Ideas on getting OSX upgrades more wallet friendly

[billyboy]

Everyone should be pleased with how quickly OS X is progressing, but there are quite a few casualties - real and perceived - on the way. Panther is in, there is a Panther-only Safari update, and already Panther-only software is appearing on Versiontracker. Jaguar still goes well, but it may well be yesterdays news a bit quicker than most computer users are accustomed to.

Maybe Apple need to devise a slightly different strategy to keep on their manic upgrade path without upsetting anyone unnecessarily. Any ideas? This is mine.

When 10.4 comes out, Apple could draw a line in the sand and say that everyone has up to 2 months to buy 10.4. If you do, you then have the option to pay $5 monthly into an OSX upgrade account which you have to commit to for 12 months. Whenever 10.5 comes out, even if it is within 12 months or takes 2 years, you get 10.5 sent you in the post. Basically it would work out well on three levels.

Users get a new OS for half price and noone need feel obliged to stomp up $129 a year to keep up.


Apple would basically be inviting the whole Mac community to support the upgrade path, and the feedback from 25 million users would accelerate OSX development unbelievably.

Apple would also be getting mountains of cash up front from the Mac community to carry on the good work of developing OS X, and once 10.4 was out and the half price offer of 10.5 was available, Apple could justifiably cut support of "old software".

Hallo? Is that Utopia calling?

 

[MisterMe]

Re: Ideas on getting OSX upgrades more wallet friendly

Originally posted by billyboy
Everyone should be pleased with how quickly OS X is progressing, but there are quite a few casualties - real and perceived - on the way. Panther is in, there is a Panther-only Safari update, and already Panther-only software is appearing on Versiontracker. Jaguar still goes well, but it may well be yesterdays news a bit quicker than most computer users are accustomed to.

Maybe Apple need to devise a slightly different strategy to keep on their manic upgrade path without upsetting anyone unnecessarily. Any ideas? This is mine.

When 10.4 comes out, Apple could draw a line in the sand and say that everyone has up to 2 months to buy 10.4. If you do, you then have the option to pay $5 monthly into an OSX upgrade account which you have to commit to for 12 months. Whenever 10.5 comes out, even if it is within 12 months or takes 2 years, you get 10.5 sent you in the post. Basically it would work out well on three levels.

Users get a new OS for half price and noone need feel obliged to stomp up $129 a year to keep up.


Apple would basically be inviting the whole Mac community to support the upgrade path, and the feedback from 25 million users would accelerate OSX development unbelievably.

Apple would also be getting mountains of cash up front from the Mac community to carry on the good work of developing OS X, and once 10.4 was out and the half price offer of 10.5 was available, Apple could justifiably cut support of "old software".

Hallo? Is that Utopia calling?

As difficult as this may be to accept, you have the option of not buying the new version. Your old version of the OS will not stop working when Apple releases a new version. There are lots of people out there still happily running System 7.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Re: Re: Ideas on getting OSX upgrades more wallet friendly

Originally posted by MisterMe
As difficult as this may be to accept, you have the option of not buying the new version. Your old version of the OS will not stop working when Apple releases a new version. There are lots of people out there still happily running System 7.

Yah and those people are most likely doing nothing more the surfing, e-mail, and word processing. In the real world system 7,8, and 9 are dieing. Not dead but dieing. OS X is becoming THE Apple OS of choice. Has it hit 50% yet? More and more apps are coming out for OS X and fewer and fewer for PreX.
I think billyboy does have a valid point. Even MS tries to keep its OS's as backwards compatible as possible. XP can typically run anything from Windows 95, 98, ME, 2K, and to a limited extent NT. By making drastic changes in its OS's with each release Apple could very well alienate its users.

bullyboy,
The problem with your suggestion is that is smells suspiciously like a "service". Microsoft is been attempting this for years and has gotten the smackdown. Apple has their .mac service and even with all the offers it still not popular with every Mac user. Its an interesting idea but in the end if Apple wants users to shell out cash on their new OS they shouldn't be focusing on gimmicks but making the OS so alluring that people will dive at the chance to get 10.4 or 10.5. Panther is a nice release but I've heard quite a few people comment on how Panther is where 10.0 should have been from the start.

 

[SilentPanda]

I'm not so sure the problem is with Apple. I don't know much about developing Mac software (I program on Windows) but the little I have looked at XCode anyhow it appears that you can set it to flag anything that is not compatible with OS 10.2, 10.1, and 10.0. If developers looked into this they might be able to at least support 10.2 also. I think we need to encourage developers to keep their software backwards compatible too.

 

[billyboy]

Re: Re: Re: Ideas on getting OSX upgrades more wallet friendly

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Ybullyboy,
Panther is a nice release but I've heard quite a few people comment on how Panther is where 10.0 should have been from the start.

That is my point. Now that Panther is the real thing, much of the speed is back, blah blah, use the $5 a month (half price OS X) idea to encourage everyone who wants to leave the OS9 and earlier to get behind OS X. It need only be a short term "service", and when Apple have 80 or 90% into Panther territory, carry on as before and let users decide whether or not the next . release is worth $129. With so many on Panther, this would up the stakes for Apple to really develop hard to make an OS that is $129 better than Panther, which would be awesome.

 

[janey]

hrmmm cant you sorta do that yourself?
get a little piggybank, put $5 in there a week or something, you got almost enough for 2 OS upgrades
On the other hand you could dump all your change in a little jar every day and see that grow.
Or you could invest in Apple, sell the stock later...

There are so many different ways.
By the way, you can get an education discount if you're a college student or k-12/higher ed faculty member. its $70 for them that way. If youre not one and your local college (book)store sells Apple stuff you can get it there too provided they dont ask you for ID.
And if you have multiple Macs and you want licenses for all of them legally get the family pack.

 

[hob]

The point about 10.3 being where 10.0 should have been is absolutely correct. The reason i paid out for the new version was because it contained features that I thought were enitrely necessary. Being a student, it wasn't as bad as all that, but still expensive on my eeeny weeeny budget!

The reason you shouldn't have to pay (so much) for upgrades is because they should surely be just that - upgrades. I have never used OS 9, i switched at 10.2, and had used 10.1. It just infuriates me that we should have to pay for things like 'windows file sharing'. To me, apples upgrade approach is wrong. Charge $200 for OS 11 or OS 10.5 (whatever's a major landmark - like the difference between windows 98 and 2000 or 2000 and XP) but inbetween, upgrades like 10.2->10.3 with only performance and functionality improvements should be as free as security updates....

Hob

 

[advocate]

Originally posted by hob
To me, apples upgrade approach is wrong. Charge $200 for OS 11 or OS 10.5 (whatever's a major landmark - like the difference between windows 98 and 2000 or 2000 and XP) but inbetween, upgrades like 10.2->10.3 with only performance and functionality improvements should be as free as security updates....

Um, hate to break it to you, but 2000 to XP was a minor bump. And that bump cost several hundred dollars.

 

[robbieduncan]

Originally posted by SilentPanda
I'm not so sure the problem is with Apple. I don't know much about developing Mac software (I program on Windows) but the little I have looked at XCode anyhow it appears that you can set it to flag anything that is not compatible with OS 10.2, 10.1, and 10.0. If developers looked into this they might be able to at least support 10.2 also. I think we need to encourage developers to keep their software backwards compatible too.

This is sort of true. You can choose which SDK (Software Development Kit) you are compiling against. But this does not mean that as a developer you should (or even can) simply check the 10.0 box and be happy. If you check the 10.0 box the you cannot use any of the advances to Cocoa or Carbon that exist in later versions of Mac OSX.

So for example any app that talks to the Address Book via the public interface can only choose to tick 10.2 or 10.3 as the objects that support this are not present in the 10.0 or 10.1 SDKs. The same goes for other features that are only available in Panther (like in NSTextView you can now setup html stlye links that get handled automatically, but only in Panther).

As someone who develops software in Cocoa (just for my own use at the moment, releases coming soon) I see no reason to code round the missing stuff in the earlier versions of OSX. If I need a feature that is only available in 10.3 then I'll use it.