Classy, Apple. Tell people running 10.4 that they need to buy the $169 box set when the $29 upgrade will work just fine. That’s the Apple philosophy in action, isn’t it?
As long as you’ve got an Intel-based Mac, $29 is all you need to get Snow Leopard on your computer. And don’t let Apple tell you otherwise.
This is an extremely misleading post. While it may very well indeed possible, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s licensed properly. You could pass your Leopard Family pack around to four of your friends and it would work, but they wouldn’t be legit copies.
Apple makes it a point to go out of their way to not impose crazy software protection schemes and uses the “honor” system a lot. That goes a long way in my book, and were I still running Tiger, I’d still be buying the Box Set.
I don’t think it’s misleading. I think Apple was misleading consumers by suggesting they needed to buy a box set in order to get Leopard, when that’s clearly not the case. The licensing thing I think is pretty arbitrary. What if they charged a further extra $100 for people running 10.3?
You’d know that going into it. If it’s a bullshit pricing structure people will do one of three things:
1) Buy it
2) Not buy it
3) Cheat
It’s not like anyone’s forcing you to do it, and it’s not like Apple’s enforcing any of this. You can’t blame them for trying to make a buck, and you certainly can’t chide them when they look the other way on DRM.
Case in point: Windows 7 is super expensive (comparatively). I’m not going to buy it at all and instead re-format my Windows partition to be extra storage space. If they had a $30 upgrade path, I’d hop on it.
It WAS $50 to upgrade, don’t hop on the anti-MS bandwagon just because you missed your chance.
Apple was selling essentially service packs for the price of a full OS, its about time they started pricing these things accordingly.
That is about as straight out of a corporate PR machine as it gets. Honor system? You have got to be joking!
Their OS is locked to their hardware. Their phone and media player/pseudo-PDA are locked to iTunes. They require a 30% cut for the privilege of distributing software for their phone and pseudo PDA. They actively work to break any connection of a 3rd-party device to iTunes. All media for their OS is required to go through their proprietary Quicktime software. They regularly require paid OS updates to run new versions of their software. They regularly force users to upgrade by dropping support for legacy hardware.
They are probably the most unreasonably aggressive purveyors of “crazy software protection schemes” outside of Sony! At least most other companies are just trying to keep you from stealing their software, not using their software protection to force you into buying their expensive hardware.
This is a classic example of Apple spin. Pick your biggest weakness, in this case your compulsively controlling antiquated walled garden approach, and try to spin it as your greatest strength.
With all those straw men, aren’t you afraid they might gang up on you?
Pathetic arguments. You call Quicktime proprietary when it’s free? Works on all OSs and is the basis for MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 and h.264? You don’t know squat.
Same with the rest of your arguments.
Quicktime actually is a proprietary technology. That doesn’t mean it has to cost the end user money.
Developers who want to try their hand at improving the technology…well, that’s a different story.
“Their OS is locked to their hardware. Their phone and media player/pseudo-PDA are locked to iTunes. They require a 30% cut for the privilege of distributing software for their phone and pseudo PDA. They actively work to break any connection of a 3rd-party device to iTunes. All media for their OS is required to go through their proprietary Quicktime software. They regularly require paid OS updates to run new versions of their software. They regularly force users to upgrade by dropping support for legacy hardware.”
Wow. You said quite a lot there and managed to get nearly all of it wrong.
Yes, the OS is locked to their hardware.
The iPhone and all iPods can be used with alternative media players. iTunes is the one that they bundle with it – like the Zune software for the Zune.
A percentage cut when distributing software through a similar setup is pretty standard across the board. RIM and Palm both take a cut – I can’t remember whether Google does for its store.
They actively worked to break a connection to a third-party device that pretended to be a different product in violation of USB spec. Plenty of other third-party devices work just fine with iTunes because they don’t masquerade as something else.
No, not all media. I can play plenty of media with VLC which doesn’t go through Quicktime. Also, it’s free.
I concede that they do create updates, and then create software which often relies on a portion of the latest update. There are new frameworks, new APIs, etc. introduced with almost every 10.x update.
Yeah, they move on from old hardware. I’m not anti-Windows, but I am anti-some-things-in-Windows. For example, leaving code in there from 15 years ago because a few people might still use random peripheral Z is ridiculous. Technology moves on.
I agree– it’s not a legal license, just like using the student version of Photoshop for commercial applications.
Hey look– a version of Photoshop CS4 extended is only $199 too straight from Adobe–
http://tryit.adobe.com/us/cs4/studenteditions/?sdid=DQCOZ
Adobe is misleading the consumer by charging $999 for CS4.
Licensing is not arbitrary. The version I can get for free from a torrent will install perfectly well too- it doesn’t make it ok.
Apple isn’t ‘misleading’ anyone; software frequently has different licensing agreements and prices depending on who and what kind of system it is being installed.
I don’t think “arbitrary” means what you think it means, because software licensing is most definitely arbitrary. Let’s try a few definitions on for size.
1: Subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one’s discretion: an arbitrary decision.
Well, if that individual is Steve Jobs, then you would seem to be arguing that this definition fits. You are saying that because Steve Jobs decided it should cost more for some people, then it indeed should.
2: Decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.
Yeah, last I checked software licensing wasn’t set by statute, so that fits.
3: Having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic; tyrannical: an arbitrary government.
Well, you certainly seem to be arguing in your very own post that this definition fits. In fact you seem to be arguing that software licensing is completely arbitrary.
4: Capricious; unreasonable; unsupported: an arbitrary demand for payment.
This would be the author’s contention, and I tend to agree.
I think what you meant to say is that software licensing isn’t voluntary, or optional, or maybe negotiable. It is, however, arbitrary, no matter how you slice it.
Since we are going to play that game, some other definitions of arbitrary:
1. based on whim: based solely on personal wishes, feelings, or perceptions, rather than on objective facts, reasons, or principles
I highly doubt the pricing or licensing of product (even by Apple) is determined without reference to reasons, business principles or the market. It is based on what a company (or yes, even Steve Jobs) believes in best for the well being of the company (which in smart companies also includes the well being of their customer). How the product is licensed, distributed and priced is determined by careful consideration of production, distribution, marketing costs and their bottom line. So, not arbitrary. You might not like their conclusion- but that does not mean it was arrived at capriciously.
2. random: chosen or determined at random
the arbitrary order of the entries
I think we covered this.
3. authoritarian: with unlimited power
arbitrary government
Apple holds absolute rule over how they wish to distribute their products, but that does not mean arbitrary even in this sense of the definition. You could always go Windows or Linux or nothing. No one is forcing a $160 upgrade down your throat.
Their decision to price and license Snow Leopard was not arbitrary just as it is likely your choice to buy or not buy is not arbitrary.
As for unreasonable- that is in the eye of the beholder. Software costs money to develop and people who paid for multiple upgrades over the years maybe should get SL at lower cost than people who didn’t pay for all those upgrades. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
r Girls girls! No need to fight. You’re *both* pretty.
i guess that’s what apple gets for naming their operating systems after wild cats: they can’t be put in cages. great article on the topic over here: http://onthebutton.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/apple-snow-leopard/
Thanks rose, that made my day with the last cat photo.
Can I just say something? You are all losers in my book. There it’s been said and now you know.
hahaha I agree, get a life, who goes out of their way to post definitions to prove someone wrong on the internet? grow up!
There are only two possibilities:
1- You are on something
2- You are stupid
I can’t see any other reason someone could interpret Apple’s generous act to what you said!
Dude, there is something called License agreement, are familiar with it?
Obviously you migrated from windows and that’s why you aren’t use to such things. You’ve expected Apple does it like M$, serial numbers, online check,…
Any way you can put your box set on ebay and buy the $29 version if it makes you happy.
Yeah, those are the only two possibilities. Because calling someone “stupid” and in the very next sentence throwing out the assertion that Apple is generous in their business practices doesn’t make you naive. Wow.
The next time you assert someone is either “stupid” or “on something” you might try using proper punctuation and making a coherent argument.
About punctuation or any other writing mistake I’m sorry, cause I can’t do better than that. I’m learning to write better.
I didn’t try to insult anyone, that was suppose to be friendly, like between friends. I guess I was wrong about that too! May be I’m the stupid one so!(-:
But look, the whole argument has been made in the main text is absurd.
Apple didn’t tell any where that it will use any sort of license check or anything like that. They just clearly informed people about their plan and how they upgrade plan would be.
So now that we found they don’t check Leopard license before upgrade, how it could be a bad intend or anything like that?!
What I can understand from this article is that if Apple had tried to make installing of upgrade version of SL difficult then that would be great!
But now that it is simple and it doesn’t need previous version, like MS does, it is not fair!(-:
The whole assumption that license check is necessary before upgrade comes from microsoft and its upgrading model. Why you think there must be that kind of thing before you buy this or that version?
The text said it clear: Apple isn’t classy because it didn’t say you can go and breach the license agreement. You didn’t pay for Leopard, but you can upgrade to next one by breaching the license, how dare Apple is that didn’t clearly say that!
Yeah, and if Apple put DRM in it to prevent the $29 version of Snow Leopard from installing over Tiger, you’d whine about Apple’s draconoian measures taken.
Whine about how they don’t “treat honest customers right” all you want. But this is Apple doing that. Saying you should pay for the correct license based on what you’ve paid before, but we’re not going to be jerks about it” and you call ‘em jerks for doing it.
Hypocrite.
Kumbaya, my Lord.
Kumbaya.
I’m not a fan of Apple, but I have to give them props for this. People who are going to do the right thing are going to buy the correct version. People who aren’t going to do the right thing might still buy the $30 version to have a semi-legit copy, and apple still gets to make a bit of money off of them. More than if they’d stolen it, anyway.
Now since everyone is posting about it it wont be for long.
Is pretty funny watching MAC fans discussing about the ethics of not giving money to a company that producing billions of pounds and never took care of customers, not in the 80s and not now, and this is why Windows took over.
The prices Apple charge for the hardware should grant you any version for free, you may not agree but is what I think and what I do.
The Iphone they charge 444 pounds cost to apple less than 30 and less than 36 including development and research, they employ a miserable a mount of people and still they are monopolists 100% to the point the sell only in their shops where people work for minimum wage.
So please don’t make me laugh with your “honor” stuff cause is completely ridiculous, APPLE itself have ironed quite a few Nokia, Sony and Toshiba patents on its way.
So I don’t think that we, the salary people are the ones to take care about the amazing morality when they are living the Ferrari life on everybody’s account.
Like when they force you to take AT&T, charge 450 pounds and secretly they was already developing the next Iphone generation which left obsolete everybody in 10 months…
So if you want to take care of Apple, I respect that… I don’t/