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Apple To Charge for Some iApps
randomErr writes "News.com has this story that according to sources familiar with the plans, Apple is expected to announce at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco Tuesday that consumers will have to pay for new versions of iDVD, iPhoto and iMovie. Previously, Apple had offered upgrades to its digital media, or 'i' applications, for free."
Sorry had to.
Trolling is a art,
But no, you didnt buy a cheap linux box, you will now get i-fucked up your i-ass!
Nero-burning ROM for Linux!
let the rants begin.
... who already paid too damn much for their computers and are all too willing to pay more for their software.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Apple is fucked
apple plans to make money. Of course they'll charge for apps at some point. You buy their hardware, it'll come installed on the equipment and you won't have to buy it (or the costs of them are buried in the total cost of the product, much as they are now). However, if you want to keep current with additional features, you should pay for it, just as you do with every other piece of software written by companies who are interested in making a profit. why wouldn't they? and why is the rumor news here? ;-)
I didn't pay for .Mac 'cause I thought it redundant to the somewhat-clunky-but-included-with-the-fee features from my ISP. But to not have iTunes, or iPhoto...
A commercial company charging money for their applications. Last time I checked, they will have to make money in order to survive.
"Oh I see your gimick, the first ones are free than you jack up the price! ....Ok you win"
At the mall eating cookie samples.
*Paraphrase of the comments my Dad's brother made to him, about Microsoft, in 1985.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
i've been talking with someone who's had inside inf before, including the LCD iMac info, and the god awful flower power macs.
this looks like it's true. as long as it's only upgrades you pay for, i don't see that it's that big of a deal. get a new machine and you get the new software for free anyway, that's pretty much how it is now.
maybe if they can make money off it they'll update iMovie and iPhoto, both need it badly.
Quicktime used to be free too. The company I was working for at the time Quicktime 3 came out bought me a license for it, but I just thought that was silly. It would be like MS making you buy Media Player.
iPhoto recently lost all 501 of my photos, and Apple (UK) wanted me to pay £35 to ask one question about how to get them back as my hardware (500Mhz G4 Tibook). I refused because I had no guarantee they could help me. I hope that with the paid version, support comes included.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
That's a paddling!
Seriously though. Apple is a corporation. Besides the "community/family" factor, they need to boost the stock prices.
I'm not an avid Mac user, but I would rather pay for few small upgrades from Apple which would amount to $30 bucks, than to switch Office suite versions twice a year.
The prevailing rumor is that the asking price will be around $50 for iDVD, iMovie, and iPhoto together.
In other news, Apple is rumored to make an announcement about 802.11g.
I write in my journal
i'm dissappointed... but i'll probably still pay for the upgrades... i waited in line for jaguar and charged $129 for that upgrade. i'm a sucker, i admit it...
Gee, is anyone really surprised Apple is starting to use the shareware model? These iApps require significant investments of time and money and they have to recoup their investment somehow. Apple is a publically traded company you know...
Besides the consumer application of many of these iApps, I also know lots of folks (including myself) that are using them for scientific and business purposes and then upgrading to the more expensive Pro apps when needs outstrip the consumer products. So, by getting these application "free" when you purchase a new computer and then paying to get the latest versions combined with using them as a portal to the Pro stuff, it seems to be a pretty good business model. If the iApps don't cost too much, are helping me to be more productive and are well written, more power to them.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
As far as iDVD goes, I could see them charging for upgrades, or if you want to use it with a non-OEM/External DVD-R drive. That would actually be an improvement over the current situation.
--
The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
.Mac has failed miserably with down time and horrible responses from customers. I know I'm a subscriber.
.Mac because they said their would be future updates and addons, here we are and the only add on is some cheap Nisquality game that costs like 10 bucks by itself.
The only justification I have for telling people to buy a mac is the great software that comes free. If it's no longer free than you might as well buy a cheaper wintel system and by the wintel software equivalents.
If this is true Apple will have lost a customer in me on ethics alone. i don't respond well to bait and switch programs, especially not at the high prices Apple is known for.
I sprung for
Apple is blowing it. My next buy if this is true, will be a wintel machine. I don't give a shit how bad MS is, at least they have never pulled a bait and switch on me.
I was so close to buy an iBook a few months ago, when they announced that they would charge for the OS upgrade and I gave up on the idea.
Now I'm so happy I didn't take that road...
Given the economic climate, I'm hardly surprised. Companies need to turn a profit. I just wonder if this won't backfire: companies are losing money, but consumers don't have the extra money to spend. It's not like the iApps are must-have upgrades.
The only way I can see this working out is if Apple stops including the iApps on all their Macs or ships lesser-powered versions (like they do with Quicktime).
----------
Something cleversinker. While this might seem outrageous to some fervent mac users, it's a tried and true strategy of any software developer:it sounds like a modified form of shareware. Personally, I can't think of any other apps I'd spend $50 on; I just finished a 4 gig "iDVD" using dozens of "iMovies" and drag and dropped many of my legal MP3s from iTunes for background music. To use any other software would cost me hundreds, and would have taken me more time. The real question is whether the new features will be worth the money. All those content with previous versions need not gripe.
No man, I can't agree. Several of my friends bought Macs/iMacs because they are easy to use, no driver mess but ALSO because with the iMacs you get "everything" you need right from the start. Calculating this into the somewhat stiff original price, they decided to go for Apple. Now this company is doing an "180 degree" (as they already did with .Mac last year). Stupid, IMHO...
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
OK, I've been a mac user forever, since my Mac SE. I've never minded the extra price for a better (IMHO) machine and OS. Yeah, I thought it was lame when they yanked iTools and started charging for it, but hey, I like their stuff so I supported them and signed up. But this is just getting old. Next, they'll start charging a subscription for routine OS / security update service through SoftwareUpdate, huh? Charging like this is only going to create an open market for pirated software - especially since they don't have any type of copy protection scheme on any of their software.
Hey, maybe this will encourage people to dump Mac OS altogether and start using Linux, where all the apps are free. Maybe they really do support open source!
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I trust this more.
very hard, very long, or with overmuch understanding, did you Grasshopper?
KFG
and have to pay $100 to upgrade one of the bundled applications right away? Given that Mac software is rather expensive, people will wait for a version bundled with what they want rather than buy a new Mac right away. Both Apple and the user lose.
If they wanted the revenue they should have charged from the beginning. Why can't free things stay free for very long?
I know it's tough times, but this is just pissing off your customers. Isn't it better to make a little less profit but have happy customers?
I'm a firm believer that while Apple is more expensive, its products do tend to be better. Sure a Ford will get you around town as well as a Mercedes, but you'd never mistake the quality of the Mercedes for that of the Ford.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
Charging for upgrades is not going to make apple users happy, but it will work.
The important thing is when you buy your mac, you will get all these apps for free at the current version. Most people won't choose to buy a non-mac because they won't get free software upgrades in the future.
When upgrades come out, well, you're already an established mac user.
I wish that Apple would continue to allow free upgrades for shipped-with-the-mac software. It would be a nice gesture on their part, but they can probably get away with it.
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I support spreading santorum
Outrageous hardware pricing = more profits = money to pay development team.
Duh!
"I admit, I have never read the license agreement / terms and conditions which may well state the Apple may impose a charge in the future"
I represent the ForeverWear Siding company. May I have a moment of your time? I promise, it won't hurt a bit.
KFG
Quicktime is STILL FREE. Quicktime Pro which adds a couple of authoring functions costs money.
Mod the parent down!!!
As someone who is waiting for a compelling reason to buy a new mac I agree that compared to Wintel hardware mac hardware is overpriced.
.Mac. Now I definately will not be switching if the big annoucement at the expo is to charge for the Iapps. These apps along with .mac should be free to encourage people to switch.
.mac and now this a lot of people are going to see the light finally.
Ive tried several of the iApps and think they are pretty nice applications and I used to think a good reason for switching was the *FREE*
My big problem with Apple is they dont really seem to care about getting new customers as much as they just want to take advantage of the existing loyal customers. These people arent going to hang around forever. With the charging 129 for an upgrade that finally brought performance to the level originally promised, taking away the formerly free
I'm not an apple user but I would be...If I could afford one. I can't justify shelling out $1600 for a new computer. Apple is charging for these upgrades to increase revenue. But why don't they, or can they, lower the price of their systems where more people could afford them? I believe Apple has a better product than MS and I wouldn't mind using OS X on a regular basis. But I need to be able to afford it. They also increase user base by making them available to more people. Then more people would buy their systems and they could continue to offer these upgrades for free which would be another boon to people wanting a Mac to begin with.
J
Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.
Some people will say that this is a 'bad thing' but really it won't affect much because surprise surprise, most people don't sit on the apple update site and wait for the next upgrade of their software. Most people ARE still using the software that came with their computers. If they get a new piece of hardware they don't bother to download the newest drivers and software but rather use what was included in the box. This affects the powerusers, but generally, why do you need to upgrade SOMETHING THAT WORKS!
Apple, unlike many other companies, makes products that work rather well. If you can burn dvd movies on your computer, why do you need a newer version of the software. Most of the time all the software does is add support for a newer computer, rather then do more stuff. This is not always the case but generally new version of software do what the last version did, only with more support.
Yes, this sucks when the new version is faster, or has more options, but if you are buying a machine because on the box it says that 'sometime in the future it will do this ______' then maybe you should wait until that time comes before you buy it, or change what you think the machine should do.
It's not like the old version won't work anymore, just like to people who use Win95, the people will old versions of iDVD and iMovie will still be able to use their computers, but just not be 'on the cutting edge'. Being on the cutting edge is expensive, hate to break it to you.
This software is "free as in drugs."
They used the free iApps to get people to convert over to the Mac platform, becoming dependant on the tool and the platform, then not being able to switch back when the price goes up.
iTools went from free to $100/year... nice jump there.
either you are willing to be nickeled and dimed to death ("it's only $13.00 for this utility"...) or you aren't.
the mac user spectrum has proven since the 80's that they are willing to pay $ for good stuff. why change it now? why not pay apple for improved stuff? the machine itself lasts so long... and the market share so small... they gotta make $ somehow
[/troll]
oh wait...
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
When iMovie 2 came out that's how they did it. New computer's came with the current version. and if you were using version 1 and not buying a new computer or OS upgrade you could pay 10 or 20 bucks to get version 2 on a CD. iMovie is still not a free download and neither is iDVD. only free updates are minor revisions. ie 2.1
iPhoto/iTunes/iCal/iSync on the other hand.....
--
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
Assertion failed. Mutually exlusive properties used together.
;-)
Apple can do anything they want, becuase they know that Mac users would jump off a bridge if steve jobs told them to.
If they shit in a bag and stuffed it in a G4 case, the Macers would still claim how their iShit outperforms anything that the PC world ever offered.
Apple already charges for these applications (iMovie - $49.00). Although theses applications are still bundled if you have bought a new Macintosh, or bought Mac OS X.
I don't see this as an issue at all. There will not be an uproar since Apple is already doing this today.
To all of those saying "What's wrong with paying for decent software":
When I payed an overly inflated price for my mac is when I paid for this software. I took the hit on the wauy in and they just keep hitting
read your warantee you get 90 days free support when you buy any apple product, if you have an applecare protection plan you get 3 years phone and 3 years hardware
Apple already charges $20 a piece to upgrade a 1.x version of iMovie or iDVD to a 2.x version. They have for some time. The bummer is wanting iPhoto and having to pay for an iDVD upgrade when you don't even have a DVD burner to put it to use.
If they want to make any money whatsoever, they'll port all the iApps to PC (and possibly charge more). Since the PC market is at least 20x bigger than the Mac market, if they (say) sell iApps to 5% of the PC market, they'll double their installed user base! That will be a shitload of money, and it will be doubly stupid if they don't do it.
Wasn't there an article awhile back about not being able to use Apple DVD software without buying their DVD-ROM, or something similar? Now, what happens when I have to buy their software, which came with the DVD-ROM, to allow me to actually use their product.
So, can't crack the player to use on other hardware. Can't get the player unless you buy the player. Can't get a better player unless you pay for upgrade?
Perhaps this doesn't apply, the whole hardware-based burning software thing was a bit confusing anyhow.
yup definitely braindead
... but they've already tried squeezing their loyal customers enough with .mac. What they should do is port these apps over to Windows and charge people $29.95 or so for each of them. I'd pay that for iTunes 3 in a heartbeat, and there's certainly nothing that comes close to iPhoto on Windows.
They might as well try and make back the money they spend developing or acquiring all of this technology, and they can still keep the choice fruit like Final Cut Pro and iDVD mac-only to attract hardware buyers.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
The issue at stake here is not about Apple, "iApps", mac users, or OS X. The issue at stake is the assumptions made by users and the corporations following those assumptions or trampling those in the mud.
I know a lot of you get pissed when people claim, in this example, that Apple should not charge for this software. It is a perfectly valid argument to claim that Apple has every right to do this, it is their software.
The phone company has every right to charge you ten cents a minute for even local calls. How many of your are on dial-up to a local provider? Sure, they have the right to do that, but the customer expects a certain ammount of respect from the companies we support.
A level of trust is missing in the customer-company relationship that needs to be found again, or perhaps for the first time in many situations, companies, and peoples.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
Why would you need to switch Office suite versions twice a year? I'm still running Office 97. I upgraded from Office 95 only so I could export to HTML -- at home and at work. Given that I can export to RTF, PDF, etc. there's no legacy issues (yet) with file sharing. People in my office use Word Perfect 10, people outside use Office 2002; and yet I continue to exist.
I'll never support annual upgrades because it establishes the precedent that upgrades will be issued regardless of necessity. e.g., need is washed away in favor of a guaranteed revenue stream.
Jobs> Now what are we gonna do Johnney?
MacStore> Um...we're gonna give it away free to all our friends...
Jobs> And then what?
MacStore> Charge the ones who come back and use it?
Jobs> You're a smart kid Johnney, now have a good at school!
cat tongue cheek > humor.post
MMMmmmmmm....erotic cakes!!! Homer J. Simpson - Treehouse of Horror VI
I read somewhere the following quote describing the attitude Apple's customers have towards Apple:
"Punish me harder!"
This article seems to confirm that Apple is still willing to play this game.
And it would seem that I am too. I know I shouldn't, but I just can't help myself. These are some pretty nice apps.
At least they're not calling me bitch and demanding I yell their name.... (yet)
And as always foxtot has a suiting strip about it
. gif
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ft/2003/ft030103
I fought the corporate America, and the corporate America bought the law.
howard stern is a corporate schill.
If they do this I will be sticking two fingers up at Apple.
When Apple charged for the OSX 10.2 update they said OSX now includes all thease new features, pointing at the iApps. There was very little update to the main OS just a big song and dance about all the wonderfull new features like iCAL. So now they will be charging for them again. Come on Apple they are either part of the OS or there not you can't have it both ways. Seems like they have been taking lessons from the world leader in how to rip off your customers.
Think Diffierent copy the competitions bad points.
Obviously, since those apps are mac-only apps, Apple can afford to give them away for free as an incentive for people to buy macs. But, apparently, that wasn't working, so they decided to just milk their current userbase for all they're worth in the vain hope of making enough money to do some serious R&D to catch up with PCs, hardware-wise.
Repeal the DMCA!
After this, they will hire an ape-like president with sweaty armpits and a face like Fester Addams who will try to boost sales by shouting "Yeeeeeeeaaaaah!", "I love this company!", "Come on!" and "Developers! Developers! Developers!".
RMN
~~~
Do you like it? No? Then what are you waiting for? Go and install one of Linux/PPC distros on you Mac. The sooner you do it the less poison will byte you back.
Apple is a good hardware vendor. But all the history of Apple's software development is an example of stupidity of their top managers. Remind it to them - abandon Apple software for it.
Less is more !
... now this HAS to be the most annoying post ever on Slashvagina.
Lower taxes
Lower taxes
Lower taxes (this one bore repeating;)
Lower interest rates
Better business climate
Better economic plan
Better defense strategy
No interns sighted below the waistline!
Actually, I'd prefer to vote for a better alternative - I'm simply sure it won't be coming from the Democrats. Now, if the Libertarian candidate actually had a shot... ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
1. Write some i-applications
2. ???
3. Profit
Apple seems to be the first company to fill phase 2 with something. I'll substitute phase 3 with: Get rid of my i-book; buy a pc.
... so I guess this is the "Bait and Switch" campaign, right?
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
Itll happen.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
So far this is not information that has been confirmed to be true.
Let's just wait until after the keynote on Tuesday, shall we?
Linux with transcode and kino (http://kino.schirmacher.de/) along with some free shared libraries from DivX.com creates videos a hundred times better quality than any video ever produced with iMovie. And it doesn't encumber them in Quicksand^h^h^h^htime.
-dave
"iTools went from free to $100/year... nice jump there."
.Mac from a value standpoint.
.Mac also added a decent software bundle (for people who don't get site licenses like I do :-) ...over the wire backup and on line file synchronization, free offers and discounts. .Mac. Very easy, very quick.
.Mac.. especially since I got my ID right after iTools was announced so my subscription was only $50 per year (around $8 per month isn't all that much to me for the value I've gotten).
iTools didn't have much in common with
10MB vs. 100MB is in its self a big change.
Personally, i just ordered $40 worth of free Kodak prints from iPhoto through
So far, I'm not too disappointed with
I was a bit bummed about this story at first, but after being reminded that Apple has already done this with other iApps, I don't see it as a big deal. It didn't bother me too much then, doesn't bother me much now... and I am a mac user.
I have been using OSX since the public bata, and have been impressed with the system as a whole. But the only justification to paying for the hardware (which is the real reason I use Macintosh) was that some of the OS X apps came free. Of late I have been dual booting between OS X and Debian. But if apple is going to start charging for some of thse iApps, it might be time to make the full switch to Debian. I think if apple is not careful they will see a whole new breed of 'switcher'.
Office97? Office95? On the mac? huh?
Come on, now. Apple has managed to charge $129 for Jaguar and $100 for iTools, and this is a surprise? Not only can they get away with it, they can make their userbase beg for more, as shown here .
This is only logical behavior given the status of the economy and the nature of Apple's customer base. Count on more of this, and also count on seeing lots of exciting new iBook and iMac designs. Actually, I think one of those pathetic "Click here to donate via PayPal" banners might work for them too.
I assert ownership of all trademarks and copyrights on this page.
http://macrumors.comt ml
Seems to me from MacWorld's of the past, once cnet tells the story, everyone else agrees.
http://macnn.com
http://macminute.com
http://thinksecret.com
even google news has it top of their tech page
http://news.google.com/news/gntechnologyleftnav.h
I hate spyware and spies
I am now embarrased by my recent endorcements to buy a Mac. I have convinced family members and friends to buy a mac touting the free software (i applications), and free services (.mac), and the community atmosphear.
:).
Thanks to the recent changes all I can tell them is "It's a nice interface to a Unix OS". That's not compelling enough to spend 2-3x $ on a personal computer.
I have purchased a new TI Notebook, and an iMac. My next home computer purchase will be an Xbox.
> ... and then maybe they'll charge for upgrades ?
... they did it. Maybe they'll take advantage of the upgrade to
Oh no, they certainly wouldn't do that. They'd piss off zillions of people.
[3 months after]
>
> add slight changes to file format definitions ?
Oh no ! That wouldn't be, like, cool. Steve Job *is* cool. Look at these ads, man.
[and so on]
"and my wallet went like, beeeeep, beeeep. It was a very good paper. So I installed Debian."
--
Nontech user: "I just got the new 200GB iPod today, let me just plug it to my two-year-old iMac!"
iMac: BLEEP! You don't have iTunes 4! This new iPod won't work without it! That'll be $15, please! Click here to go to Apple's website and download drivers!
Nontech user: Christmas is ruined!
--
A device that uses multiple iApps (like the iPod with iSync, iTunes, iPod software, and [in the future, possibly Airport or Bluetooth]) could be quite pricey to maintain.
My philosophy in buying a Mac was, "pay a lot now, don't worry about it later." But if iApps start to cost extra (on top of the premium Mac hardware price), Apple's convenience advantage vs. Wintel is greatly diminished.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Apple is following suit. Microsoft already adopted this policy by making people have to pay for their operating system with the release of Windows XP.
I'm reading all the whining from people saying they're gonna jump ship if this happens... bait and switch mumbo jumbo. Get over it. And first, get over yourselves.
These apps are higher quality than any shareware app you'll ever find that will try to accomplish the same task. These apps come with the purchase of any new Mac. If you don't use them, you're not forced to upgrade them like others would have you do. If you do use them, then you should appreciate what you have and shouldn't mind shelling out a few bucks to support the development of these apps. What??? How dare Apple be compensated for making their software better! It's not like the apps are going to mysteriously stop working once a newer version is available. Sheesh!
started this Bait and Switch with Jaguar, which still stings on the heels of the Classic/X trasnsition period we suffered through, and .mac. That was enought to make me, a Mac user since SE, build a Linux box.
It reminds me of Halbersham's non-fiction "The Reckoning" in which the accountants begin running Ford, and quality, into the ground during the 1950s. Once spreadsheets dictate, the vision crumbles. Nice of Fred to discontinue the Cube but now the elegant 17" iMac is also being swept aside after slowing sales and a slight monitor price increase. Not smart. That was going to be the machine for non-techs in the smart office. Does iPod sell iTunes or does iTunes sell iPods? I think Fred wants to sell iTunes to iPod users. This is different strategy than the cohesive Mac platform strategy they've stuck to in the past. This is s/w revenues from Wintel users of Apple h/w, regardless of the hub. This is not iTunes sold to Wintel users but free if you have a Mac, that is, come on, join the revolution. It's just about revenues.
I've got friends looking to buy a home machine - they were going to buy the iMac after I used my digital cam and iPhoto to build and post a non-.mac web site of their own-going house remodel right while they watched. Now, I'll tell them to get what they have at work - Wintel. I'm not sticking my neck out.
stuff like this scares me. Last year was the first time I ever considered buying mac (I did a 'top' command at a command prompt and was sold on the concept).
However, the path for macs increasingly seems to be paved with nickles and dimes. Add that to the existing price difference for an i386, and i'm slowly easing my wallet back into my pocket.
It's just becoming apparent that wintel for all its faults is much more economical and versatile (in a free way). And Linux as a desktop is getting closer and closer....
Sure, it may "just work". But so does a $35k BMW. I could probably afford a BMW but that's not what I'm driving. Apple has a great product, but this is an extremely poor economic time to be making ankle-biter fees and charges part of the deal.
the 2.1 update for idvd costs 20 dollars. imovie 2 costs 50. you had to pay if your mac didn't come with them. so charging for updates is nothing new. And as the article said, they will still come free with new macs.
When iMovie 2 was released, the upgrade was not free for those who had the original iMovie (around $30 I think).
iMovie 2 came with new hardware, was easily pirated, and was later released as part of the major ($99) OS upgrades so most likely many people probably never heard of this policy.
I got iMovie 2 when I bought my TiBook and it. It's an easy to use linear editing system. If I wanted better titling, snazzy effects, or non-linear abilities I'd be looking at something in the $1K range. This works fine for me and I haven't really had any desire for more features for my home videos.
If Apple comes out with a new version, my current version doesn't stop working. It very well may have difficulties if I were to buy a new Mac, but then I'd be given the new iMovie 3.0 with that purchase. So there isn't a strong pressure to pay for an upgrade based on stability and compatability problems. This is the most refreshing thing. If I find that the features Apple offers in the iMovie 3.0 version compelling then I may choose to buy an upgrade, but that's based on what I find important features.
My cell phone, PDA, and MP3 player meet my current needs, but they aren't compelling. However, if a Sprint compatible version of the Kyocera 7135 SmartPhone is released in the US, I'd jump on the chance to upgrade for the features that it offers. Similarly iCal, iSync, iTunes, and the AddressBook aren't compelling apps but if they offered integration with a Kyocera 7135 feature set I'd easily pay a good chunk of change for the upgrades needed (they may work now, I have to get my 7135 to find out though).
As another example, I won't use iPhoto at all. I find its abilities aren't what I'm looking for in a digitial photo album. Even though it's free, I prefer my own system of folders in the file system. If Apple adds enough features to iPhoto that I changed my mind about using it, I think I'd also be okay with tossing in some bucks for the upgrade.
If the software is EOL'd every 6 months the hardware becomes useless.
What, your machine just turns into a lump of inert plastic? What ever happened to buying a piece of technology that does what you want and using it until what you want something better?
There are millions of Mac users with ancient machines running exactly the same software they set them up with years ago. The machine worked fine for them then, and works the same way now.
There's no one holding a gun to your head forcing you to "upgrade".
More likely, what's happening is that you want to upgrade, because the new software or hardware does something your old system doesn't. Guess what, time to pay for something new. It's not a $1500 lifetime membership to everything Apple will ever invent.
IMHO, software companies created this brain damaged thought process when they beat it into people's heads that it was a license instead of a purchase. Maybe if they started making it clear that we're buying a physical product, people wouldn't feel such entitlement to every future iteration. Honda doesn't send you the latest model every year for any less than the full price, why should Apple?
-pmb
Then again I said that about killing Newton.
Either way, I'll pay when I see the value of it, and pirate when I don't. Just like, I surmise, most of you.
Apple should be smarter than this.. Perhaps charging for a prosumer midrange option in these categories:
for movies:
iMovie
iMovie Plus: iMovie + some FCPro features, more effects, including QTPro
FCPro
for DVD burning:
iDVD
iDVD Plus: iDVD + non-Superdrive DVD burning, some DVD Studio Pro features.
DVD Studio Pro
for digital photography:
iPhoto
iPhoto Plus: better export options, better slideshows, more filters and edit functionality
Photoshop ;)
.Mac paid uptake enough to try this?
Apple cannot do what M$ does because, simply, their being better is not good enough to trump M$' monopoly powers to the point where they can safely milk their base.. Or perhaps they've been happy with the 10.2 and
Who knows..
The new part of the Digital Hub Strategy is called "iFuckYou"
I've heard they were putting a lot of work into properly Cocoaizing iPhoto for the next release, a serious upgrade. You can tell with the 10.2.3 update that it, along with iTunes, aren't really properly Cocoaized because the stoplight buttons don't look right anymore.
--hongpong.com
I'm very much not surprised. The door to this was opened when the .Mac scheme was unveiled at MacWorld NYC. Anyone who didn't see something like this coming has had some damn big blinders on for the last 6 months.
However, I don't particularly like it, and I'd put money on this not ending with just these high-end iApps. And unfortunately, I don't think it's going to stop with Apple. "If Apple can get away with it," many others in the computer industry will say, "why can't we?"
I'm pretty sure that they will, in the end, get away with it. Even if fewer people than otherwise might get the upgrades, that's more money than they were getting before. Sure, some people pissed off about it now might not buy a new Mac, but they may still buy an iPod, or whatever new gadget they roll out next. People who buy Macs keep them around for a LONG time. The rapid upgrade cycle never hit the idiotic pace the Intel/AMD world has gotten to. The fact remains, even though Macs may not be the most hoss things on the computing planet, they're MORE than enough for the everyday computer user. I know people who still use the later 68k Macs, because they still do all they need. Word processing, e-mail, and the odd shareware game. While I probably will not purchase a new Mac because of this trend, I certainly am not going to throw the ones I have away. Apple's just recognizing this, and becoming more of a software company, because it has to be. It costs less to upgrade iDVD, iPhoto, or iMovie than to buy and deal with a whole new computing environment. That gives Apple money from people who probably weren't buying machines in the first place, giving them a new revenue stream.
Apple isn't the friendly computer company anymore. Steve Jobs specifically lead the charge to get rid of the "happy Mac" on the boot screen for Jaguar because it didn't fit in with the new image he wanted for the new operating system. They're a chic, boutique computer company, and they're acting like it. The ex-hippies aren't where the money's at, so they're dumping them like a hot potato, and going for the people who want to spend the money. The hip. The fashionable. The stylish. I'd learn to deal with it if I were you...or just dump Apple right back. They don't care, why should you?
*cough*greedy*cough*
Finally I have a name for the program I've been working on to download images from Usenet newsgroups! Thank you!
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
I upgrade bi-annually on average. It hardly ever impacts my performance and costs me a little time. I use Linux. Haha! Oh, and my HTML exporting features actually export usable HTML. But use what you like.
I'm not a Mercedes-Benz driver but I would be... If I could afford one. I can't justify shelling out $32,000 for a new car. Mercedes is charging for the sunroof, chrome wheels, and leather interior to increase revenue. But why don't they, or can they, lower the price of their cars where more people could afford them? I believe Mercedes has a better product than Hyundai and I wouldn't mind driving an E420 on a regular basis. But I need to be able to afford it. They also increase their user base by making them available to more people. Then more people would buy their cars and they could continue to offer GPS and keyless entry upgrades for free which would be another boon to people wanting a Mercedes to begin with!
All of you "Apple is so expensive" whiners really should look at the price of a COMPARABLE system made by Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc. Comparing your home built, Fry's Electronics special hack of a box to a well thought out, well designed box from Dell, Apple, etc. is like saying, "Geez, why doesn't Mercedes make their cars cheaper? I put 4 wheels, a chassis, and a 500 HP engine together, painted it with my Krylon spray cans and it runs circles around that Mercedes." You know what? Good luck with that. I'll stick to the Mercedes.
If you put up a good Dell Dimension or HP box, with similar specs, quality parts, and warranty, you'll find out the Mac isn't any more expensive than a, let me say it again, *comparable* PC.
Furthermore, a 1-2 year old Mac can easily be sold for 60-70% of it's new value on eBay. Try that with ANY PC, and you'll find that when taken over time, Macs are actually CHEAPER than PCs.
Your incessant banter is foolish and shows a lack of understanding the true cost of any product, computer, car, or otherwise.
Maybe it's because I'm over 40, but I can't believe some of the posts here. What is ever free?? Nothing!! You pay for what you get in every aspect of your life. Apple Computer is a company created to make money. Who cares if they charge for an upgrade. If you don't want to pay for the upgrade continue using whatever version you have and quit whining. Do you really expect any company in this economy not to charge for an upgrade? Frankly paying out $50 or whatever the cost is doesn't seem like too much to ask. I'm grateful I was able to use the versions of the programs for free to begin with.
so that Apple software pays its own way. Too much Apple software has been "free" (paid for by hardware revenue) for too long. Once software revenues are decoupled from hardware revenues, maybe we will see OS X on a platform other than Apple.
That would imply they lured you in with a "free updates forever" and then tried to get you to buy the "updates will cost you extra."
That makes no sense. The iApps aren't meant to be long-term user apps anyways. They are:
1) proof-of-concept Cocoa applications.
2) stopgaps for the "why should I use the new OS which has no Apps, why should I write Apps for the OS with no users" conundrum.
3) setting the bar for 3rd party App quality
If you want free updates forever, then I suggest you look into supporting the GNU projects on OS-X. Things like GTKAqua will bring the gamut of GTK apps from the FreeBSD ports collection to OS-X. This includes GIMP, and forthcoming GIMP-Film.
"Waaaaah... If I have to pay, I might as well pay Microsoft" will get you diddly squat. Oh, and the best portables: TiBooks don't run Windows. They run OS-X (Darwin). You just don't know what your options are.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Could this just be a case of apple feeding some fake news to see where the loose lips in the company are? ...
perhaps.
Support Objectivism and the United States,
Ayn Rand
great insight. worth more +es.
When you say bi-annually do you mean "twice a year" or "once every two years?" Grammatically it can be interpreted either way.
I have a licensed copy of the latest Office, but I do not use it (uninstalled it) because the exported HTML is junk. Office 97 is passable because it contains no CSS and I can do a global replace for the outdated tags is does insert. Oh, and the bloat. Office 2002 takes too long to load, runs slower, and is filled with features I never use.
The $1,199 base iMac is far from $1,600. I think that amount buys the 15" iMac with SuperDrive. If you don't need the SuperDrive, $1,199 will do you fine.
And if that's too much, there's always the eMac or iBook for $999.
Fairly reliable rumour has it that these prices will go down shortly, so be a little patient and you might get a deal.
The $1,600 dual processor PowerMac G4 is a pretty sweet deal, but you really don't need all that power to check out the Mac platform, especially with the sweet display of the iMac.
D
The gonumber seems to be just about the most useless idea I've ever seen.
If you want to play on the web (with the corporate boys), you're going to have to pay. Whether it be from Yahoo! Hotmail, Salon premium articles, Apple or Microsoft, companies are realizing that you can't give away your work for free and expect to stay around.
.mac, and yet 180,000 signed up for it.
People bitched and moaned about having to pay $100 for
People bitch about the cost of Yahoo! services, but apparently enough people are paying to keep the services up.
People bitch about Slashdots subscribtion model, and yet there are those who sign up for it.
See a trend yet? People bitch about paying xxx for yyy, and yet they pay for it. If you don't like it, don't pay for it, but I suspect that the day will come soon that you'll have to start paying Microsoft for things that used to be "free"
From the article:
"Apple's move coincides with Microsoft's own "pay for play" software. The Redmond, Wash.-based company will release Plus Digital Media Edition (DME) for Windows XP at the consumer-electronics show later in the week. Product activation technology will restrict the software's use to a single computer, making it necessary for consumers to plunk down $20 for additional copies of Plus DME to run on more machines. Earlier versions of Plus could be installed on more than one PC. "
Umm, Apple never promised that they'd give you free upgrades to the iApps forever. Those of you saying you've been "baited"... what have you been baited into? Buying a Mac or OSX because you assumed upgrades would be free forever? What planet are you from, exactly?
And by the way, last I checked, iMovie and iDVD were never "free"; they were "bundled" with your Mac or OSX purchase. That's quite a bit different.
WTF? Every Mac person I've known (including myself, when I used to run a small network of them for a student newspaper) kept up to date with the latest OS. This was all pre-OS X (workstation), of course, but I can't imagine things have changed *that* much
I don't mean this in any harsh way, but get out more - you're looking at a much smaller segment of the population.
I upgraded, most (if not all) of my friends upgraded. However, my parents haven't upgraded, my brother (who's as clueless about computers as can be - just an email person) hasn't upgraded, my friends' parents haven't upgraded, my grandfather (when he was alive) didn't upgrade, the older folx that I consult for didn't upgrade, etc.
The majority of Mac users - hell, the majority of computer users... Hell, the majority of technology users are not geeks. Many people don't know how their computer works, why it works, or what to do when it doesn't work. That's why they call us.
This reminds me of a comment I saw a few weeks ago from a guy who said that 90% of the population of the US has done their own hardware and OS upgrades and were qualified to build a system from motherboard on up.
My answer to him was the same - don't base the skills of the entire population on a survey of a small segment - your friends.
-T
So, wait... I pay Apple THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS for a Dual G4, and I STILL have to pay for iMovie?
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Deal, however, was critical of the new fees, noting that Apple's campaign to lure Windows PC users to the Mac did little to offset weaker-than-usual holiday sales. The "iApps will be Apple's attempt to staunch the flow of bleeding revenue from its lagging sales initiatives."
This is truely bad reporting. Apple has made no announcement, so it is now merely a rumors and they are reporting it here like a fact. Crazy.
Modular Redundancy--Because 4 out of 5 Nodes agree
Lets sit back and ONCE AGAIN remind everyone that rumors are, at best, rumors. Now that we've done this, let's just look at the prices involved...
If the rumors are true, Apple wants to charge users $50.00 to update three pieces of software: iPhoto, iDVD, and iMovie. The rumor article even doesn't coroborate if Apple is even considering of doing something similar with it's other applications, just speculating that if the rumor is true it might be the first move toward that.
Now, let's assume the first rumor is true. That the three apps named - iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD - are going to charge for updates. It goes on to state that iPhoto manages your digital photos, where iMovie and iDVD allow you to edit digital videos and burn them to DVD. Now, having worked the retail sector before, this seems like a very good price for this. However, just to be certain, lets look at the prices of a few competitors...
After searching around on CompUSA's website, this is what I found. First, Pinnacle Studio version 8. After checking what software I could find that would actually burn MOVIES onto DVD, I ran across this particular title. This does the job (I'm speculating here, give or take a few features) of iMovie and iDVD. As for Photos, lets just go with Ulead PhotoExplorer Pro 7.0, again with the same disclaimer: based on speculation from knowing the basics of what the applications do, give or take some features.
Now let's compare the prices.
the Mac iBundle
iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD: $50.00
TOTAL: $50.00 + applicable tax
Ulead + Pinnacle Studio
Pinnacle: $99.99
Ulead: $24.99
TOTAL: $124.98 + applicable tax
All in all paying $50.00 for all three apps would not be a horrible fate by any means. Slightly annoying in that it used to be free, but not ripping anyone off either.
----- I want my LART.
A lot of shareware authors, particularly those with programs that are fairly popular have been switching to a new registration scheme that this Apple upgrade policy reminds me of.
Shareware authors tend to call it something like "upgrade protection". Basically when you register the software, you get any updates for some period of time (usually a year) afterwards. If you want to upgrade again after that, you must purchase the upgrade protection fee.
I know all the arguments why they do it, how they need the money, etc.
But it makes me mad, and I refuse to play that game.
I registered a certain shareware internet application a couple years ago that had always been "free upgrades" ever since version 1.0 (it was version 3.x when I purchased it). The version AFTER I got mine, the author decided to start this upgrade protection nonsense. No continuing free versions for previous customers, we all get to play the protection racket game.
Needless to say, I immediately went looking for a keygen and made myself a valid key for the new versions.
I know everyone on their moral highground will defend the author and probably give me a hard time. So be it, I can accept that.
Had I known about this policy before making my purchase, I would've chosen another product to spend my money on. My _trust_ was violated, regardless of the legality of his actions.
In the marketing world, perception is everything - Apple's decision may make sense on budgetary, ethical, and legal footings, but if it annoys people as much as this shareware author's new policy annoyed me, Apple will get some negative PR.
Not strong, not particularly mean and nasty PR, but a lot of "Apple just isn't quite as good a company as I thought it was". And that cooling of the warm and fuzzy feelings on which Apple so bases their marketing and promotional campaigns, could be very dangerous indeed.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
A lot of people here seem to be either bashing Apple or asking why others are bashing Apple, and then complaining about the bashing.
I believe the reason for the bashing is fairly simple: people who buy Apple hardware and software want to believe they are buying these products from a company that is different, from a company that has always said it was different, and therefore from a different kind of company.
I think the irritation comes from wanting to believe so much that Apple is different, but time and time again having them prove that the only things that make them different is people wanting to believe they are different, and their inablility to actually be different.
For my two cents, I bought an Apple because I could try a new OS and, if I wanted to, I could install Linux if I didn't like the new OS. The Apple apps are nice, and they work well, but they are by no means anything amazing. Their are FS/OSS equivalents to all the Apple applications that are just as good as the Apple applications. So, if Apples strategy is to expect me to pay ~$150/year to upgrade various pieces of software, then I'll just go back to Linux, and will have been a nice six months of OS X usage.
Wow, that's interesting, I never thought of it that way. :)
I usually update my system every 6 months or so. And I imagined something like that might be true. Office was very useful around the '97 release. The last time I tried exporting HTML I think was on 2000 and it added in a bunch of CSS and javascript and crap that renderred the resulting HTML file useless. It would have been faster to just cut and paste it into an HTML editor and click save. It frustrated me deeply for a few minutes, but I got through it using my favorite HTML editor, vi.
Actually, now that I think about it, Open Office might have also produced useless HTML. Yep, similar problems, but at least OOo conforms to HTML standards.
Personally I think they should use CSS properly (not like I know how), but create a style sheet for the document and use tags and a lot of white space instead of embedding a stupid tag in every line. Meta tags don't need to be completed so thoroughly, possibly build in options to set those for the document or something. Just seems like a bunch of monkeys could come up with a better solution.
I would suppose that Apple i.e. Steve Jobs' reckoning is that because Mac sales are going down, they have to increase revenue somewhere. What they will say to the public will probably be some variation of the rather poor iTools pitch made at last years MWNY -"We need to make money somehow and keep the servers running etc etc etc".
.mac as your email for business for example.
It pissed off a lot of people and far fewer went for it than they thought would, and judging from the comments on Mac forums since then the service has been bad pretty often, with day long down times etc. Not good if you happen to use
In any case it was enough to get me to go for a Dell laptop instead of a Powerbook. Lately I've been thinking about going for a Powerbook again because I really like the OS, especially the free dev tools. However I had a suspicion that Apple might suddenly decide that charging for everything that isn't bolted in, so to speak, would be a Good Thing, and might very well sometime start to charge for the dev tools.
If they start charging for the iApps (I use none of them, but most mac users do) they will lose some more customers. Pobably not many but they defintely will lose some.
The irony of the situation is that the falling Mac sales are due mainly to the bad economy and the continuing preconception amongst a lot of non Mac users that the CPUs, Bus speeds etc are woefully behind in terms of power. Apple's lack of any truly new computers for almost a year now is obviously also leading to a flattening of sales.
Apple, I urge you to think this one over veeery carefully.
Until Jan 7 to find out what the exact plans are before bashing and criticizing rumours.
Apple did not survive this long (even with so little market share) because of stupid business decisions. Somewhere down the line they made the right choices.
Now I have to endure another six months of
endless whining on Slashdot and the rumor sites.
Domine, libera me.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
Apple is just as evil as Microsoft, just not as good at it. This should not come as a surprise. Now we just have to wait for the Apple faithful--the apologists who feel inferior inside because they know they paid twice the price for commodity hardware and even the flimsy justification of the "free" iApps is gone now.
Point me to the Linux equivalent of iMovie and iDVD. Oh? What? That's right--THERE IS NONE.
Trust me, I know (unlike you). Ever tried authoring a DVD (video, of course) on Linux? You're lucky if you can get a raw video feed with chapters going--and good luck about seeking, because it's broken. And forget about fancy menus and stuff because there IS NO WAY to do it under Linux.
If there were a good way to author DVDs under Linux I'd be there in an instant. The truth is, there isn't. And I've yet to encounter anything under Windoze that compares to iMovie and iDVD.
So what were you saying again? Oh that's right--nothing.
I would love to see Apple break down its .Mac services so you can pay for the useful ones. After all, they sell WebObjects, allegedly an easy to use RAD environment, and yet somehow they couldn't figure out how to configure their own WO implementation to give consumers a choice of individual services.
Make me pay $100 a year for an email address? Hell no. Five bucks if they're lucky, or else Hotmail gets my eyeballs.
Plus, people seem to forget the fact that the top 10% of taxpayers still pay an overwhelming majority of the taxes.
Of course they do. Even under an absolute flat tax, they still would, given the distribution of personal income in the United States. So?
This is a close second to "statistics are meaningless," which is my personal favorite. I always ask these people to name a suitable use for Poisson analysis and of course they can't; C. P. Snow was right.
I can probably deal with spending $20 or less for serious (not point) upgrades of these apps. They're great applications which for the most part have taken the place of other shareware apps. As long as there's price parity (and iDVD supports external burners) then it would probably be a good idea for Apple.
BFL
There's one thing computing teaches you, and that's that there's no point to remembering everything.
--Doug Copland
It is great to see people reacting reasonably to this.
The charging for iApps is not a new thing:
iMovie 2 cost $30.
iDVD 2 was $20 (s&h)
When OS X came out, you got iMovie 2 free with it as a reason to upgrade. iPhoto, when it came out, was also free, IF you had OS X. Then, somehow, it entered the general Mac consciousness that the iApps were always meant to be free. The truth was, they cost you whatever you paid to run OS X.
iTunes, iSync, & iCal will probably always be free. The others offer a lot more value. Now that so many people have upgraded to OS X, there is no reason for Apple to give it to them free again. I don't mind paying if that means quality upgrades. However, the whole point is that the iApps were always meant to make money, just in different ways. They will continue to serve that pupose and in different ways as time goes on.
Boom Shanka
When they first moved in, property taxes were low.. OS X (the new park) came out for $120, and they paid. .Mac (the tennis courts) started to charge an annual fee and they grumbled but still paid. OS X.2 (the fancy new school) came out for another $120 and then they wined (but paid). And now the iApps (the new municipal building) will require an additional $50 a year.. So while the homes and related services are beautiful, perhaps the town is going into debt fast. The next 'town meeting' at MacWorld will be interesting....
It seems to me that owning a Mac is an expensive proposition.. So much for the new 'Open Source' mentality at our favorite computer company.
The 'iApps' are selling Apple computers. People who want a word processor, emailer, and web browser are buying cheap $299 PCs at Wal-Mart . People who want a complete multimedia development machine for the kids are buying Macs.. All it will take now is for the Dell's of the world to come out with some killer software as part of the purchase price and we can kiss Apple's days goodbye.
Apple's been seriously nickel and diming their bread and butter.. I think they take loyalty for their product for granted.
www.lonseidman.com
I know I remember it... I paid for the upgrade, and it was well worth it.
Sheesh, the way people carry on, you'd think Apple was going to charge them for their own software.
It reminds me of a startup ISP I worked for five years ago, where the owners thought people would switch from other providers because our service was $5 cheaper. They didn't stop to think that people may want to keep the same e-mail address or may not want to bother installing new software for a $5/month savings. Televisions advertisements are a great way to brand and sell beer, not computers. Judging from the proliferation of switch ads on TV, I bet apple was planning on generating a lot of sales from the TV ads alone.
The big question is what is the difference between a software update and a bugfix? Won't this model encourage Apple to abandon older versions with bugs and force people to "upgrade" to the pay version. Why not just use the current model of charging for incremental OS upgrades? Being hardware AND software company is Apple's best advantage and biggest drawback, since the two models collide.
$5 or $50, as soon as a price tag goes on it, it's going to be warez'd like crazy.
iPhoto is kind of pointless... you can only do some pretty basic editing of brightness and cropping. I'd rather just use Photoshop 7 or even Photoshop Elements to work on my photos.
iMovie seems kind of neat at first but it's actually harder to use than the PC program that came bundled with my Adaptec firewire card.
iChat? It's AOL Instant Messenger for the Mac. Big woop. Does anyone actually use it? Where's iYahooIM and iMSN? It's not like everybody uses AIM.
iCal? It's some calender program. Woohoo. Does basically the same thing as my Palm desktop except I don't think it'll sync to a PDA. AKA worthless. Same goes for the Address Book.
How about the Mail app? I have about a gig of mail on an IMAP server and Mail can just go off into la-la land for hours. I gave up and went back to just using Pine or Mozilla Mail. Works perfectly.
Oh well, I don't want to bitch and moan about it, but I certainly wouldn't have bought these iApps seperately. They're just not worth it when there are excellent alternative programs available. The whole idea were that they were included and standardized across the system.
Personally I'm glad Apple is charging for their software. They make great computers with a great OS, but their software is abysmal. Appleworks is in its sixth version and still plagued with the problems that were around in version 1. iTunes, iCal, iPhoto...all are sub-standard applications that rely too much on interface quirks at the expense of true innovation and user-friendliness. iCal is the worst of the bunch. The fact that all these programs are free means we don't have much room to complain, and Apple has no incentive to improve them. SoundJam and Audion are the best choices for MP3 playing (although SoundJam hasn't been supported by C&G for a long time) but why pay for theirs when you can use the sub-par iTunes for free.
If Apple charges for their software, maybe they'll finally get some due compensation from those people who use it and enjoy it (read: they'll now buy what they've gotten for free in the past). But more importantly, consumers will hopefully pay attention to the better alternatives out there.
(yes, I know they've always charged for AppleWorks. I just used it as an example of their often horrendous software products)
http://www.walkingtaco.com
iMovie 2 still costs money when it's not included. If you don't have a machine that it shipped on and don't have Mac OS X, it's listed in the Apple Store for $49.99 (visit store.apple.com, search for iMovie).
In other words, they've been charging for a while. And people probably created a stink about it then too.
Commercial software is pretty much a trap. You buy software and you have to use it on their terms, not yours, and you have no guarantees it'll be there tomorrow.
I bought Zend Studio for a few hundred bucks, it was a good deal, really nice software. Only it doesn't work for me now, it won't run under a glibc2.3 system. Most likely I'll have to buy an upgrade(the new 2.6 version they're pushing) to see it work under my new system.
Cold Fusion 5.0 at work has DB driver problems. Their solution for a fix? Upgrade to MX(which has its own problems under Linux).
So it's back xemacs for an IDE for me and at work it's PHP in our future. No forced upgrades. 5 years from now emacs will still be there for me, most likely PHP will be as well.
You can't say the same thing for any software you buy from a company. 8 years back I bought Symantec's Cafe for Java and used emacs on the side. Cafe is dead, even Visual Cafe is pretty much dead, but emacs lives on.
I used to buy a lot of software. But the more I buy the more I find out that in the long term, it just isn't worth it.
...about having windows update. :)
Apple -> Sinking.
There was a long period of time when I didn't visit Slashdot because I couldn't stand the one-sided editorial bent. Although there are obviously still certain tendencies, I have recently found this site to be much more open to alternative opinions and worth a few minutes of reading each day. In fact, I recently created this new account and started posting again. Unfortunately, it's stories like this that make me wonder whether I made the right decision. Except for the "from the dept" line, there is little to stop readers from taking this story as fact and not just a totally unverifyable rumor!
Granted, CNet did post this story, but I'm not happy with their journalistic practices either, and right now I'm talking about Slashdot. I don't feel it's in the community's best interests for the editors to feed into this rumors-as-fact frenzy. Just yesterday, this very site reported as fact that Apple was discontinuing the iMac, when in fact all that was happening was a switch in suppliers. Was there a followup story correcting this, or even an update to the headline? Nope. I suspect that the same thing will happen if January 7th comes and goes and Apple doesn't reveal any plans to charge for iApps, leaving readers with opinions in their minds based on something that wasn't even true.
This rumor frenzy isn't even limited to Apple, although it happens to be a very prolific subject of speculation. Slashdot is supposed to be reporting news for nerds, not rumors.
This story is all about spin. Major upgrades to the iApps mentioned by CNet were never free. You had to pay to upgrade to iMovie2, and you had to pay to upgrade to iDVD2 (and iPhoto has never had a major upgrade, so there's no track record there).
So in the future, you'll continue to get the latest iApps with the OS, and you'll continue to pay for major iApp upgrades if you want them. The only thing that's new is that Apple is bundling the upgrades together and formalizing the price. Whoopdeedoo. But spin it the way CNet did, and all of a sudden you get hundreds of Slashdot posters frothing at the mouth about Apple's lack of ethics.
Here's what I don't get: even if the CNet story were true, and Apple had never charged for upgrades before, what would the big deal be? What software comes with a free-upgrades-for-life guarantee? You buy a Mac, you get a certain software bundle. If you want to upgrade applications, you pay. That's no different from any other platform. You're not forced to upgrade. You're not promised one thing and given another. I'm absolutely floored by the rabid response this story is getting.
Well, I see your point and have to admit that it seems to be valid... unless one is a cynic (like me) and assumes that things in the short term only get more expensive, they never get cheaper. What Apple most likely would do is to sustain the price as it is now (but without the software) and sell the iApps for some additional bucks. ;-)
Yes, some of you pointed out that right now only the *updates* are mentioned. I am not sure that Apple will not in some near future exclude all iApps and sell them seperately. Think ".mac".
But hey, I'm a PC-luser who has SuSE 8.1 only as secondary OS and only played around with some freind's "fruit machines". What the hell do I know...?
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
For all the expense of the beach front mansion, it's clean and well designed and it makes you appreciate living. You pay a lot, but money that goes towards a livable environment where you children are well-educated is money well spent.
Then, there's the Windows suburbs. The people who design the houses there never think that people actually live in them. Yes, they're cheaper, but if you had to crawl through a three foot-high door every day and walk through hallways that are slanted 45 degrees and climb up ladders instead of stairs, you'd eventually go nuts. The only reason that people live in these houses is becase they're cheaper and because corporations tend to buy these messed-up dwellings for their employees.
You could go the Wal-Mart route, but that actually located in the worst slum in the city, Linux Alley. The houses (really shanteys) cost nothing, but the roofs are so full of holes it's almost like you're living under a sieve. If you complain that there is no heat or running water, the slumlord (linux developers) who charges nothing for the shantys will beat the crap out of you and then tell you that you should quit whining about what you are getting for free. Social services (UI designers) have repeatedly tried to come in and clean up the shantytowns, but they get chased away by the slumlord, who doesn't really consider the field of social worker to be a valid profession. Many of the occupants of Linux Alley are sub-human creatures (long time linux users) that pride themselves on living in substandard conditions. They don't mind dirt floors (badly designed interfaces) and the fact that they naturally grow fur with a coatings of waterproof oil (have lot of technical experience) means that they can bear a lot of cold nights and leaky roofs (confusing and ambiguous interfaces). These creatures claim that the slum lord is making stuff better and they point to the new pretty coats of paint that are on the cardboard wall. But the slumlord has never really had any experience making quality homes, so the most he really knows how to do is make pretty the top layer that's above all the other nasty layers of crud. When he's done painting, the shack is really not more livable then it was before.
The mac user would save a lot of money here, certainly, but that would be living like an animal, not a human being.
Why do the mac users put up with the crap of Apple mansions? Every other place in town treats them far, far worse.
Probably the best thing the people living in Apple mansions could do would be to bulldoze a good section of Linux Alley, chase out the slumlord, move the displaced sub-human creatures to wildlife preserves (server closets) where they can be with their own kind, and then build smaller, cheaper versions of linux mansions there.
In other words, make a linux distribution that encompasses mac ideals.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
The assumption that software's value is in it's feature set is completely false. What was the value of Microsoft Office 97 the day before Office 2000 came out? What was the value the day after? Shouldn't they be the same, or at least roughly the same? Why was the price of Office 2000 the same as the price of Office 97 the day before, even though it has more features?
sigs are a waste of space
Jobs had better watch out - he'll get a reputation as somebody who pisses all over loyal customers time and time again.
The Mac's current flagship CPU is a hack on a patch on a kludge, all admittedly quite clever, and the company hasn't yet settled on a manufacturer for their as-yet undesigned Insanely Great next chip. And they're calling that fact a feature and not a bug -- a stick to beat potential suppliers with. And nobody's begging for mercy.
Iceberg ahead!
When you say bi-annually do you mean "twice a year" or "once every two years?" Grammatically it can be interpreted either way.
No.
Just because d.r.com can't keep its own definitions straight doesn't mean they're not stupid. Bi-annually means every two years; semi-annually means twice a year. Ditto with bi-monthly and bi-weekly. The bit there that says you can use bi-annually to mean twice a year needs to add "...but this usage is wrong, so don't do it."
"Thanks to the recent changes all I can tell them is "It's a nice interface to a Unix OS". That's not compelling enough to spend 2-3x $ on a personal computer."
They will get a copy of all the iApps when they but their Mac. If they want to upgrade to future versions, they'll have to pay. According to the article, they aren't unbundling the apps from their hardware; just charging for updates, which they've always done. So, you can still tout the "free" software (which was never free to begin with, as it was included in the cost of the machine).
Two bits of advice:
1. spellcheck spellcheck spellcheck
2. Don't go into business.
apple still has to remain profitable. they previously had extremely exspensive hardware and free software... lately they have lowered the prices of most of their product lines ($999 iBooks), so it only makes sense that they are making up the difference in software... it's just a different strategy
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
Interesting that you're so fascinated by anal sex. Go get fucked... it's what you're really hungry for. Or are you so ugly that you can't even get it from behind?
Maybe they will stop peddling this i-software as if they were operating system features, so I don't have to pay $100 plus for needed OS bug fixes (i.e., Jaguar).
For great justice.
Mod this up, please. There is too much misinformation floating around, and this clears a lot of it up.
The users who are expected to pay for this already have the functionality to burn DVDs etc. The $50 is for whatever incremental upgrades the new releases contain.
Now, we did get those for free, which as you say is a very good price. But it also makes it a pretty nasty price increase to charge $50 for a simple upgrade. Upgrades are normally 20% or so of the original price, I think/guess. Not infinite billion % higher!!
As you say, we don't know what the upgrades are yet. Maybe it is phenomenally great stuff. Or it may be just a few new marginal features and bug fixes it's a whole other. The level of outrage will have to be adjusted accordingly.
WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER UPGRADE BUYS YOU!!!!
:)
Fuck this, if I ever decide to get an apple laptop (so pretty...) i'll be getting alllll my software and upgrades from good old usenet
iMovie2 was a paid upgrade. It would not surprise me if the others were paid upgrades, but the newest version would be free with new Macs. That's been Apple's policy as far back as I can remember for the OS.
I have used a Mac since 1986 and one of the things I have noticed is that whenever Apple charges Mac users for something, they WHINE AND COMPLAIN like little kids that had their lollipops taken away. When System 7 came out and it was a pay upgrade the screams were deafening. Apple zealots (of which I count myself one), seem to think that everything Apple does should run on their old Mac Plus and be free.
Apple needs to make money. This is a good move.
I'm not forgetting that companies charge for upgrades. I even mentioned that you usually pay for them.
My point was that you compared prices between brand new programs and upgrades, and found that the upgrades are cheaper. Of course they are! That is not a fair comparision.
Unless this head cold is making me bonkers, Apple stopped offering an "upgrade discount" on retail bundles of its software. It's just one price, if you're upgrading last year's PowerMac or getting software for your piecemeal assembled HackMac.
Somebody in Apple thought it would be a good idea if they sold iApps to Windows users and the idea got out in public a bit distorted...I hope. I HOPE!!!
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/Dec0 2/12-17PlusDigitalMediaPR.asp
Apple currently charges for upgrades to some of it's iApps, even ones listed in the CNET article.
Upgrades to iMovie and iDVD are not free. Visit the Apple Store and check if you don't believe me. It's more research than the author of the article did.
"Consumers will have to pay for new versions of iDVD, iPhoto and iMovie, which will be sold together as a bundle. Previously, Apple had offered upgrades to its digital media, or "i" applications, for free."
Which, as I said is wrong. You have to pay for upgrades to two of those products right now, and iPhoto2 doesn't exist. So it's no stretch to assume that you might have to pay for it (even though version 1 was free).
Also, it's good that apple will charge for them. This means that people w/ third party DVD drives can now use iDVD legally.
The article also calls Jaguar the first "significant upgrade to OS X" totally igoring OS 10.1, which was a free update. Again, basic facts are wrong.
I'm surprised that I seem to be the first person to point this out. Everyone else seems to be taking the "newly charging" thing as gospel.
Now, the only thing outstanding is if Apple is going to keep giving those apps away for free w/ new machines. You have to pay to upgrade but new machines have always come w/ the most recent version for free. I suspect this longstanding practice will remain.
(New macs come w/ iMovie2, but people who bought machines w/ iMovie1 on it have to pay to upgrade.)
See how that works? I run Mac OS X because I like it, and because it lets me run commercial apps like Photoshop and Office. It's nice being able to find a driver for my digital camera right there in its box.
.Mac, but I think this is a different issue.
iPhoto and the others rumored to be in Mac's bundle are pretty fine apps, well worth purchase if you use 'em. Free would be better, sure, but at least you get the suite when you buy a new Mac, and there should be a "lite" freebie for the frugal among us.
I was pretty pissed about
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Listen up people. Those of you who are about ready to strap on a tactical nuke and take out the Apple campus need to take a step back and absorb the following: Apple has always charged for version upgrades for iMovie and iDVD. If you bought a G4 that had iDVD 1, you could hop over to the apple store and buy iDVD 2 - for $19.95. Why the media is somehow thinking that Apple doing this is somehow screwing their customers is stretching the facts. Then again, it is news.com.
f they do this the right way, i think not too many feathers will be ruffled.
if the more casual iApps like iTunes, iCal, iChat, iSync stay free, and programs like iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD come at a price, i think that would be acceptable. hopefully there would be some sort of option to buy just the programs you want, since iPhoto is kind of neat, but i don't have a DV cam as of yet, so i have no use for iMovie or iDVD.
but the people saying they'll sell their macs if apple does this, you gotta be kidding me. granted, i can see the 'bait and switch' argument... but if you don't feel as if the programs are worth your money, or feel as if they aren't worth paying to upgrade, do one of two things:
1) dont upgrade (yea, thats right... you dont HAVE to upgrade last time i checked.)
2) find a suitable replacement. don't like iTunes? there's a couple of great mp3 player programs out there, some free, some you have to pay for. there's fire, adium, proteus for you iChat people. if you don't like iCal or iSync, use the palm desktop software that comes with your palm. i haven't looked around, but i'm sure there's a suitable replacement for every iApp they could possibly charge you for.
i guess we'll all know next week, eh? i suppose most of this is rather redundant, but i just can't believe there are mac users out there that really want to ditch their computer because some iApp will cost them a couple bucks....
*** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***
I'd be perfectly willing to pay to upgrade the iApps on my Mac. But before shelling out the cash I would want to make sure the upgrades were capable of doing what I want them to do.
I'm still PO'd at the iDVD program that comes with the Mac. iDVD in it's current iteration will not import clips that are in MPEG1 format. To be used with iDVD, and iMovie, all clips must be in Quicktime format. WTF is with this?!? When you burn a DVD, iDVD has to convert the video from the quicktime source into Mpeg format. Why couldn't Apple make iDVD so you can use MPEG source material?
Piracy may be an issue - but this is a real lame excuse if you ask me. All I want mpeg capability for is to exercize my fair use rights (I have VHS tapes - that you cannot purchase anymore in any format - that I want to backup on DVD). No, I'm not going to spend $1,000+ for a Mac solution that will allow me to do this (already have perfectly good PC hardware for capturing / editing). Temped to yard the DVD-R out of the Mac and install it into the PC. At least this way I'll be able to make use of the hardware and not have to spend the extra Grand.
Furfuu.
-- Spammers: My E-mail server is in California. Consider yourself warned.
people want cheaper Macs. previously the apps were paid for through the higher hardware costs, not, Apple has decided that in order to be more comptative they need to go the more conventional route of cheaper PCs and more expensive apps....just like MS does.
so, I bet that in about a year, Apple PCs will be a few hundred dollors less per modle, you will just have to buy the DVD authoring software if you buy the mac with the DVD+R (or what ever formate they are useing.)
such is the cost of giving cheaper hardware.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Perhaps its a sign that Apple is making a gradual progression from being a hardware company to a software company? I know that Apple throughout its entire history has based its business model on making money on hardware. However, it looks to me like that within the last year or so Apple is focusing more on software and making money from it rather than relying on hardware sales for the majority of its income. There's lots of money to be made from software, perhaps more so than in hardware (look at Microsoft for example). That doesn't mean Apple will totally get out of the hardware business. Maybe Apple will focus its hardware on some niche, high margin markets (high performance graphics and video workstations, UNIX servers to support the workstations) and release a desktop x86 version of Mac OS X to make money in the high profit margin software arena.
> Why is it a ripoff? There's nothing misleading here.
Indeed. I think for this poster, anybody who charges money is ripping you off.
Want a ripoff? Here's one. I bought OpenBSD, maybe thirty bucks. Finally tried to install it. It was like pulling teeth. Ran the installer maybe a half dozen times, maybe a dozen if you include the times where I canceled it before it installed allthe bits. That's like 1.5 day. When I finally had it installed, couldn't boot it. No way no how. Not even by using the boot CD. That's like another 0.5 day. Worthless gigs, although it did run briefly after installation, before I rebooted.
Two days work, for me that's maybe $1500. Plus the CD price makes it $1530 down the tubes. I can't afford this shit. Macs are way cheaper.
This is on the PC that multiboots WinME, Solaris 8, and four flavors of Linux with kernels ranging from 2.0 to 2.4. In other words I'm not a dummy, I install this shit. (I had FreeBSD too but removed it to install OpenBSD. Now I'll have to reinstall it again, but at least I know that'll work.)
Marketing-driven companies end up over-marketing their products. Engineering-driven companies end up over-engineering
Actually, the guts of iTunes is Soundjam. Apple bought it a while back. If you look really carefully at iTunes you can see Soundjam under the hood.
I'm with you though. Soundjam was a hot shit mp3 player. I still use it when I'm in OS 9.
Pooty tweet
Ok, so I got my Mom an iMac this summer because she's used windows and agreed with me that she didn't want to deal with the reboot-an-hour syndrome. One of the nice things about Macs has always been how smoothly the system integrates with the hardware (not difficult when you control it, eh?), and of course with OSX, I could say it was a real computer that I could administer from home if need be.
.ogg files will mask the rumbling in her stomache.
So... bait-and-switch #1... her new email account become a pay subscription. Stupid Steve. Fine, I tell her to use her ISP's email service instead.
Bait-and-switch #2... Upgrade to OSX 10.2 costs arm and leg. Grrrrr, guess Steve feels the power of the Dark Side from Bill and decides if you can't beat 'em...
Bait-and-switch #3... Now ALL the damn iApps are going to cost money (beyond what we've ALREADY PAID by buying the damn thing). Now I'm starting to think maybe I made the wrong choice here.
What could have been a simple easy-to-maintain computer which my recently retired Mother could learn to use and enjoy at home is quickly turning into an money pit of doom.
Why Steve? Why do you have to SQUEEZE every--last--penny out of your product? Damn the users! If they love us, they'll GIVE to The LORD! Ye Shall OPEN your Wallets, and Say-Eth THANK YOU STEVE!
So, now I rethink my plans. My Mom has her computer, and if she has to forego meals once a week so her social-security check can cover the latest upgrade to iTunes... so be it. At least the latest
Way to go Apple.
I'm a Libertarian. Not in any raving crazy way, but just that I would vote for them and I believe in their core principles.
I talk to a lot of people and many say they'd vote for the Libertarians IF they had a chance of winning the election!
What a Catch 22! People don't vote for them because most other people don't vote for them. But if everyone who really wanted to vote Libertarian did.. then they'd probably be up there instead of the Democrats.
The big problem is that American citizens are savvy to strategic voting. They know that if they're more Republican than Democrat (but still like Libertarianism) that if the Democrats show a sign of winning, they'd rather vote for the Republicans strategically than vote for their true party.
This is the problem with two-party states. Those two parties are almost impossible to topple. (Potential exception.. the Conservative Party in the UK has almost collapsed, the Liberals could easily become the main opposition party within 10 years)
mogorific carpentry experiments
SO yeah I paid 129$ for a translucent terminal window!
It kinda makes sense- I am ONLY entitled to the iApp that came with Jaguar. Maybe if Apple is in a good mood I'll get a few bug fixes....perhaps...
This kinda makes me think that Apple is going to start forcing users to use ONLY the Operating system they bought with their macs...so if you want os 10.3....you better buy a new computer.
This might be mac blasphemy, but maybe Jobs really is a washed up hippy with little education? Is this possible? NeXt wasn't rolling in the dough... and Pixar only was sucsessful because they were located far enough away from Jobs geographically preventing him from turning it into a hardware company.
So yeah, I know all this and I still own a mac, I like Apple, but I'm not going to be a zealot. I switched because of the iApps, I thought I paid for them with my loyalty to the mac brand, and I was willing to pay for em again the next time I bought an OS upgrade, or bought a new mac....(which I was planning to do).
I think it's about time Apple moves away from hardware..... maybe sticks with designing the cases, and let AMD or Intel, or the Chinese goverment make the innards... Your computers are slow, and gouging me is not going to make you sleep better at night!
If this rumor pans out to be true, Apple will have actually made the windows operating system attractive, it has great games, lots of support, and fast processor speeds! that will not kill your bank account... I never thought i'd say that.
...this is nothing new. Either theres alot of new Mac users here or just users with short memories. The upgrade to iMovie 2.0 was $49, iDVD 2.0 was $20. The reality is (assuming the rumored $49 price is true) they're still charging $49 to upgrade iMovie and throwing in upgrades to iDVD and iPhoto for free! It's gonna save me at least $20, what a deal.
I understand exaggerating, but really.. since 1995 there has been 8 years, and 4 versions of office: 95, 97, 2000 and XP.. Maybe you meant switch every year?
I have a question, forgive me for my ignorance of the legality of DVD licensing, but... isn't this a bit of... umm... bullshit? I mean you buy the DVD, and yet, the OS you use has to pay to license a product to play it? That's absurd...
How exactly is it legal for them to restrict WTF you do with YOUR property, as long as you aren't illegally copying or distributing it?
fearincontrol
If I understand the gist of your incredibly long, rambling post, it's that all cars are pretty much equal.
Bullshit.
My BMW is five times the car any of my VWs were. It cost me more, but it's faster, safer, and more fun to drive.
You get what you pay for, in cars and software development. I agree with a much earlier poster who suggested that having free iApps is a good selling point for switchers, but Apple does have to absorb the cost somewhere. (I think that's on the inflated hardware prices, which I happily pay, so I'll be ticked off if I have to pay it again...)
I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there. -- Richard Feynman
probably why nix* is now number two!!!
Actually, as a Linux user, I am being given everything -- for free. Yes, kino is a still a long, long way away from getting close to that i-whatever tool for video the Apples are using, but we know how those things go, don't we: In two, three years, I'll have 90% of the functions for no cost at all. And you guys will still be paying.
Given that Apple is only still alive because (the way I see it) Mr. Gates needed a straw man for the anti-trust trial, or he wanted to see Mr. Jobs humiliate himself thanking Microsoft on his knees for keeping the company alive, I may be forgiven for wondering who doesn't understand the business here. Apple users are of above average intelligence and education, and every time the company pisses them off like this, that is another potential Open Source user -- a vocal, intelligent, and highly educated Open Source user, I might add. This doesn't seem too clever to me on the long run. But then "the long run" was never Apple's strength, was it. -- Microsoft's reputation is already ruined, and as long as companies are buying Windows and forcing their employees to use it, they don't have to care about pissing off users by asking for those few bucks more. Apple can't really afford to alienate its people this way.
But then a company that serves the God of Shareholder Value doesn't have much choice but to follow that creed into death itself, does it?
It took several clicks to get to the price tag.
Awesome? For that price, it better take the photos for me.
This bullshit from Apple needs to stop. Really. $129 for a minor version upgrade to OS X, $100/year for .mac, and now extra fees on top of all those for other minor software upgrades? It would be perfectly reasonable, but Apple builds the costs of ALL of these into the price of new Macintosh computers. That overinflated price is supposed to include development of the OS and iApps and iTools and iGiveUp, as well as good hardware. How can they expect people to "switch" from Microsoft-branded bullshit if they're just going to give them Apple-branded bullshit in return?
Why, I've even bought software for various platforms from other vendors that I've never even installed, just because I saw it for sale in a retail outlet and wanted to encourage them. (Someday I'll get around to trying them out, I suppose.)
Vote with your dollars, people. It's the only vote that matters these days. Sad but true.
BTW, are there any good games for Linux yet?
Let me sum it up for the apple apologists.
.mac stuff to make my investment in this all-in-one lump of shit worthwhile. Whoops, nope, thats gone too and right after I got everyone to switch over to my new .mac address. Swell.
I paid 2x the price for an imac than I would have for an equivalent pc. Then I had to add some memory to the pissant 64mb included, and I had to replace the hard drive after a year as it started whining so loud that it gave me a headache. Perhaps because the "engineers" at apple refuse to put a frickin fan in the box, even a 20db one that is impossible to hear, to keep the hot parts cooler. Nice move guys.
Then I bought OS X only to discover that it was really beta software. What the flaming freaking son of a who-are-you is apple doing selling dysfunctional software at retail?!?!?!?!? Later I got to pay an extra $20 to get os 10.1 that was the real more-or-less actual working s/w. apparently for about a week I could have gotten it for free if I went to an apple store and sucked someones hoo-hoo, but I missed that 'event'. Nice customer service. Everyone knows it costs $20 'shipping and handling' to mail a goddam cd.
Well, at least i'm getting
Well, now theres a $129 upgrade to what apple really promised in OS X and almost worked in 10.1. No thanks. I'm cutting my losses at this point.
Oh, and now i'm going to pay extra for every update/upgrade to the basic apps as well? Jesus mary and joseph, even microsoft gives you free upgrades to media player and the like!!!
Thats it for me. After this there will never, ever, not in a million years from the end of life on earth, be another apple product purchased by yours truly, personally or professionally.
Bad freakin' move. Screw you apple, and eat me steve jobs. Buh Bye now...
Switched to windows (sold my 800 g4) after the last round of Jobs announcements (129 for 10.2, and no more itools). I realized what kind of business they were getting into (milk the market base instead of making things appealing to get new customers).
Now it sounds like I made the right choice. It's only going to get worse from here.
Who knows, maybe they'll start charging for 10.x.x upgrades. 10 bucks for 10.2.4?
This is exactly the case. People keep posting about how the cost of the iApps is rolled into the cpu purchase price - just like the parent's Win98 example. And there is NO EXPECTATION that these apps are a free forever bonus.
Home of the shrinking profits (not to mention market share) and over priced junk.
The upgrade to iMovie 2 and iDVD 2 weren't free. IIRC, Apple charged 19$ for each.
iPhoto was free probably because it's the first version of an iApp (Imovie 1 was free too)
And these iApps will still be bundled with either the OS or the high-end hardware
And it's still rumors until Jan,6th
Was he bitching? I didn't think so. If this is the level of your "insightful" argument, one might say to you in reply, "Stop being a flak for the Man just 'cause he's from Apple."
Funny, though, I don't recall signing the name Freakin' Gullible Guinea Pig on the credit application.
MacOS 9 to MacOS X (Win98 to WinXP)
AppleWorks or MSOffice for Mac Upgrades (Office 97 to Office XP)
There's a difference between that software and entertainment software. That being said, big hairy deal. I agree with you that no one said they'd be free forever (and as have some have pointed out they weren't free upgrades before just recently anyways). OSX is BSD based - just download and install some OSS equivalents if it pisses you off that much. Geez.
I'm fine with Apple charging for new users to buy idvd and imovie, as well as upgrades for incremental upgrades. But ical and the address book should be free, especially for .mac users. They are such basic applications, it would almost be like Apple charging for the the built in calculator!
AppleMatters http://www.applematters.com
just don't pay. if you don't like the idea of paying for somethign that used to be free, just engage in some civil disobedience and download the stuff for nothing; there are a whole bunch of options for that kind of thing.
side note: you can do it "legitimately" as well; i paid nothign for my official, non-pirated copy of jaguar because i know a teacher who uses PC and was quite happy to order her "X for teachers" package for me. "think different," and you'll find a way around just about anything.
"the boys upstairs wanna see how much you'll pay for what you used to get for free." -- tom Petty, "The Last DJ"
This is good news for at least one reason: Charging for applications will mean that Mac users will shop around for the best product when the upgrades come out and maybe we can get some COMPETITION in these software categories. You can bet that many software producers are staying away from making new audio (MusicMatch, anyone?), video (Premiere?) and DVD applications for OS X because Apple has made such high-quality software "forever" free. Apple still holds the advantage by bundling great software with a new Mac and can improve the bottom line and further development of the software by charging for very high quality iApps. As an Apple stock holder, I'm pleased. I hope the rumor is true.
Pretty useless for anything real? Just what does that mean? ... it sure does rock ;-)
Is burning a CD/DVD real?
How about using Office, is that real?
Maybe write some Perl scripts. Can you do anything real in Perl?
Make movies with Final Cut Pro? Multitrack recordings with Cubase? Webserving with Apache? Perhaps a PostgreSQL/MySQL/etc database? Maybe it's not possible to do anything real from the csh?
I could go on dude. But for a toy Christmas tree
I received iDVD 1.0 with my machine. I had to pay $19.95 to upgrade to 2.0 (which was then bundled with the next purchased (10.2) os release.
Charging nominal amounts for the software allows them to have some additional revenue streams from early adopters. I liked the features so I paid the money! Nothing evil or nasty, and most important, nothing new (unless you count that they'll bundle them all into one package). And, just becasue it has an "i" in front of it doesn't make it special. I paid $$$ for updates to Homepage, and Appleworks over the years too. Often those are bundled with new hardware by Apple (well, Homepage is in the definate _was_ category).
Nothing to see here folks. Move along.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
It seems like this is just showing that bundled software on any system (MS or not) that actually costs money to produce (not free beer) as Apple is now showing this software to be, is just bundle tax.
Can I please get an apple computer without [Apple OS, iDVD, iVideo, iQuicktime, eQuicktime, iGarbage, eTrash, iBloat, _AQUA_]??
-v
Even after all the anti-government rhetoric, most Americans still know that there are other things out there that they need to be protected from besides the government, and that Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' is much more likely to give them the 'invisible finger' than to be of any help.
--Fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
The nag screen is only once a week anyway.
--Fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
> ...they suggest that you regularly back up the
> Pictures directory.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry here, when someone sees a recommendation of making regular backups as a sign of poor software.
Okay, I do know. But I'll have to wait on laughing until goldenfield posts that he's lost all of the data on his drive.
--Fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
The nerve of these people... I hear there were even BUGS in the first release of MacOS X.
I mean, if these people can't get it right the first time, what business have they writing software in the first place?
Sheesh.
--Fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Ah, the sweet sound of an AC troll.
--Fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
See, now, this little statement here makes me mad:
> Actually, as a Linux user, I am being given
> everything -- for free. Yes, kino is a still a
> long, long way away from getting close to that
> i-whatever tool for video the Apples are using,
> but we know how those things go, don't we: In
> two, three years, I'll have 90% of the functions
> for no cost at all. And you guys will still be
> paying.
Well, now, first of all, I hate to say it, but the UI/usability/convenience on Linux STILL isn't what the Mac was ten years ago, let alone three.
BUT. Even if I give you that in three years, the Linux version of iMovie will be 90% of the functionality of my version... what do you mean that I'll still be paying? I use the program once a month or so... I have no reason to ever upgrade. I'll never spend another cent on iMovie, and it will always work for me just as well as it does now. (Assuming that an OS update doesn't break it... but given that most of my 10-year-old Apple software still works fine in Classic, I'd say my odds are pretty good. AND, I'd like to point out, when I reported a bug in the Classic-to-X interface that made one of my sprockets-based games not run, Apple fixed it in the next update to the OS.)
So I will have paid say $50 to have a tool three years before you got it, and even when you get it, three years later, it's only 90% as functional. Maybe in another three it will be 100% as functional (because as everyone knows, development is a logorithmic scale), but by then I'll have had six years of use on you. And it STILL won't be as convenient and user-friendly, unless some pretty impressive (and unprecidented) stuff happens with Linux in those few years.
If you don't mind waiting for six years, then I suppose saving yourself $50 makes sense... right?
--Fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
On my Windows box, I got Word bundled with my computer. I paid for the OS upgrade, but it didn't come with a new version of Word, I had to pay separately for that.
Or is it okay with you as long as it's not the same company doing the bundling as sells the products? Interesting sort of moral relativism.
--Fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Maybe they are going to do the old "Basic App" for free and "Advanced App" for a price set up. If they do charge I hope they do this type of deal. If you remember iMovie 2 wasn't adopted as fast as iMovie 1 because of it being a pay for app. I think this will be detremental to their "switch" efforts and possible upset some diehard apple fans if they make you pay for an upgrade. -GPT
hehe, good point. I don't mind the bugs so much, I just hate paying for bug fixes and general OS features, like DVD playing. They should be free IMO.
That 7135 is pretty hot eh? I wannnnntt. I wish Telus here would start selling it. I'm a bit worried about it's size though - 1.17 inches thick??
Random is the New Order.
all you bitches were wrong...
apple rules!
fuckers
Here's the deal. iPhoto, iTunes, and iMovie will still be available for FREE DOWNLOAD. *BUT*, if you want iDVD, you will have to buy the new 'ILife" boxed set, which includes ALL of the iApps. The iLife set is $50. BUT YOU CAN STILL DOWNLOAD IPHOTO, ITUNES, AND IMOVIE FOR FREE. The reason why iDVD is not available for free download is that it is simply a HUGE program (mostly due to the Themes that are included with it), and with this new version of iDVD, which includes LOTS MORE themes, that would represent a simply HUGE download.
Yomigaeru Aiyan Geek!!!