been a cost item, and GarageBand is a new for pay item.
What seems to be confusing the issue quite a bit is Apple making statements like "iLife is included with all new Macs". It says nothing about upgrades. But I blame most customers for mis-interpreting this to mean that they somehow get iLife upgrades for free. There is no doubt that if MS Office were "included with every new Mac" (not the trial version) that everyone would understand that this would not include upgrades. Why is the inclusion of the initial copy of iLife with a new Mac any different?
The other confusion is people labeling "freely downloadable" apps as "included" in OS X. Cost wise, this is effectively true, but this gives the mistaken idea that those apps should always be included in OS X. Well, they're not included, and they now cost money. The versions prior to '04 were essentially in an extended promotional period. I'm hoping the additional revenue from now charging for such upgrades will allow them to lower hardware prices to entice more buyers.
Prior to iLife '04, only iDVD was a for pay item. This led people without a Superdrive to say "iLife is free" and "OS X includes iLife", which as not technically true. It may have included iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie in the install only because they were a free download anyway. This was further confused by people who bought new Macs and assumed that everything they got in the box was what came with OS X.
Post iLife '04, only iTunes is a free download, and should be the only thing that might come in the OS X installation itself in the next release. It seems quite clear to me that OS X 10.4 will not come with "free" iMovie and iPhoto. iDVD has always been a cost item, and GarageBand is a new for pay item.
What seems to be confusing the issue quite a bit is Apple making statements like "iLife is included with all new Macs". It says nothing about upgrades. But I blame most customers for mis-interpreting this to mean that they somehow get iLife upgrades for free. There is no doubt that if MS Office were "included with every new Mac" (not the trial version) that everyone would understand that this would not include upgrades. Why is the inclusion of the initial copy of iLife with a new Mac any different?
The other confusion is people labeling "freely downloadable" apps as "included" in OS X. Cost wise, this is effectively true, but this gives the mistaken idea that those apps should always be included in OS X. Well, they're not included, and they now cost money. The versions prior to '04 were essentially in an extended promotional period. I'm hoping the additional revenue from now charging for such upgrades will allow them to lower hardware prices to entice more buyers.
