Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Offers Discounted Mac OS X 10.2
WCityMike writes "Apple's decision to offer no upgrade fee to existing Mac OS X users caused a great deal of unrest amidst Macintosh users, but Amazon may have made the argument a bit moot by offering a $50 mail-in rebate, thus bringing the price down to $79 for all users. Check out their listing for 10.2, or the mail-in rebate form. I wonder if, when Apple notices all its orders are coming in through Amazon, they'll get the point?"
The rest of us will have to pay full price :-(
If you use the current Amazon $5-off coupon, the net price comes down to $74. The promotion code is CHNKBKAMZNLT.
Not only do you have to feed your personal info to Amazon by placing the order, but to get your rebate, you need to feed rebate.com as well.
Even if you use a throwaway email address and a 555-1212 phone number, that'll still probably mean more junk snailmail coming to my house.
An aside: I was at Sam's Club the other day and was told that I had to get an updated membership card. When the girl was doublechecking my info, she asked, "I have '555-1212' as your current phone number. Is that right?" I said yes and she just continued on. I'm debating on whether she knew what the number was or not.
OS X 10.0 came out about 17 months ago. $130 every 18 months doesn't seem too unreasonable.
You're trolling, but I'll bite anyway. I bought MacOS X as soon as it was available. I got the 10.1 upgrade for free by going to the (reasonably) local Apple Store. 10.0.x was truly a poor performer, particularly in the GUI. The 10.1 release has been fast and stable for me, but in reality wasn't much more than tightening up the code and adding some device support.
10.2, on the other hand, is a pretty big change. The networking feature additions, graphics acceleration in the GUI, useful changes to included apps like Sherlock and iTunes and so on make this more of an upgrade than a bugfix. I don't have a problem with Apple charging for it, and I will buy it. I am going to wait a bit, though, and see if they give a large discount to upgraders, because I suspect that they will do so, and I'd rather not pay $129 for the OS, when I'm functional on the one I have now.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Interesting.
It's also worth noting the Microsoft Operating Systems rate #5, #8, #9, and #17.
If you're interested, here's the breakdown:
5. Microsoft Office XP Standard for Students and Teachers
8. Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Upgrade
9. Microsoft Windows XP Professional Upgrade
17. Microsoft Office XP Professional Upgrade
It's too bad they don't release actual numbers. I wonder if Jaguar beats all of those combined?
- Vincit qui patitur.
How is Amazon sellign software at a loss going to "send a message" to Apple?
As if somehow Jaguar is "supposed" to be $79 and Amazon is "just showing Apple!"
The fact is Jaguar is worth the upgrade price. Apple has charged for its software for half a decade now and charging for Jaguar is to be expected-- and STILL a good deal.
I've been running the 6C106 developers release and this has to be one of the biggests upgrades in apple history in terms of big and little things that are different. I'm not goign to violate my NDA, but I will say that Jaguar is worth paying for.
that the company that invented the concept of "We don't see a need to ever turn a profit" is using it as a loss leader means nothing-- just that they want more people aware of the fact that they sell Apple computers.... and that they realize (even if most people don't) that these "rebates" are more often than not never redeemed. Either because they are too hard, or people are lazy or both.
I can guarantee you that Amazon is not getting jaguar for less than $100. They are taking a loss to get your business, and knoing that they won't really have to take the loss because most of you will eat the $50, leaving their average selling price around $100.
This has nothing to do with Apple. The only thing this issue brings up is that Apple users are apparently rather cheap, just as Linux users are. Or at least the people who whine online are cheap. So it goes.
IF you don't want to upgrade, then don't. Wait a year and Jaguar will be on sale for $10. If you do upgrade you'll find the value is there in the product and it was worth it. But its a free country and its your choice. Just don't expect something for nothing-- that is not a right you have.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
You don't have to pay $129 every six months. Apple has NEVER in its history charged for an OS upgrade inside of a year.
10.1 was FREE.
And the Apple software update is FREE. giving regular updates for the OS and many of your applications.
If the fact that you have to buy it is stopping you from using OS X, that just means you're cheap-- if your time is worht anything, you'll make that $100 back inside of 3 months by switching.
(I love linux, believe in it, have gotten paid developing java applications for it, but when it comes to home, I never boot the linux box and have been migrating OS 10 to all the machines. Even the 9500 which is so old its not supported. Linux just takes too much maintenance and hassle cost to manage-- I'd rather spend that time tinkering with code.)
Your bash against apple is annoying-- NeXT shipped NeXT step the late 80s-- if there was a beta it was arround then. None of the shipping OS X versions have been beta quality-- and Apple has given dozens of free updates since 10.0 came out.
That they are charging for a new release is to be expected. That Linux zeolots will whine about paying for software is to be expected as well.
That they never answer the question "If you don't want to pay, why do you expect to get paid when you go to work? Shouldn't your boss be saying "I'm paying you again for another two weeks? You spent most of the last two weeks reading slashdot!""
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Charging for point releases is an insult to your customer base. Charging $130 for a point release is rubbing salt in the wound.
I see. Your problem is with the name. Apple should have called it Mac OS XP and then it would have been ok.
To think that XP isn't a "point release" is just silly.
You're making an argument based on naming, not the value of the product. Silly.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23