Mac OS X upgrade....

Single-user licenses are usually $129.

 

Most people upgrade all, but many people wait a while...some people wait for stability issues, or compatibility.

 

No real pattern of when people do and don't upgrade. At this point, there are many applications that do not support Jaguar (two versions ago), so very nearly everyone uses Panther or Tiger. But there are a good handful of Panther users.

I'd say, if you don't see compelling features....

1) Wait and see once it comes out if something about it ends up interesting you.

2) Wait for all your apps to be 100% supported on it.

3) If you still don't want it, just skip until you have an app that will not run on the version you have.

I don't have immediate intentions of getting Leopard, but I might at some point.

 

Personally ... I upgrade all my machines within a month of a new release.

The exact timing usually depends on what my school status is at that moment, and how lazy I am about ordering. I DON"T upgrade them all at once, usually a couple of days apart so I can look for compatibility issues.

My major motivation is usually new OS features and applications. Most third party applications continue to support the previous release for a while, although many times new features are added to take advantage of all the cool developer features that Apple keeps adding. (Core Animation looks really slick btw).

 

Most people upgrade every time, but not just for the new features that Apple focuses their advertising on. Each upgrade has major under the hood improvements that are required for some of the best new applications that will come out. In terms of Leopard, there are still some unannounced "top secret" features, but from what we've seen so far, it's all about Core Animation.

 

I will probably upgrade on release day, but if you aren't a total geek then waiting for at least 10.5.1 is probably sensible.

 

whew whee, then you're in for a surprise (or 12).........(pleasant ones, though )