[Merged] $29 Snow Leopard vs. $169 Box Set Questions

[stainlessliquid]

So Snow Leopard is out soon.
With no upgrade option for Tiger users other than the Mac Box Set for $169 (uk price ~£129?).

Tiger users are being penalised for not upgrading to Leopard when it came out and being able to upgrade to Snow Leopard for just $29 (£25).

What if I don't want or need iLife/iWork? Maybe I want to upgrade to iLife/iWork '10 next year?

I just want to buy Snow Leopard standalone, plain and simple. I really hope Apple come out with this soon.

Snow Leopard is basically Leopard. You are not going to be able to upgrade Tiger for less than what Leopard costs when you never paid for Leopard. It makes perfect sense to sell it so cheap to Leopard owners. Snow Leopard is NOT a huge improvement over Leopard, most people will not notice a difference outside of scrollable stacks, there arent a load of new features and the speed improvement is unnoticeable if even there.

People are assuming this is a major OS update to Leopard, its not, they wouldnt be selling it for so cheap as an upgrade if it was. Think of Windows 98 to Windows 98 SE, its very similar to that in terms of an upgrade.

 

[bbotte]

Friendly wager? 🙂

Yep, What do have in mind for "Friendly"?

Infact it will give you 3 options, A) Upgrade, B) Install and Archive, C) INSTALL and Erase.

 

[Tex-Twil]

If you choose to install on a blank drive it will ask for 10.5 disc, load nothing, then tell you to re insert the 10.6 disc once it reads a file on the 10.5 disc and Voila you will have a fresh copy of 10.6.!

You seem to be very sure about that but .... why do Apple support pple say that what you say will not be possible ?

 

[mr.steevo]

Hi,

I just posted this on another thread.

"When I bought a MacBook it was right at the transition from Tiger to Leopard. Tiger was installed on the HDD and the Leopard disc was in the box. I installed Leopard immediately with no problems.

When I upgraded the HDD a year later I could NOT install Leopard to the blank HDD. I had a message saying that I needed to have Tiger on the HDD BEFORE I could install Leopard. So I installed Tiger and then was able to use the Leopard disc which allowed me to use Disk Utility to erase and install Leopard.

From my experience, if Apple says you must have Leopard on your HDD before you can install Snow Leopard then I would imagine this is accurate."

 

[belvdr]

You seem to be very sure about that but .... why do Apple support pple say that what you say will not be possible ?

I don't trust their answer. They told me that people were registering for SL Up-To-Date by clicking the Notify Me button, not by going through the form. My personal thought is that the first line phone personnel are just about as clueless about this as we are.

 

[benpatient]

wow. preorder cancelled.

there is NO CHANCE I'm taking a chance on this...

if we want a real copy of 10.6 we have to buy iWork and iLife, too?

F that.

 

[bbotte]

Hi,

I just posted this on another thread.

"When I bought a MacBook it was right at the transition from Tiger to Leopard. Tiger was installed on the HDD and the Leopard disc was in the box. I installed Leopard immediately with no problems.

When I upgraded the HDD a year later I could NOT install Leopard to the blank HDD. I had a message saying that I needed to have Tiger on the HDD BEFORE I could install Leopard. So I installed Tiger and then was able to use the Leopard disc which allowed me to use Disk Utility to erase and install Leopard.

From my experience, if Apple says you must have Leopard on your HDD before you can install Snow Leopard then I would imagine this is accurate."

Let's say it does it this way, does it matter, you still get a fresh copy of SL on the drive if you chose C) Install and erase once you put the 10.6 disc in, it just takkes a little more time. Correct?

 

[instaxgirl]

III. The better argument would be Apple not being friendly to its PowerPC Users

Indeed. That really is a kick in the teeth.

 

[thegoldenmackid]

Indeed. That really is a kick in the teeth.

In fairness, everyone is being not kind to them. But, it is rather outdated at this point.

 

[benpatient]

a little more time?

you have to install an entire OS just to confirm that you have it, only to turn around and wipe it out to install another entire OS?

It just works.

Someone at microsoft is reading this thread, laughing at us all.

 

[psycoswimmer]

I have Tiger, I want Snow Leopard. Do I need the box set?

I bought my iMac in late 2006 and it came with Tiger. I didn't upgrade to Leopard when it came out because I honestly didn't need it. However, if I'm reading this correctly on Apple's website, do I absolutely need to purchase the box set to upgrade to Snow Leopard? I already have the upgraded versions of iLife and iWork, so basically I will be paying for something that I already payed for! Is there a loophole here? Does anyone else have the same issue as me? I can imagine there must be some people that followed the same thinking path that I did.

 

[OllyW]

Yes, you need the box set.

Or what arkitect says.

 

[arkitect]

1. Buy Leopard from Amazon, ebay or Craigslist — even try the MacRumors Marketplace.
2. Buy Snow Leopard.

Upgrade.

No need to buy the Apple Box set…

Yes, you need the box set.

No, you don't. You just need Leopard and Snow Leopard upgrade.

 

[bbotte]

1. Buy Leopard from Amazon, ebay or Craigslist —*even try the MacRumors Marketplace.
2. Buy Snow Leopard.

Upgrade.

No need to buy the Apple Box set…

Bingo! This person is smart. Hell find a friend with Leopard disc, install spend $30.

 

[psycoswimmer]

So I need to buy Leopard for the same price I could have two years ago, but didn't because I wanted to save money and wait for the next revision; meanwhile missing out on two years of Leopard-only features.

Beautiful, Apple.

Edit: My friend bought a Macbook a year ago that came with Leopard. Can I use his disk to install Leopard?

 

[Jolly Jimmy]

Leopard was 129$ without iLife or iWork, so with Snow Leopard you are getting them "for free".

EDIT : Just realised the box set is 169$ 😱

 

[benpatient]

an even better option would be to buy a full copy of stand-alone 10.6...but since Apple has decided to force iWork and iLife down everyone's throats, you don't get that option.

Funny that they were claiming 10.6 would be cheaper because it doesn't really have any new features, just improvements to the existing OS...and now it turns out that they don't even want you to buy it.

 

[arkitect]

Bingo! This person is smart. Hell find a friend with Leopard disc, install spend $30.

No, this person actually owns Leopard. 😉
No need for a friend…

See my post in another thread:

For example in the UK, you can buy Leopard from Amazon right now for £68.99.
Add to that Snow Leopard for £25.

Total upgrade: £93.99… (Free shipping on all)
Certainly cheaper than the Upgrade Mac Box Set of £129.

 

[cuda2]

a little more time?

you have to install an entire OS just to confirm that you have it, only to turn around and wipe it out to install another entire OS?

It just works.

Someone at microsoft is reading this thread, laughing at us all.

For my 08 iMac, I would have to install Tiger....then install Leopard upgrade...then install SL upgrade to get a clean install. I don't normally worry about reformatting then install, but holy disc swap batman. If I did need to reformat/install, I would be busy for a quite a while. Also I would need to install the iLife disc separately.

 

[uaecasher]

So I need to buy Leopard for the same price I could have two years ago, but didn't because I wanted to save money and wait for the next revision; meanwhile missing out on two years of Leopard-only features.

Beautiful, Apple.

Edit: My friend bought a Macbook a year ago that came with Leopard. Can I use his disk to install Leopard?

it don't have to be the same price, you might find used ones 🙂

 

[Tex-Twil]

a little more time?

you have to install an entire OS just to confirm that you have it, only to turn around and wipe it out to install another entire OS?

It just works.

Someone at microsoft is reading this thread, laughing at us all.

🙂 I also think this would be the Microsoft way of doing this. I can't believe that Apple would force us to do that.

 

[mr.steevo]

a little more time?

you have to install an entire OS just to confirm that you have it, only to turn around and wipe it out to install another entire OS?

It just works.

Someone at microsoft is reading this thread, laughing at us all.

Hi,

I didn't have the option to stick in my Tiger disc and then install Leopard. I had to install Tiger then insert my Leopard disc before I could get to erase and install. It took a couple of hours to install on a blank HDD.

What I should have done is transfered my Tiger OS on to the blank HDD with an external firewire drive, put the new drive in the Macbook and then installed Leopard from the disc.


s.

 

[mr.steevo]

For my 08 iMac, I would have to install Tiger....then install Leopard upgrade...then install SL upgrade to get a clean install. I don't normally worry about reformatting then install, but holy disc swap batman. If I did need to reformat/install, I would be busy for a quite a while. Also I would need to install the iLife disc separately.

Hmm. I didn't consider this.

Yes, this will be painful.

s.

 

[xxSpudxx]

Friendly wager = Gentleman's bet. 🙂

The last poster pretty much nailed it.
YOu have to go through the PIA of reinstalling Tiger/Leapord with a full OS disk and use the disk wipe option, then use the $29 upgrade SL disk.


And yes, the MS folks are laughing..

4 days till we know for sure.

One poster said you are buying ilife again.. Really not true. You are paing for a full OS wich comes with ilife...

just my $.02

 

[bbotte]

🙂 I also think this would be the Microsoft way of doing this. I can't believe that Apple would force us to do that.

No microsoft's way of installing Vista was funny. Buy upgrade disc. wipe disc manually. Load Vista as full version from upgrade disc, do not enter key yet, boot it up and it's a 30 day trial mode. Stick in the vista upgrade disc in again, select erase and install full version. let it wipe and install, then enter your key and it is good to go past 30 days. We did this to keep from losing our XP keys. Microsoft said it was recording XP keys and making them invalid to use on the update website. It was crap. I paid for XP, how could they take away something I paid for? I am an Apple peep now and love it. I use that exact same XP CD to load my VMware Fusion Virtual machine of XP professional. So glad I read up on the install before I loaded the vista disc. 🙂