why is OS X 10.5 so expensive?

[alent1234]

someone gave me a Mac Mini G4 over the weekend with Tiger on it. My first Mac. i set it up and went on ebay looking for 10.5. all the auctions end over $100, with a lot around the $150 mark. is there any reason why the last version of the OS is so expensive?

i also see a lot of people selling the OEM OS discs. will the OEM discs from an Intel Mac work on my G4? i assume they will.

 

[robbieduncan]

will the OEM discs from an Intel Mac work on my G4? i assume they will.

The will only work on a G4 iMac. And potentially not all of them...

 

[stridemat]

someone gave me a Mac Mini G4 over the weekend with Tiger on it. My first Mac. i set it up and went on ebay looking for 10.5. all the auctions end over $100, with a lot around the $150 mark. is there any reason why the last version of the OS is so expensive?

because its a damn good OS!

No, really I don't think its that expensive, its just that Snow Leopard is very cheap.

 

[alent1234]

that's what i mean. 10.6 is $29 and works on every Mac in the last few years. it's like a lot of G4 owners suddenly decided to upgrade to squeeze some life out of their computers

 

[stridemat]

that's what i mean. 10.6 is $29 and works on every Mac in the last few years. it's like a lot of G4 owners suddenly decided to upgrade to squeeze some life out of their computers

You could be on too something, supply and demand. People want to buy Leopard and upgrade there older machines, thus the prices have increased.

 

[techound1]

Technically (meaning in apple's eyes), SL for $29 (or $25 almost everywhere else) is only the "upgrade" (from 10.5) cost/version. From a functional perspective, there are many users who are installing and using the $29 "upgrade" without have first had 10.5 installed. So, technically, the cost of SL is really the cost of the Box set with 10.5 + 10.6.

Also, have you looked at the prices for win 7? Yee-ouch when compared to the gougers on ebay wanting $100 for 10.5.

 

[alent1234]

Windows retail pricing has always been ridiculous. One reason is the retail version includes a server cal while the oem doesn't

 

[G4DP]

Any OEM discs you buy would have to be for the same model Mac Mini G4. No DVD from an Intel Mac will work with a G4.

Leopard is expensive because supply is now very limited to used copies, with possibly a few new copies being available.

 

[erratikmind]

You could be on too something, supply and demand. People want to buy Leopard and upgrade there older machines, thus the prices have increased.

LOL . . . I guess I am out of step, here. I'm still running Tiger 10.4.11 on my old 17" PB G4. That rig is going out the way it came in. It's still running great!

 

[ChrisA]

someone gave me a Mac Mini G4 over the weekend with Tiger on it. My first Mac. i set it up and went on ebay looking for 10.5. all the auctions end over $100, with a lot around the $150 mark. is there any reason why the last version of the OS is so expensive?

i also see a lot of people selling the OEM OS discs. will the OEM discs from an Intel Mac work on my G4? i assume they will.

People are paying $100 for Leopard DVDs??? I have one I don't need.

 

[panthro]

Why so expensive...and much more!

Hello there:

Leopard is so expensive, IMHO because:

-Most people need it for SL updates
-Great demand, lesser supply of legal copies.
-EBay is not a good place to search, nor LEM Swap (albeit, with some tinkering you can get some good price there, always asking all the questions before pay and using PayPal, maybe in the $50 price range).I would suggest, buy local!
-You need a Leopard retail disc, OEM, not machine specific. Burned copies can work, but again, it is not legal.
So, sucess in your search!

 

[applesupergeek]

When the car wreck that is windows 2000 sells for $25-30 on ebay I don't think 10.5 is expensive.

Like someone said, it's a damn good os.

 

[CBAviator]

I think it's completely the opposite. Max OS X really isn't all that expensive for what you're getting. Considering what you have to pay for the mess that is Windows and you'll quickly appreciate the Mac OS pricing. With Windows, you're paying even more for an OS that only sorta works like an OS that expensive should!

 

[alent1234]

i just bought a set of 10.5.6 restore discs for $20. i assume it's the same binaries as the retail disks. just like with windows. the OEM disks, retail and the MSDN iso's i get are all the same OS

 

[robbieduncan]

i just bought a set of 10.5.6 restore discs for $20. i assume it's the same binaries as the retail disks. just like with windows. the OEM disks, retail and the MSDN iso's i get are all the same OS

You assume wrong. The restore DVDs are tied to a specific set of hardware: they are not binary identical to retail copies.

 

[alent1234]

so if I had an iMac I bought with 10.5 the OS would take up half the disk space compared to upgrading from Tiger to 10.5?

with Windows i've used Dell OEM CD's to install the OS on a HP computer and vice versa. Back in the day with my first PC that didn't have an OS CD and just a restore CD i even figured out how to transfer the identifying files to a new HD to trick it into thinking it was the original hard drive. HP's OEM DVD's are pretty easy to fool as well

 

[robbieduncan]

so if I had an iMac I bought with 10.5 the OS would take up half the disk space compared to upgrading from Tiger to 10.5?

I don't see anything that anyone has written that suggests that at all.

 

[alent1234]

i forgot what the correct term is, but OS 10.5 had binaries for x86 and PPC which it installed. THis is the reason why 10.6 "freed" up so much space. it deleted all the binaries for PPC.

if retail Intel Mac's that were bought with 10.5 have the OS take up less space out of the box than using a retail DVD than it means that the OEM versions have PPC binaries stripped out.

otherwise Apple would have to use some hardware checker on the CD's if they don't want to have OEM CD's install on Apple hardware the CD/DVD wasn't intended for. But that is a PITA and even Dell doesn't do it. HP used to check the BIOS and a few years back started shipping a separate check CD. A few times i used a newer HP XP CD to install it on my older HP desktop at work and it wouldn't take and asked for the check CD. you put in the CD and then it asks you for the XP CD again and you are good to go.

 

[skye12]

On old PPC Macs, it's probably not worth getting Leopard or SL. The old
xmachines just don't run fast enough.

 

[aarond12]

Supply and demand

I'm wondering if the Hackintosh crowd is driving up the price. Although there are discs available with a hacked version of 10.5.x out there, programs like Chameleon allow the non-hacked 10.5.x discs to be used.

The price also may be escalated because Apple isn't making these discs anymore and people are (mistakingly) thinking that you need to have 10.5.x installed to get 10.6 installed.

-Aaron-

 

[jzuena]

otherwise Apple would have to use some hardware checker on the CD's if they don't want to have OEM CD's install on Apple hardware the CD/DVD wasn't intended for.

Unfortunately, I believe that is exactly what Apple does with the restore disks. They don't do it with the system upgrade disks. Apple ran a boxed set with Leopard + iLife + iWork for around $150 right before Snow Leopard came out. If you can't get Leopard alone for its retail $129 or less, maybe you can still get the boxed set at retail and get the latest iLife and iWork as a bonus.

 

[jaw04005]

I'm wondering if the Hackintosh crowd is driving up the price.

No. The Hackintosh crowd has already moved on to 10.6. And every previous version of OS X is like this. Currently, boxed copies of 10.4 Tiger are going for $249+ on Amazon Merchant.

The price also may be escalated because Apple isn't making these discs anymore ...

Bingo. Apple does clean cut-offs with OS X releases. From their retail stores to their third-party channels, when a new version of OS X is released the older versions disappear (and in the case of the Apple Store are even pulled from the shelf.)

Unlike Microsoft, where you can still purchase copies of XP and Vista in the retail channel.

and people are (mistakingly) thinking that you need to have 10.5.x installed to get 10.6 installed.

You need a valid license of 10.5 to purchase the $29 copy of 10.6. Otherwise you need to purchase the Mac Box Set. Apple has said that repeatedly. Whether you choose to abide by their upgrade licensing requirements, is your business.

 

[Yorb]

Sorry to dredge up a week old thread, but I was wondering the same thing as the OP and this came up from google.

I'm a die-hard Mac user since the old days but I think they've really ****ed the goat on this one. People want to buy Leopard because 10.6 won't install on PowerPC machines. There are still a LOT of PowerPC machines out there, perfectly capable of running 10.5. Apple could be selling all their old Leopard discs instead of burning them in a huge bonfire (as I'm sure they're doing) and still making money. It's not like anyone is going "oh, well, I guess if they don't sell 10.5 anymore I'll just buy a new computer," even though that's exactly what Apple is thinking.

This has gotta be the ass-ugly brainchild of some new exec somewhere at Apple, because it's not limited to the 10.5 issue; one other example jumps to mind immediately: Mac Pro AirPort cards. They still SELL the Mac Pro with the card as an OPTION, which means you can get them WITHOUT the card, but they've deliberately pulled the card from the store (online and retail). You can't get them anymore through retail outlets. I talked to a tech at Apple about buying a wireless card and the poor guy was stumped that they didn't sell them anymore. He was searching on Amazon trying to find me a wireless card.

Anyway, it's retarded. I say pirate the hell out of 10.5 and bypass any and all licensing restrictions if you can. Even if they cared, they wouldn't take you to court because all of this deliberate upgrade-forcing would come out.

 

[stridemat]

Anyway, it's retarded. I say pirate the hell out of 10.5 and bypass any and all licensing restrictions if you can. Even if they cared, they wouldn't take you to court because all of this deliberate upgrade-forcing would come out.

Just a note this is a very bad idea.

 

[bearsandships]

acknowledgment

Sorry to dredge up a week old thread, but I was wondering the same thing as the OP and this came up from google.

I'm a die-hard Mac user since the old days but I think they've really ****ed the goat on this one. People want to buy Leopard because 10.6 won't install on PowerPC machines. There are still a LOT of PowerPC machines out there, perfectly capable of running 10.5. Apple could be selling all their old Leopard discs instead of burning them in a huge bonfire (as I'm sure they're doing) and still making money. It's not like anyone is going "oh, well, I guess if they don't sell 10.5 anymore I'll just buy a new computer," even though that's exactly what Apple is thinking.

This has gotta be the ass-ugly brainchild of some new exec somewhere at Apple, because it's not limited to the 10.5 issue; one other example jumps to mind immediately: Mac Pro AirPort cards. They still SELL the Mac Pro with the card as an OPTION, which means you can get them WITHOUT the card, but they've deliberately pulled the card from the store (online and retail). You can't get them anymore through retail outlets. I talked to a tech at Apple about buying a wireless card and the poor guy was stumped that they didn't sell them anymore. He was searching on Amazon trying to find me a wireless card.

Anyway, it's retarded. I say pirate the hell out of 10.5 and bypass any and all licensing restrictions if you can. Even if they cared, they wouldn't take you to court because all of this deliberate upgrade-forcing would come out.

Well I'm sure a number of folks will have something to say about bringing back this old of a post. I have my reasons, two of which are net searches often result in bringing up old posts, and there didn't seem to be any recent topics on this.

I'm replying simply to support what yorb had to say about apple forcing ppc mac owners to upgrade (since the alternative is paying a ton of money for an outdated os that can't be upgraded on a ppc). It's nothing new in company practices - screw your customers a little here and there and wherever you can for profit as long as it won't cause a revolt.

I've had a number of my macs for 7 or more years and they've run great. My friend has an old g4 laptop that is slow but does everything she needs - internet, photoshop, word, etc. My 2ghz g5 is 5 yrs old now, but does everything i need perfectly fine. Perfectly fine except for anything that won't run on 10.4.11 or older, and that I can't get access to any new os features or improvements. The other bummer is, of course, even if I shelled out $100 plus for an outdated os (10.5), I'm stuck at that without being able to use 10.6 or above in the future.

More obsolescence means more electronic waste in landfills (they can't recycle all of a computer), more demand for new plastic electronics that aren't necessary, and more money spent on them that could have been used elsewhere. Whether or not companies will change such profit-first oriented business practices and start putting product quality and customer support first is another matter. I simply wanted to acknowledge that this whole ppc-10.5-price issue is unnecessary and detrimental to users with perfectly functional older macs, and I, and I'm sure many others, feel poorly about the prospect of paying $100+ for an outdated os because of apple's practices. I hope apple and other companies will support their customers in a better way in the future.

All of the above is of course my perception based on my experiences and knowledge.

peace