Slashdot Mirror
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."
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? ;-)
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.
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 cleverNo 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)
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.
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...
Plus, people seem to forget the fact that the top 10% of taxpayers still pay an overwhelming majority of the taxes. Believe it or not, it is possible for the "rich" to get a bigger tax cut than the "poor," and still end up paying a larger percentage of the overall tax burden. That "the rich get richer" claim just doesn't hold water.
Besides, the other option (the rich subsidize the poor until everyone's equal) is outright socialism - and we know that doesn't work in the real world.
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.