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Bastards!

When I saw here on the live coverage of Jobs' keynote speech that Jaguar would be $129 and $19.99 upgrade for recent users, I assumed that having bought a new PowerMac G4 in January with OS X that I would be a 'recent user'.

I then find out that I have to pay full-whack for a 0.1 upgrade and the 'recent user' is anyone stupid enough to buy 10.1 from today! I find this extortionate.

OS X 10.1 is really an unfinished product and I don't see why I should have to pay 100 quid to tidy it up.

I think £100 is a fair price for someone who hasn't got X at all, but that same price to upgrade from 10.1 is a real kick in the teeth.

If someone bought OS X yesterday, they will have to pay £100 to upgrade to 10.2.

I think that £25 to upgrade from 10.1 and £100 for whole product would have been very fair. Apple obviously "Think Different".

I told everyone so

my thoughts exactly, we bought a snow iMac 3 months ago and it seems that apple considered it a dead machine before we'd even got it out of the box.... and we've already got to pay for an OS upgrade (because i bet it's only a matter of months before every apple software update 'requires 10.2 or later) and also pay for the privilege of keeping our email accounts

Mr. Bungle,

I've been able to do more with X than 9 since 10.1. I don't think you can class it as unfinished after that update. I agree that the full price does seem very steep, but Jaguar is not a bug fix, its a major overhaul, and is much more than the .1 increase name suggests. I know a few people who have been using Jaguar for the past few months (myself included) who agree that its a lot of money, but feature wise its worth it. Have a look at some of the MacNN X forums, the feeling is pretty widespread.

JP.

J.P.,

I do agree that Jaguar is not a bug fix, and I also agree that OS X 10.1 isn't entirely unfinished. BUT...

a) OS X 10.1 is very slow and much, much slower than OS 9
b) The OS X 10.1 audio core isn't ready for pro audio, hence no Pro Tools yet (although this isn't the only reason).

These two reasons make Jaguar almost essential for a great percentage of Mac users.

Many of the REAL improvements to Jaguar are never mentioned, such as major improvements to the technology required for pro audio and pro graphics. These two areas historically make up a huge part of the loyal Mac user-base.

Apple seem more preoccupied with attracting the average Windows user and are just trying to turn into Microsoft - and I don't even think they would have the nerve to charge £100 for an update, albeit a large one. And even they supply free Hotmail...

Perhaps you are right and when I actually use the product I will see that it is worth it and make a better judgement. We'll see in August...

However on the positive side Jaguar does seem like a fantastic operating system and the new hardware introduced today looks great, especially the 17" iMac which is surprisingly cheap.

I guess Apple must really need the cash right now, Not enough iMacs at the start, too expensive towards the end, now a 17" version for £1600, perhaps they will sell well, but I don't see how !.

Steve predicts doubling OSX usage before the end of the year to 5 million (I can't see how he works that out with these prices), perhaps some new products will prove irresistable in September ?

If someone owns OSX.1, and buys OSX.2, does that register as 2 copies being used ? Is that how he plans to double usage on paper ?

It would really be to Steve's advantage to keep as many OSX users on the same version, as possible. and upgrade every year for a £40 - £60 upgrade fee. It doesn't look like a good selling point, when an OS is upgraded every year for the full selling price.

Apple would make more money, and sell more Jaguars by providing an upgrade path than their current policy, on top of that, the negative publicity does more damage to Apple and hardware sales than good !!!

Remember my 1000 OSX.2 at £50 is better than 500 OSX.2 at £100 model i've used in the past. Unlike most business models, where the same money for the least manufacturing (second option) is better. OSs are different !!, the more you have out there the better !!!!!!! How many times ?????

iTools is another thing, it was a good promotional thing when it was free, but very negative when it was charged for. It would have been better not to have introduced it in the first place, solely on the bad publicity !

Apple are in danger of losing some swaying MAC / PC voters, and pi**ing off any PC user, who have recently switched to the Mac.

This is such a bad decision, at a time when Apple were gaining momentum, and instead of increasing market share, it will do more damage. Apple should re-think, and re-calculate. Appologise and say, they should have reflected the support of early adopters by offering an upgrade path, we are sorry, we don't get things right all the time !!

do it soon !

On the plus side anyone buying an Apple after OSX.2 is released will get a good deal, but don't pi** off your loyal supporters !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dragonfly,

WindowsXP costs nearly twice as much as OSX to start with, and the licensing terms are much stricter. They also do charge for Service Releases. They have a greater economy of scale than Apple, and have recently started to move Hotmail to a pay system.

JP.

J.P.,

That's being a bit frugal with the truth. The Home edition upgrade to XP is £80, the standalone is £180 and the pro upgrade is £180. XP has some nice features OS X does not have like video conferencing and the pro version allows software restore, something most of us would have loved given the reinstalling fun with the present X.

Al Bundy,

And OSX has a lot of features that the XP Home edition doesn't, such as a much better Movie editor, the ability to play MP3s without a fuss, a decent inbuilt web server, having better network utilities and networks being much easier to set up. It also doesn't have the product activation and favoured driver/app "features" that have become an integral part of XP. The Pro Version is much closer on feature parity, but as you mention the UPGRADE is £180 (full version £250). And you think the addition of a software restore makes up the difference? There are plenty of easy ways to back up X that don't cost much.

JP.