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The Price is Right: OS X Mavericks Edition
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I don't understand what you are trying to say. You want Mavericks to be $60? No thank you
I am more than happy to pay $20-30.
He wanted to say that Manevricks is what we expected from Lion ( and then from Moutain Lion) - And that already Lion should look like Manevricks - many of us payed 30$ for Lion and 20$ for ML and now probably additional 20$. I agree 
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Exactly. Sorry for my poor English. Still, I never pay for any OS update, I pirate it of course. I´m not a professional, nor have a company. Actually I´m a bankrupt student, I can't afford these things...
SL was a fair update to pay for, these are nice but...
SL was a fair update to pay for, these are nice but...
Me too.
Why? I have a mid-2009 13" Macbook Pro. It's been a great machine for me. I've maxed out the RAM to 8GB, upgraded the hard drive to a hybrid flash/HDD, and generally kept it in good working order. My next project (when the cost comes down or my Mac gets much slower) will be to fix up an SSD/OptibayHDD Fusion Drive inside. All the recent improvements across the Macbook range (Thunderbolt, USB3, retina screen, flash storage, thinness, battery life) would be conveniences for me, not necessities. Indeed, a rMBP or MBA would lose some features that I use (large internal storage at reasonable cost, FW800, infrared remote).
The point is that as long as my current MBP works well, I'm not going to be giving Apple $1000+ for a new laptop.
As long as I'm giving them $20-30 for each OS upgrade, they have some incentive to keep my mid-2009 13" MBP within the specs for the latest OS. If I weren't giving them any money at all for the OS upgrade, they might as well cut support unnecessarily early in the hope that I will buy a new machine.
I think that Apple does sometimes cut support too soon, without good reason. For example, it would be possible to have iMessage and FaceTime on earlier OS X and iOS versions, but it's just not been done.
There's a lot more to Mavericks than the new user features you mentioned. There are new internal technologies that will noticeably improve user experience both in responsiveness (not that ML is bad) and battery life. There are also upgrades to Open GL and A/V services. Those are just a few under-the-hood improvements I can remember off the top of my head.
Though not as drastic, I would compare ML to Mavericks more along the lines of Leopard to SL.
If it remains $20, that's an incredible deal. Just a few years ago, major OS X upgrades were $129 (though there were the added costs involved with disc production and packaging).
Though not as drastic, I would compare ML to Mavericks more along the lines of Leopard to SL.
If it remains $20, that's an incredible deal. Just a few years ago, major OS X upgrades were $129 (though there were the added costs involved with disc production and packaging).
I can't see why Apple would charge more than the usual fee for an OS. $19.99 or the usual £19.99 here in the UK.
The transition to yearly releases will possibly prompt a lower price point. Free is entirely plausible as it'll ensure users keep up to date with iOS integration features and whatnot.
A while back there was either a post or a MacRumors article explaining why iOS updates can be free but OS X updates can't. I don't remember the specifics, but it had something to do with accounting and possibly legalities, and the way that computers are classified (or how Apple classifies them) compared with devices like tablets and phones. I'm not interested enough to go looking for the original source of that information, and I apologize that my memory isn't much clearer than that, but hopefully it provides enough information for anyone who is curious about the specifics to go out and find it.
$19.99(US) is a lower price point compared to what they charged previous to the yearly upgrades.
It's an accounting issue. When they sell a product the value of any free upgrade (s) in the future is a future debt they need to account for, much like they calculate the cost of future warranty claims.
iOS hasn't always been free. I had to pay for iOS 3 on our 2nd generation iPod Touches, even though it was free for iPhones.
So? There is no reason that OS X updates couldn't be free. They might have to change accounting, but they've done that before (when iOS cost $$ for iPod touch users).
And if they didn't want to mess with accounting, they could charge next to nothing for it. They were forced to charge $1.99 for an Airport Enabler that enabled n networking in their Airport cards.
I think it's in Apple's best interest to get everyone they can to the latest OS because it improves their ecosystem, especially with Maverick's improved integration with iOS. Most people don't upgrade their OS and the less barriers there are to upgrade, the better.
...All that said, I expect it'll be $20 again.
$19.99 most likely. Its a good pricepoint to get a good majority of their users to upgrade.
the only other reasonable pricepoints I could see are $14.99 or $9.99. You guys have to consider the analysis behind apple pricing. the price covers their development cost. a low price makes sure that users are happy getting annual upgrades. users of the not-newest computers are also kept happy with new features. at a price that seems reasonable. THey will take into account penetration numbers for new os updates. Its also worth it for apple to seem like a progressive platform and non-fragmented by showing how high upgrade numbers are. developers are also happy with high number of upgrades since they don't have to keep supporting legacy computers.
Accounting numbers also matter. apple recently has been getting lowered growth expectations by analysts. can they afford to give up the revenue stream from upgrades by providing free updates? a billion dollars is still a billion dollars. unless what they get from free upgrades is worth more than waht they give up. example goodwill, marketing, new mac sales, etc.
Apple will also look at their sensitivity analysis. If they dropped the price from 19.99 to 9.99, they would have to double their sales to generate the same revenue. if they dropped to 14.99 they would have to increase sales by 25%. if it seems likely that dropping price will increase sales by an amount that results in better net profit, they will do it.
So its not as simple as just apple wanting it to be free. they might establish that giving away free upgrades to osx from now on increases sales of macs by a million units every year. well then maybe its worth it for them to give it away free. the margins on macs more than make up for it.
So lets see how it goes.
the only other reasonable pricepoints I could see are $14.99 or $9.99. You guys have to consider the analysis behind apple pricing. the price covers their development cost. a low price makes sure that users are happy getting annual upgrades. users of the not-newest computers are also kept happy with new features. at a price that seems reasonable. THey will take into account penetration numbers for new os updates. Its also worth it for apple to seem like a progressive platform and non-fragmented by showing how high upgrade numbers are. developers are also happy with high number of upgrades since they don't have to keep supporting legacy computers.
Accounting numbers also matter. apple recently has been getting lowered growth expectations by analysts. can they afford to give up the revenue stream from upgrades by providing free updates? a billion dollars is still a billion dollars. unless what they get from free upgrades is worth more than waht they give up. example goodwill, marketing, new mac sales, etc.
Apple will also look at their sensitivity analysis. If they dropped the price from 19.99 to 9.99, they would have to double their sales to generate the same revenue. if they dropped to 14.99 they would have to increase sales by 25%. if it seems likely that dropping price will increase sales by an amount that results in better net profit, they will do it.
So its not as simple as just apple wanting it to be free. they might establish that giving away free upgrades to osx from now on increases sales of macs by a million units every year. well then maybe its worth it for them to give it away free. the margins on macs more than make up for it.
So lets see how it goes.
Can someone offer me a bit of advice please...
I am currently running my MacBook Air 11 on Lion 10.7.5
If I upgrade to 10.8 now (at a cost of £20/$30), will I have to pay again once 10.9 ships (assuming it's not free), or do Apple have some sort of "free upgrade" window for anyone purchasing an OSX upgrade version within a certain timescale of a newer one being released?
Thanks
I am currently running my MacBook Air 11 on Lion 10.7.5
If I upgrade to 10.8 now (at a cost of £20/$30), will I have to pay again once 10.9 ships (assuming it's not free), or do Apple have some sort of "free upgrade" window for anyone purchasing an OSX upgrade version within a certain timescale of a newer one being released?
Thanks
Windows 8 is not a free upgrade.
It was available for a discounted $19,90 for a short while, but is now back to normal pricing. Free Windows 8 upgrades were only offered to people who bought a Windows 7 computer within a certain frame of time. Similar offers were available with previous Windows releases when they came out. Apple did exactly the same with Lion to Mountain Lion upgrades, but I don't know if this is usual with Apple?
I voted for More than $19.99. Nothing is publicly announced yet, so anything is possible. For example Apple could start pricing the new releases based on their significance. So there could be a minor $19.99 release every other year, and a major $39,99 release every other, as far as we know. Like I said, anything is possible, and I'm certainly not counting for Mavericks to go at the same price as ML. I would even happily pay more than $19.99 for Mavericks, if that was the case.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416550 $99 for the full OS, $70 for an upgrade. Plus you can only use it once, compared to the multiple for OSX.
I said free in the poll. I could see it being $20 like Mountain Lion though.
I'm not familiar with "windoz 8" or "windoz 7", but Windows 8 was not a free upgrade from Windows 7. There was a period of several months where a person could upgrade for $15. After that offer expired, it was quite a bit more.
I'm using Windows 7 Pro. I tried Windows 8 and it is horrible. It has the look of "Fisher Price" products to me. If that's the way they go, I will get away from Windows completely. And I'm using a Mac with OS X Mountain Lion. I'm still having trouble converting completely because of the lack of quality software. Even the Mac version of MS Office sucks. But Office for Windows ran under Parallels doesn't run anything like it does in Windows for some reason. I have trouble with Excel spreadsheets mostly (on OS X) that I have no trouble with in Windows. I'm stuck with a Windows 7 machine because I need Office Word & Excel documents. I need to create, share, and edit those and it just doesn't work well on a Mac.
Windows 8 can be run in desktop mode and it's smoother than Windows 7. I use a program from Stardock called Start8 that boots to the desktop and brings the start button back. Works flawless, so I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say it's horrible.