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Free or not

  • Free

    Votes: 49 16.3%
  • Not

    Votes: 194 64.5%
  • Don't know

    Votes: 34 11.3%
  • Don't care

    Votes: 23 7.6%

  • Total voters
    301
Yeah it's defiantly not going to be a free upgrade.

I'm looking forward to a performance overhaul compared to a new features upgrade.
 
Performance enhancements = maintenance.

Significant new features = new OS.

IF Apple is charging for what amounts to a maintenance release, that would be lame.

No wonder Apple can't crack into the business market. Can you imagine a Fortune 500 company with hundreds of thousands of computers paying to upgrade every year? LOL.
 
"Snow Leopard..." :rolleyes:

Anyway... Will it be free? No. Should loyal Apple users get a discount? Absolutely. I've still got the empty Jaguar, Tiger, and Panther boxes and my original restore discs (with OS 9!) for my old PowerMac tower. I think maybe asking for a price break is not unreasonable.
 
Too much need for a restart, and I'd get a family pack.

On a GMA950, I'm not going to get any OpenCL benefit.

I don't know why you think that is true. If it was you wouldn't even HAVE a GPU at all, because a software renderer would be fast enough.

This new update will be great. It will be like getting a faster newer machine for 129 bucks. It is like a Ram upgrade. It is likely to be especially beneficial for mr GMA950 user because you will likely see significant real world benefit.

There is likely a middle ground where the benefit is not as significant, where the machine is still too slow for the biggest of applications, and it is too fast where many mundane things just don't benefit much from a speed increase.

But faster, smaller and more secure, this is actually a Vista killer, and like the iphone, trying to move into the enterprise. Snow Leopard may be the most important OS release that Apple has ever had. If it starts to make significant inroads to enterprise, they may single handedly be the threat that Linux has wanted to make over the years.
 
Just because it doesn't have any news apps doesnt mean it wont be much better. If you read up on Snow Leopard you will find that $129 is worth it if it delivers what Steve promises. For starters proper utilization of multiple cores, much improved stability and security etc.

Maybe they will charge less for it, say $99, maybe they wont.
 
Yeah it's defiantly not going to be a free upgrade.

I'm looking forward to a performance overhaul compared to a new features upgrade.

Agreed. 10.5 has been a step down in performance for me compared to 10.4. I look forward to 10.6 having 10.5's features with 10.4's performance (or better) :)
 
Operating systems should not be defined by features but by speed, security and stability. Features are what applications are there for, not operating systems.
LOL. So by your definition, we should be paying $129 for 10.5.1, 10.5.2, 10.5.3, etc.?

"Hey look, we didn't add any new features. But we did fix a bunch of bugs. That'll be $129, thank you!" Yes, kick me in the shins. Again.

Nope...but I can think of about 500 companies who pay $100+/year for antivirus :eek::eek: :rolleyes:
AV software doesn't cost $100. And don't think for a moment that if OS X had 90%+ market share that it would be free of virus.

It's like expecting Leopard to have been a free update for Tiger.. I think not.
This doesn't make sense. Didn't Leopard introduce significant new features? If Leopard was exactly like Tiger, except with better speed, security, and stability then I would expect it to be a maintenance release and thus free.

You guys crack me up. Can you name any major software manufacturer that charges for a release with no new features and just touting performance and stability? :rolleyes:
 
Windows users will stick with an OS forever. Look how long XP has been kicking around. Most (Windows) users will go to a new OS when they get a new machine and they're forced to a new OS.

I get your point, but that's a poor analogy. Afterall, it's not like MS gives users the choice of upgrading on a schedule comparable to Apple and the OS X 10.x releases. How long was it between XP and Vista? And wasn't a prototype OS from Microsoft shelved in there some where?

I've stuck with WinXP because it's been the only real OS option for the last number of years, and now because my Windows box can't run Vista.
 
I can't think of the last time Apple released a performance only update.
lol

Microsoft is offering a performance upgrade for Windows Vista.

It is called Windows XP :D

Anyway... Will it be free? No. Should loyal Apple users get a discount? Absolutely. I've still got the empty Jaguar, Tiger, and Panther boxes and my original restore discs (with OS 9!) for my old PowerMac tower. I think maybe asking for a price break is not unreasonable.

As soon as you installed a new version, you can sell the old one on eBay and get some money back.
 
Can you name any major software manufacturer that charges for a release with no new features and just touting performance and stability? :rolleyes:

RedHat, Suse/Novell, IBM....

and it's not NO new features, just not as many as in the past...Grand Central, OpenCL, Exchange Integration, Quicktime X don't count as features?
 
Can you name any major software manufacturer that charges for a release with no new features and just touting performance and stability? :rolleyes:

I realize not everyone uses Exchange, but those that do, what would you rather pay:

10.6 = $129 at the most
Office 2008 = $399

??
 
LOL. So by your definition, we should be paying $129 for 10.5.1, 10.5.2, 10.5.3, etc.?

You guys crack me up. Can you name any major software manufacturer that charges for a release with no new features and just touting performance and stability? :rolleyes:

Hehe, exactly - sure enough Windows Vista could be argued as having "new features", what with their widgets (sorry, gadgets) and expose (sorry... whatever they call it), but sure as hell the next Windows, if they have any sense at all, will be a glorified patch to fix up the stuff ups. Then Vista will go the same way Windows ME did :)

I, too, think that Apple won't charge the full amount of an OS upgrade, but think they'll still charge. Bear in mind, folks, that these are early days yet - who knows what is going into Snow Leopard yet... only Apple does.
 
I'm not so sure. If it truly is only a performance increase with no new features, that's going to be a hard sale to the average customer.

I can see the slogan now... "It's exactly the same only snappier!" ...How many people are going to spend $130 for that?

Plus, look at the name: "Snow Leopard." I mean, it's the same name with an adjective! It'd be like Microsoft charging for service Pack 1.
 
Of course they will charge for it. Think of it from a business perspective: the release is still around a year away according to Jobs, and Apple couldn't possibly justify paying a team of developers for a year all to put out a free upgrade. And since this is keeping with the usual 12-18 month upgrade time frame, I'm certain there will be no discount, as this would cut into Apple's margins for their OS sales.
 
Plus, look at the name: "Snow Leopard." I mean, it's the same name with an adjective! It'd be like Microsoft charging for service Pack 1.

Unless Windows is going to give you a free copy of Vista 2.0 and switch the entire code base at the same time.

Major architecture change that is a bit more than a service pack cleanup.

---

For the average user, they will be sold on the new features ... though they may only have a box with 10-15 new features displayed. Really not that far off of what Apple typically does.

Instead of hundreds of features with 15-20 displayed it'll be the majority of them displayed on the box.

People will buy.
 
I'm not so sure. If it truly is only a performance increase with no new features, that's going to be a hard sale to the average customer.

I can see the slogan now... "It's exactly the same only snappier!" ...How many people are going to spend $130 for that?

Plus, look at the name: "Snow Leopard." I mean, it's the same name with an adjective! It'd be like Microsoft charging for service Pack 1.

It will be free (or a minor "fee", like $20-$30 for Quicktime Pro) for the reasons stated above.
hickster
 
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