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Theory: Mavericks to be Free?

maflynn said:
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)
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To be honest I think 8.1 is a bigger change for Windows over 8 than Mountain Lion was over Lion.

The last point release for Windows was 3.11 back in 1993. It was charged.

(Clarification, 3.11 wasn't charged over 3.1. To upgrade from 3.0. to 3.1 or 3.11 was charged)
 
maflynn said:
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.
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Under accounting rules, they'd have to defer some of the revenue as related to the "free" updates in the future and recognize it over time, though it seems to me that they need to do this for iPhone, which brings in a lot more than the Mac now.

That said, Windows 8.1 is "free" and Apple might follow suit. Mavericks is mostly about adding iBooks, Maps, more iCloud integration, and some under-the-hood changes. 10.10 will probably bring more UI changes such as what we saw this year with iOS 7. Side-by-side you really can't tell much difference between Mavericks and Mountain Lion.
 
KPOM said:
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That said, Windows 8.1 is "free" and Apple might follow suit. Mavericks is mostly about adding iBooks, Maps, more iCloud integration, and some under-the-hood changes. 10.10 will probably bring more UI changes such as what we saw this year with iOS 7. Side-by-side you really can't tell much difference between Mavericks and Mountain Lion.
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Microsoft is probably counting 8.1 as a maintenance release and so different rules apply. Remember it's free if you have Windows 8 and not free from any other version of Windows.
 
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maflynn said:
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)
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Mavericks is also a point upgrade, mainly bug fixes with some really nice under the hood performance improvements. Not really chargeable worthy when it is essentially a service pack, but I don't mind pay £20 as it is literally a turbo charged ML....
 
It could be worth it for Apple.

The theory would be that Apple's investment in OSX (which, let's be honest, is pretty small these days) will be recouped because it makes the Mac a better product, which maintains or increases sales.

That is what happens with iOS, which is where the bulk of Apple's engineering effort is now focused (or on the common platform they both share). Essentially every iOS device that can upgrade does upgrade to the latest version.

Lots more benefits spring from that. It increases the exposure of Apple properties like Maps and iBooks, and a less fragmented platform is much more attractive to developers and helps them create a better 3rd-party App ecosystem.

Better 3rd-party App ecosystems lead to better products. Apple's core philosophy is that better products sell.

I certainly don't expect Mavericks to be free, but it wouldn't be the biggest shock ever if it did.
 
Lefty21 said:
This is the key.
I could even see Apple going down another $10 to $9.99, but no way will it be free.
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I'm not sure. The difference between free and $10 is much bigger than the difference between $10 and $20. I'm not sure there's that much point in bringing it down to $10.
 
MikhailT said:
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.
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This!

It is the same philosophy behind free iOS updates. Maybe even more importantly the psychological impact of deciding on a new computer and knowing than one choice offers free operating system upgrades for the lifetime of the device - can itself leverage the loss in not selling the OSX.

A $2000 computer is 100 OSX licences. That means, if you count on a one percent increase in hardware sales, you can easily afford giving out OSX for free.

I'm pretty confident that this will be announced shortly. All internet recoveries will be reset to Mavericks and there will be a free upgrade to all 2007+ machines. Adoption rate will be very high... all the people still sticking to snow leopard or lion.
 
I think that it may be a free upgrade from Mountain Lion but going free from snow leopard or lion would make no sense since they never had to pay for ML.
 
Maybe they will keep it as a free upgrade for a limited time, to push up adoption rates….

People who are not going to upgrade in that limited free download time, will be highly unlikely to change, so they can then go back to levying a charge for late adopters, without invoking much wrath..…

Just a thought, don't know how this could pan out….
 
MikhailT said:
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.
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That's not a great reason. Helps developers but does nothing for Apple. Why would Apple want higher adoption rates other than the kudos of being able to say so and the way they don't bother to add support to newer versions of OS X on older hardware really doesn't support your argument.

Mavericks will be released later this month for exactly the same cost as Mountain Lion imop.
 
bobbba said:
That's not a great reason. Helps developers but does nothing for Apple. Why would Apple want higher adoption rates other than the kudos of being able to say so and the way they don't bother to add support to newer versions of OS X on older hardware really doesn't support your argument.

Mavericks will be released later this month for exactly the same cost as Mountain Lion imop.
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Apple can drop support completely sooner for older operating systems.
 
MichalM.Mac said:
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.
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I was wrong. YAY! :)
 
They could never have charged folk for this , its more of an update with lots of bugs .
 
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