Theory: Mavericks to be Free?

[djtech42]

My prediction is that Mavericks will be released as a free operating system upgrade, while the next version of OS X will be $20-30.

Mavericks is a quick incremental update. I think Apple wants everybody to upgrade to Mavericks ASAP. The way they are developing it is pointing towards it being the next Snow Leopard (Under the hood improvements, long beta testing, light on new features, performance and battery optimizations). It's the new stable OS version.

It's cleaning up the mess that was made with Lion. Not that Lion wasn't a good upgrade, but it wasn't the smoothest upgrade, and it introduced performance issues. The next version of OS X might be the next Lion in terms of UI changes and more drastic changes to the way the operating system works.

I personally think Mountain Lion should have been free, too, but it ended up being $20, so who knows?

 

[Cougarcat]

If it goes free, then it'll be free forever. Doesn't make any sense to start charging again once that happens.

 

[MichalM.Mac]

One counter argument I can think of.
When you administer multiple Macs you can buy Volume OS X licence (Apple Online Store). There is also 3 year subscription that covers all OS X releases in that period. If Mavericks go free Apple either have to do refunds for those people or leave them pissed I would argue that this subscription is based on long term price point defined by Mountain Lion.
.

 

[djtech42]

One counter argument I can think of.
When you administer multiple Macs you can buy Volume OS X licence (Apple Online Store). There is also 3 year subscription that covers all OS X releases in that period. If Mavericks go free Apple either have to do refunds for those people or leave them pissed I would argue that this subscription is based on long term price point defined by Mountain Lion.
.

I thought everything in the App Store has unlimited licenses?

 

[retroneo]

I think it might be free. If not, then $9 and next years onwards free. I'm not sure if Apple has changed their accounting practices for Macs yet - or if they still fee they need to, as Apple did for iOS devices.

Apple will want developers to take advantage of all the latest APIs and reduce the fairly heavy fragmentation on the Mac, as they have successfully done on iOS. There are still a fair chunk of people on Snow Leopard and Apple will want to move them along. Free is the only way to do that.

Snow Leopard is due to become unsupported for patches when Mavericks is released. There are too many SL machines out there for Apple to let this happen.

 

[MichalM.Mac]

I thought everything in the App Store has unlimited licenses?

For personal use yes. If you buy software for company or edu you have to buy volume licence in most cases.

 

[djtech42]

I think it might be free. If not, then $9 and next years onwards free. I'm not sure if Apple has changed their accounting practices for Macs yet - or if they still fee they need to, as Apple did for iOS devices.

Apple will want developers to take advantage of all the latest APIs and reduce the fairly heavy fragmentation on the Mac, as they have successfully done on iOS. There are still a fair chunk of people on Snow Leopard and Apple will want to move them along. Free is the only way to do that.

Snow Leopard is due to become unsupported for patches when Mavericks is released. There are too many SL machines out there for Apple to let this happen.

Exactly. That's what I was thinking. Apple needs the big number of people on Snow Leopard to upgrade to Mavericks to keep supporting them and reduce fragmentation.

 

[thaifood]

I still think it will be $20-30.

If Apple end up making it free, then all the better. But, I'm not going to get my hopes up for it.

 

[rctlr]

I'm on snow leopard on one of my mac minis, this is due to it being unable to run mountain lion. I'm sure That I am not the only one in this situation.
When Mavericks comes home to roost, then it will be time to retire that Mac mini, but I'm waiting for new Mac mini hardware too.

 

[swingerofbirch]

Interesting question. These updates do start to look more like iTunes updates, which people aren't paying for.

 

[xVeinx]

There are a fair number on Snow Leopard because they can't upgrade any further though (or at least not past Lion). My Friend is still using Snow Leopard on his 2010 MBP, and I don't expect that he'll ever upgrade before he buys a new MBP; he's part of the group you are mentioning I suppose, but he won't change anything unless it's "broken" anyway (and usually catastrophically broken at that). There's a certain group that Apple will never convince to move on...

 

[djtech42]

There are a fair number on Snow Leopard because they can't upgrade any further though (or at least not past Lion). My Friend is still using Snow Leopard on his 2010 MBP, and I don't expect that he'll ever upgrade before he buys a new MBP; he's part of the group you are mentioning I suppose, but he won't change anything unless it's "broken" anyway (and usually catastrophically broken at that). There's a certain group that Apple will never convince to move on...

True. I think the main beef that group has with OS X now is Mission Control. I'm personally fine with it, but I wasn't a huge user of Exposé + Spaces either. I can see how Exposé + Spaces could be more flexible and suited for power users.

I think Apple has recognized it as an important area to improve, though, because they added the option of ungrouping windows and overhauled multiple monitor support.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

My prediction is that Mavericks will be released as a free operating system upgrade, while the next version of OS X will be $20-30.

Sounds like a guess more than a theory. Wasn't Mountain Lion the incremental from Lion?

These OS's used to be $99, $129, $150 and now they're $20 or $30. I think that's pretty darn close to free. You have to attach some value to OS versions.

 

[FreemanW]

I anticipate paying $19.95 for Mavericks.

Take my money.

 

[Dr. McKay]

I bought my MBA about three weeks ago with ML X.8.5. Am I eligible for a free upgrade ?

 

[maflynn]

I think the accounting rules are set up that its not in Apple's best interest to offer it free. Also I see no business reason why apple would offer this for free.

 

[djtech42]

I think the accounting rules are set up that its not in Apple's best interest to offer it free. Also I see no business reason why apple would offer this for free.

My thought was that if they could get more people to upgrade to Mavericks from Snow Leopard, they wouldn't have to support Snow Leopard and possibly Lion anymore. But yeah, the accounting rules might prevent them from offering it for free.

I bought my MBA about three weeks ago with ML X.8.5. Am I eligible for a free upgrade ?

You should be eligible if it is within a month of the final release, unless Apple does it differently this time.

Sounds like a guess more than a theory. Wasn't Mountain Lion the incremental from Lion?

These OS's used to be $99, $129, $150 and now they're $20 or $30. I think that's pretty darn close to free. You have to attach some value to OS versions.

I'm not complaining! It's great that we get new versions for $20 or $30. Sure beats prices of Windows updates! I honestly don't care if Mavericks is free or not. I was just giving reasons why it could be free, but it is still probably unlikely.

 

[maflynn]

My thought was that if they could get more people to upgrade to Mavericks from Snow Leopard, they wouldn't have to support Snow Leopard and possibly Lion anymore. But yeah, the accounting rules might prevent them from offering it for free.

I think adoption rates for Mountain Lion was so high that apple doesn't have to entice Mac users off Snow Leopard

Between Tim Cooks words last June and the Graph from January 2012 shows that Snow Leopard is not most used version of OSX

Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that OS X 10.9 Mountain Lion is the company’s best selling release of all time. On stage at this year’s WWDC, Cook announced that 35 percent of Mac users have upgraded to Mountain Lion, with 28 million copies of the software sold.

 

[djtech42]

I think adoption rates for Mountain Lion was so high that apple doesn't have to entice Mac users off Snow Leopard

Between Tim Cooks words last June and the Graph from January 2012 shows that Snow Leopard is not most used version of OSX


View attachment 438417

There's slightly more people on Snow Leopard than Lion though. Mountain Lion isn't much higher in share. Isn't it bad for fragmentation to have people spread across 3 versions of OS X almost equally?

 

[Weaselboy]

I bought my MBA about three weeks ago with ML X.8.5. Am I eligible for a free upgrade ?

Maybe.... when Apple released Mountain Lion they had a free "Up to Date" program that gave you ML free if you bought a Mac within the last six weeks. We just have to wait and see if they do that this time.

 

[clukas]

I highly doubt Mavericks will be free. If it where, and if they were to charge to subsequent versions, Mavericks could be perceived to be an apology from Apple over the last two releases Lion and Mountain Lion. It would also suggest that Mavericks is more like a service pack patching previous releases than a new OS.

Im not suggesting Lion or ML where bad, however this is how Mavericks could be perceived by the Media or non technical users if Apple release it free.

 

[MeUnix]

I'm going to guess that they will charge $19.99 for Mavericks. I don't see Apple giving up their newest OS for free.

 

[MikhailT]

I think the accounting rules are set up that its not in Apple's best interest to offer it free. Also I see no business reason why apple would offer this for free.

Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean Apple doesn't either.

The accounting rules were changed years ago that Apple could offer iOS updates for free. The same rules can be applied to apple computers to offer OS updates free, especially as Apple can deduct 3 years of 20$ updates per hardware since they are releasing a new update every year and they can drop the hardware support after 3 years.

As for business reason, there is one very good reason: Free updates means a much higher adoption rate, which helps all developers to drop software support rapidly and maintain newer versions better. And that includes Apple as well. Nobody wants to maintain support for Snow Leopard, nor Lion when Mavericks come out.

 

[7709876]

With Windows 8.1 being a free update I can see logic in Apple releasing Mavericks for free.

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Maybe.... when Apple released Mountain Lion they had a free "Up to Date" program that gave you ML free if you bought a Mac within the last six weeks. We just have to wait and see if they do that this time.

Yes, but they announced that pretty early. No word on this yet makes me think maybe Mavericks will be free.

 

[maflynn]

With Windows 8.1 being a free update I can see logic in Apple releasing Mavericks for free.

Win 8.1 is a point upgrade. Some new features, mostly bug fixes. .x updates have always been free AFAIK

Mavericks is a full upgrade, while not as radical of a change between 10.8 and 10.9 like Windows 7 and Windows 8, its still a major upgrade and to that point I don't think we'll it for free (and for the other reasons I already posted)