So why does Apple charge so much for OS X updates?

Who said it was going to cost $30?

 

Have you ever bought a new version of windows?

Apple's model of $30 or so (Was the last one $20?) encourages upgrades, windows model pretty much means most people don't upgrade (until they buy a new PC).

Making ios free avoids some fragmentation, apple makes the money back when people pay for apps (which might not run without the latest ios), 30% of app sales goes to apple. Also, their main competitor also releases their upgrades for free (even if most people run the 2010 version instead of the latest one.)

At the beginning of ios, apple did charge for ios updates for the iPod touch, but they have made the updates free the last several years.

 

Entitled much?

It's $30 (or $20, as was for ML). It's barely a drop compared to the cost of an Apple laptop.

When you bought the laptop, it came included in its price the current OS. Doesn't entitle you to anything else.

Some people.

 

I never understood the argument "I paid $X for this product, why do I need to pay $x for an add-on." If you were willing to pay $1k for a laptop, suck it up.

OS X upgrades used to cost $100+. Windows, of course, has always traditionally cost around that much too. Microsoft tried to follow suite and eventually dropped their Windows 8 upgrade price significantly to $40, but this only lasted a few months and now the cost of an OEM upgrade disc, the absolute *cheapest* upgrade option you can get, is $90 on Amazon. Plus, Windows of course also offers several flavors with different features and price ranges, and up until Windows 8, I think there were at least *seven* options. Compare that to Mac OS X which has a low base price ($20), with the only other option being a $20 add-on to enable server functionality. Windows 8 server will run you well over $40, and it's ****.

iOS upgrades aren't always free. I remember to upgrade the iPhone 3GS to iOS 5 there was a small fee. Ironically, it became free with iOS 6. Their hand was kind of forced on this, though, because Android never charged for an upgrade. Then again, a lot of Android devices become obsolete and unable to run the latest OS after a little more than a year.

 

This. It wasn't so long ago, either.

 

Not true. Ever hear of the Mac OS X Up-To-Date program? It takes care of this case by giving free updates to the OS.

 

.. What "fee" were you talking about? All iPhone OS / iOS upgrades were free as far as I could tell and they only made iPod touch users pay, and even then I'm pretty sure that ended around iPhone OS 3.0

 

You buy an Apple product, be ready for all the premium accessories, OS, apps etc so be ready to pay more. Until W8, Microsoft charged way more than what Apple charges for an OS X update. In fact I'd use that as an argument if I wanted to say why Mac is better.

 

The market for a Mac or PC is VASTLY different from that of a Mobile OS such as iOS or Android. You probably shouldn't be comparing them. 30$ is absolutely nothing for the price of an OS update. Take a look at Windows prices (~200$) and prices of Mac OS X before 10.6 (~150$). I think you're expecting a bit much here...

 

OS X has been $19.99 for the last two versions. If you don't think it's even worth that much to you, then obviously you don't value any of the new features and so shouldn't get it.

Even $30 is an absolutely steal. People have done work: you should pay them for it.

 

Software update, upgrade--what's the difference?

 

What does the laptop cost have anything to do with OS upgrades? Once you buy a laptop, it includes the OS price already. You're not entitled to free software or hardware upgrades at all. You are only entitled to the software package that comes with the laptops, nothing more.

As for the price, no, it isn't high. In fact, it is too low. I'd gladly pay $50 at least for an awesome OS upgrade. However, if Apple is releasing an OS X upgrade that fixes many of the stuff that previous OS X didn't do right, they should release it for much lower prices and that's exactly what they're doing by setting it to 20$ instead of 120$.

You don't want to pay that much, there's a simple solution: don't buy it. Nobody is forcing you to buy an OS upgrade.

 

The 30 days is the time you have to make the claim for the free upgrade. It has nothing to do with the actual release date of the new OS (even if MV was delayed say 6 month, your made claim would still be valid).

Last year even those who bought a new MAC 2 weeks before the launch of ML could make similar claim for a free upgrade for almost 2 month. After that the fee was 19 USD (not 30).

 

The best answer to your question is: how much does Windows cost, even at its "starter" editions?

 

Windows & Linux operating systems suck. I personally buy apple hardware because of OS X. It is much more stable, powerful, integrated, and improves my productivity. I don't have or can't waste time trying to hackintosh, but if apple made OS X available for other platforms and hardware such as does Windows, then I wouldn't buy anymore apple hardware (too expensive), and I wouldn't mind to pay more than $100 for every OS X release...

OS X upgrades should be free for the premium price you are paying for apple hardware...

 

Or perhaps are reasonably priced due to the premium operating system you get for just a few £. You say the other options suck, but then moan about having to pay such a small amount for a great, stable platform. Some people....

 

This premium OS is also based on the hard work of the open source community: Darwin...

Don't you think paying an apple notebook + apple care is not enough to entitle you to have free updates + upgrades during three years?

 

I'm surprised that anyone thinks the MacOS updates are expensive. To me they are very reasonably priced nowdays.
Compare that to Adobe Creative Cloud which is $49/month.

 

No.