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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."
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? ;-)
"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.
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.
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
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.
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).
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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)
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.
In Soviet Russia iFIRSTPOST gives you $1.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
While I do have a few gripes w/ Apple, this is a perfectly decent strategy. Every machine will come with the iApps included, and if you don't need upgrades, don't pay for them.
So whats the point in staying with them? If the software is EOL'd every 6 months the hardware becomes useless. Apple ties all their new products together, for instance you can't use the new iCal with OSX.1, you HAVE to upgrade.
This trend will continue, only now it's going to cost even more. They used to provide point upgrades free, now they charge for EVERYTHING. There is ZERO insentive to stick with them.
Quicktime is still free. If you want to use it to develop content and convert media, you pay for Quicktime Pro. It's a fairly good deal for what you get.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
"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
I don't give a shit how bad MS is, at least they have never pulled a bait and switch on me.
Ohhh boy are you gonna hear about this. You obviously have not used Wintel for long at all if this is your experience. One only has to look at operating system updates to get the "bait-and-switch" bit from Microsoft. How about product updates that require you to purchase new versions of other software because of broken compatibility with updates? How about etc...etc...etc....
Come on, think about this. Do you honestly expect any publicly traded company to provide free services and products forever? They have people on the payroll, they have infrastructure. All of that is not free as in beer.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
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 have NEVER in 8 years been screwed over by MS in software. Never had to upgrade software because of an update, never had software stop working because of an update, and never been CHARGED for a fucking update.
You can question MS's business ethics, you can question product quality but you can't question their upgrade path.
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.
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.
oh wait...
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
"you'll be able to continue using the free older versions of them for as long as you want. "
Wrong, they get EOL'd with every major upgrade to OSX.
As for bait and switch they baited me with a free product, then switched and started charging for that product. To me thats a bait and switch and I personally dont give a flying fuck what your definition of it is.
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.
Are you sure? I heard there were at least 4 or 5 people who bought Macs to run Linux.
Apple justified the high cost of 10.2 ($129, no upgrade) in part because of the added applications. Apple makes money on its hardware, which are already high priced. To a certain extent, this is offset by the included software.
A company has to charge for its goods and services-- but if it raises its prices continually, in the face of competition, it will eventually lose sales, and make less of a profit.
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.
Why? I could sell it on ebay and use that money to buy faster intel hardware. Without OSX and the iApps the mac hardware means nothing to me, no matter how pretty it is.
... 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 handwriting is on the wall, and Steve Jobs is standing there holding a magic marker.
Nothing says 'this market is saturated' better than when a company turns to nickel and diming its existing customer base.
Apparently the switch campaign isn't convincing all the 'sheep' like me to plunk down 2Gs in droves.
"And then my computer went beep beep beep and lost my movie and it was a really good movie and the upgrade cost me 50 bucks. It was kind of... a bummer"
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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/
Oh, and the next version is for a fee.
How is this any sort of bait and switch? It's a lot like shareware software that gives you a trial version with no expiration, but if you pay you can unlock the full features... which is what Apple has been doing with Quicktime vs. Quicktime Pro for years.
And as for Microsoft not ever pulling this, what about Word 95, Word 96, Word 97, Word 98, Word 99, Word ME, Word 2000, Word 2001, Word XP, etc. You complain about things getting EOL'd with every major upgrade, but you forget the primary Apple business model - they make money on hardware, not software. Most users get a Mac and stick with the operating system on it and never upgrade. When they buy a new machine, that's when they upgrade to a new OS. Very few Mac people ever upgrade their OS independantly of the hardware.
Additionally, the incremental upgrades of Mac OS are free - they only charge when it's a major change.
For instance, 7.0 to 7.1 was free. 7.5 to 7.6 was free. 8.0 to 8.1 was free. 8.5 to 8.6 was free. 9.0 to 9.1 to 9.2 was free. X to X.1 was free. Windows has done the same thing - patches and service packs are (usually) free, but major changes - 95 to 98 to ME to XP cost money.
Stop bitching 'cause you don't understand the business and think you should be given everything.
-T
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.
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.
So if you say have Windows 98 and you want to start to develop for .NET, you won't have to upgrade to Windows 2000?
Unfortunately you do, and last I saw, Windows 2000 is not free.
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
~~~
It's nothing like shareware. With shareware, the deal is perfectly clear before you start - the app is for trial purposes only, it will lock up or be restricted, you are expected to pay for it if you find it useful. Often with shareware in fact updates are/were thrown in for free or a much reduced price.
This is something that was given away for free, and no mention was ever made that future updates may cost money. Of course the possibility was always there, but as they were only available with Macs, I'd guess most people assumed the cost was a part of the hardware.
That's why it's called "bait and switch" - they switched their business model/ethics half way through.
And as for Microsoft not ever pulling this, what about Word 95, Word 96, Word 97, Word 98, Word 99, Word ME, Word 2000, Word 2001, Word XP, etc.
Again, not a useful comparison - Word has always been sold on the basis that there will be updates which you are free to ignore if you want. You don't have to use Office XP with Windows XP (although this might change) for instance. Microsofts model has been clear from day 1.
You complain about things getting EOL'd with every major upgrade, but you forget the primary Apple business model - they make money on hardware, not software. Most users get a Mac and stick with the operating system on it and never upgrade.
Apples business model is no excuse - if it pisses off the customers, who cares how Apple make money? Not the customers, that's for sure. I'd question the validity of the "never upgrade" statement, 10.0 and 10.1 in particular had severe performance problems and many/most/nearly all users have upgraded as far as I can see.
Additionally, the incremental upgrades of Mac OS are free - they only charge when it's a major change.
That depends on whether you consider 10.2 to be major enough to warrant $120. Considering that it was largely a collection of bugfixes/optimizations/slight UI polish, you could probably get the same with several MS service packs on 2K or NT (and of course, for free with linux).
Stop bitching 'cause you don't understand the business and think you should be given everything.
Understanding business has nothing to do with it - this guy was clearly a pretty loyal Apple user, who paid for .Mac yet he feels he's been screwed. He shouldn't have to "understand" Apples position: they are a company, they shouldn't need or deserve sympathy.
... so I guess this is the "Bait and Switch" campaign, right?
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
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?
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'.
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
Why? GNU/Linux sucks for actually getting anything accomplished other than hacking around. This article is about the iApps, nothing of which exists under Linux, of anywhere near the same caliber.
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!
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.
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 I order pizza and get a free order of breadsticks should I be allowed to angrily demand another set of fresh breadsticks when they make more? No? Why not?
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
This is something that was given away for free, and no mention was ever made that future updates may cost money. Of course the possibility was always there, but as they were only available with Macs, I'd guess most people assumed the cost was a part of the hardware.
That's why it's called "bait and switch" - they switched their business model/ethics half way through.
No, this deal is completely clear before you start too - "Hi, this version is free. To upgrade to the new version will cost you a small fee"
Exactly like iMovie vs. iMovie2, Quicktime vs. Quicktime Pro, etc. Those weren't bait and switch, either. Bait and switch refers specifically to if they showed you something like iMovie2, you bought iMovie2, and they actually gave you iMovie1.
Again, not a useful comparison - Word has always been sold on the basis that there will be updates which you are free to ignore if you want. You don't have to use Office XP with Windows XP (although this might change) for instance. Microsofts model has been clear from day 1.
Yes, and you are _free to ignore_ these upgrades if you want too, also. The current version will come free with a new machine. You are perfectly free to ignore any and all new upgrades, and will never have to pay another penny. Likewise, if you never upgrade your OS, you'll never need to upgrade your apps. This is completely equivalent to the upgrades of Word/Office.
Apples business model is no excuse - if it pisses off the customers, who cares how Apple make money? Not the customers, that's for sure. I'd question the validity of the "never upgrade" statement, 10.0 and 10.1 in particular had severe performance problems and many/most/nearly all users have upgraded as far as I can see.
How many of their customers got pissed off when Quicktime was free and Quicktime Pro was available for a small fee? Only the professionals who want the additional tools, but then, they were willing to spend the $29.
And yes, 10.0, 6.0, 7.0, 7.5, 8.0, 8.5, 9.0 all had performance problems, and the upgrades - 10.1, 6.0.1, 7.1, 7.6, 8.1, 8.6, 9.1 - were all free.... same as the service packs/patches in windows are free.
10.1 wasn't bad, actually, and I know many people that upgraded to that point and then stayed with it, and didn't bother going to 10.2. If all of the users you know have upgraded, then you're in a very small segment of the population.
That depends on whether you consider 10.2 to be major enough to warrant $120. Considering that it was largely a collection of bugfixes/optimizations/slight UI polish, you could probably get the same with several MS service packs on 2K or NT (and of course, for free with linux).
No, it was more than that. There were some major changes done to the core of the system, which is why a few apps stopped working after upgrading. 10.0 to 10.1 was just a set of bug fixes and polish, which is why nothing stopped working during that change.
Understanding business has nothing to do with it - this guy was clearly a pretty loyal Apple user, who paid for .Mac yet he feels he's been screwed. He shouldn't have to "understand" Apples position: they are a company, they shouldn't need or deserve sympathy.
I insist that you give me a million dollars. I'm now pissed that you aren't doing it. I don't know nor care about business or economics or the fact that you don't have a spare million dollars.
The guy obviously doesn't understand business, and, judging from some of his replies to other people, has a grudge against Apple - might even be a troll in disguise. Nonetheless, if you're going to malign a company's business practices, you really do need to understand what they're doing, even if you disagree.
-T
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?
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.
Yeah. Quicktime is still free. It's just $29.99 to turn off the fscking nag screen.
Very few Mac people ever upgrade their OS independantly of the hardware.
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.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
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...
I have to agree that it's tough to defend dotmac. I'm not a subscriber, but I've heard enough bad things about it to be glad I'm not.
At the same time, it seems to me that the iApps are still superior to comparable competitive products. And if that's true, charging a reasonable upgrade fee doesn't seem so bad.
They have done this before, with a $50 charge to go from iMovie 1 to iMovie 2. Now it's $50 to go from iMovie 1 and iPhoto 1 to iMovie and iPhoto 2. I don't see that as such a bad deal.
If the iApps stink, then it's a bad deal no matter what. But if you like them better than their competition, I see no reason for this massive anger and pain.
The economics of the computer industry are changing. In the good old days, profits were so thick you could give away a lot of stuff without much sacrifice. Now, margins are narrowing and costs are climbing.
I just bought a PowerBook G4/1ghz with SuperDrive, and you'd have to pry it out of my cold dead fingers to make me convert to Wintel. It's so much better an experience than Wintel (which I have to use at my work) that it's not even funny.
D
So whats the point in staying with them? If the software is EOL'd every 6 months the hardware becomes useless.
Umm, no. The existence of a later version of a product doesn't suddenly make the previous version stop working, and doing what it always did.
Apple ties all their new products together, for instance you can't use the new iCal with OSX.1, you HAVE to upgrade.
Yeah, and if you want to run iCal at all, you can't stay with Mac OS 9!
You can still use the older iCal with 10.2. If you want to stay on 10.1, you can. You just give up the benefit of the later developments.
Would you prefer that Apple's apps not take advantage of the features of the current version of the OS? Personally, I think that the Rendevous-enabled iTunes that Steve demonstrated a while back is a great idea.
I want to see Apple continue to improve both the OS and the apps. If you don't want the updates, you don't have to buy them.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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
Well, am I wrong or am I right? .NET but to do that I have to upgrade my OS.
I'd say I'm right, because I wanna use Visual Studio
Mono is vapourware to me ( is there a version of mon o for Win98?). As soon as it gets a foothold MS will just change some things and Mono will break. I'd rather not deal with that.
Well some updates to the iApps were available for free if I remember correctly, hence the "switch" part of bait and switch.
Yes, and you are _free to ignore_ these upgrades if you want too, also.
Mmm, well possibly, but somewhere else in this thread somebody says that the iApps tend to be tied to certain versions of OS X, so if you upgrade the OS the old verions of the iApps might not work properly anymore. For instance, one iApp upgrade required 10.1
I insist that you give me a million dollars. I'm now pissed that you aren't doing it. I don't know nor care about business or economics or the fact that you don't have a spare million dollars.
That's different - giving stuff away isn't what Apple did, despite appearances. The iApps were only available as part of the Mac bundle, so the price was effectively included as part of the machine. It was effectively a trade, my money for your hardware/os/bundle of apps. Now the bundle of apps is being sold separately - it's like if you ordered a package of channels from Sky and suddenly half the channels turned into "premium" channels but the price of the package stayed the same. It's Skys right to do that, but the customers would be rather upset, they paid for something thinking it would continue to be what they paid 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.
You mean, like future versions of MS Windows/Office being subscription-based?
I print, therefore I am.
I preordered a week after the announcement of 10.2 was made. Got the educational price of $70, and had it delivered on my doorstep the day before they released it in the Apple Store Jaguar event.
I still went to the event just to watch the crowd. Got my 10% off some misc. purchases and a free T-shirt by bringing my iBook and install discs.
OTOH, this trend of charging for what was free in the Mac world is distressing, first iTools, then the ever-popular Graphic Converter went from free upgrades to a pay per upgrade model, and now the iApps.
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've had no real troubles with .Mac. Any problems connecting to my mail server have been infrequent and brief, and my iDisk has been useful. Just the other day, another user here on /. was sending me some MP3's and using the Public folder on my iDisk, since he didn't have a place to host them himself. Last year, I used iPhoto, my iDisk, and Homepage to put my sister's wedding photos on the Web; it took about 15 minutes total, and I blew my relatives away. Virex hasn't found any viruses, but if I didn't have it, I'd have to pay Symantec about $70 to be sure.
This rumored change with the iApps is a bit disappointing, but will have no real effect on me. I don't have a DVD burner, and don't have a digital camcorder, so I don't use iDVD or iMovie. I don't have a good digital camera that iPhoto supports(just a POS JamCam) so I don't do much with iPhoto, mainly using it with the photos that others email to me. I DO use iTunes 3 all the time, and would be annoyed at having to pay for future versions of that(especially as I'm an iPod owner), but the program is already so good that I don't know what they will add next.
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
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
It would be like MS making you buy Media Player
You seam to be forgetting that Quicktime Pro has hundreds of features that Media Player doesn't. QTPro isn't just a player. It arranges/edits/layers various forms of time-based media, and allows encoding and preparing of media clips in about 20-30 different audio and video formats for a variety of applications, such as streaming applications or DVD authoring. It has support for sprites, links, vector based animation for building interactive multimedia projects. Can your Media Player do this?
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
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
Mmm, well possibly, but somewhere else in this thread somebody says that the iApps tend to be tied to certain versions of OS X, so if you upgrade the OS the old verions of the iApps might not work properly anymore. For instance, one iApp upgrade required 10.1
Nah - the upgrades require the new version, but you could still run the old version... Case in point - iTunes3 required 10.1... but iTunes2 and iTunes1 still ran fine under 10.1. Upgrading your OS was no reason to have to upgrade your iApps.
The iApps were only available as part of the Mac bundle, so the price was effectively included as part of the machine. It was effectively a trade, my money for your hardware/os/bundle of apps. Now the bundle of apps is being sold separately - it's like if you ordered a package of channels from Sky and suddenly half the channels turned into "premium" channels but the price of the package stayed the same. It's Skys right to do that, but the customers would be rather upset, they paid for something thinking it would continue to be what they paid for.
Good point. However, the iApps were available as a free download for a long time (and you can still download the old versions for free). Yes, you would need Mac hardware/OS to use 'em, but how is that different from IE for Windows requiring you to have, well, Windows? (yes, I know it's cross platform, but the analogy still holds - requiring you to have hardware/OS to run their software doesn't mean that you should expect that the price of all their software was included in the machine price... Otherwise we'd all have the $999 Final Cut Pro2 for free also, right?)
-T
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.
You obviously never upgraded from either Win98 or WinNT to Windows 2000 have you?
Win2k as an OS was way better than the predecessors, but it broke drivers and some apps, and vendors were dragging their feet coming out with new ones.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
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."
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.
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
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.
Advance your clock to the year 2020 or so, launch QT Player, click the cancel button, reset the clock, and it won't bother you again for 17 years. But yeah, it is obnoxious and silly.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
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.
It sounds like you work for Apple's marketing department.
Jaguar is a nice toy Cristmas tree: it looks like a candy, but it's pretty useless for anything real.
As for any Geeks switching to Jaguar, all their comments are some similar to each other that it looks like few Apple marketing geeks have generated many ./ accounts and bitching here about their products. Otherwise, all they are just brain-washed zombies - no one from them can explain logically why macosx?. All they do is just repeating several stamped key phrases about how it's cool, rocks and so on.
And each time when I ask why they mod me down. By the way, I don't see any such modding behaviour on Linux vs windowz related topics. Vice versa, people mod up all reasonable and constructive fud about linux or arguments for windowz. That make Linux community very different from mac community. We question everything. Mac-zombies blindly believe.
Less is more !
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)
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
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!
Well... then you look to the "Software up-to-date" program which has always allowed for this. For (typically) $20 you get CD's with all the newest software on it (that would have come with your computer). That is how I got MacOS X with my Cube...
Now Microsoft on the other hand does not offer this (at leas no through HP, where I got my test machine).
It is being manufactured in IBM's plant. The name of the chip is the 970 and is roughly equivalent to the AMD Hammer in performance. (A little less, but reportedly cheaper and with less power) This has been all over the news the last while. I think most people expect systems to start shipping in September and to effectively close the performance gap. Where have you been?
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.
The roadblock continues to be Win98. I have downloaded the .NET framework and I tried to install it. I was presented with a nice little box that said "Win98 won't work, please buy Win 2000".
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.
No no no no... you're describing a Linux zealot! Not a Mac zealot!
Linux zealots (of which I count myself one), seem to think that everything should run on their old 286 and be free.
Pooty tweet
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 ***
The day after Jobs' keynote, the Apple mafia will be knocking on your door. Pay up or they're going to trash your current copy of iTunes and iPhoto!
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
OS 7.1, 7.6, 8.1, 8.6, 9.1, 9.2 were free, but OS 7.5, and 8.5 were paid upgrades as well. Given that they worked on 10.2 for a year, cycle-wise 10.2 was the equivalent of a x.5, but they like the MacOSX branding so much, they want to stick with it much longer than their traditional numbering scheme. And 10.4 will probably be their idea of "MacOS11".
The whole "paying for point updates" is pretty durn invalid from a dev/feature standpoint. There are plenty of better gripes one could make regarding The Jag.
The rest of Apple's nickel & dime'ing is definitely getting on my nerves. After 18 years and no less than 2 dozen Apple Computers, I'm not likely to switch any time soon (although I do own a pair of Athlon boxes, so "switching" for me doesn't mean a whole lot), but I'm considerably less excited over it.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
So I found Sharp Develop and it seems that I can develop .NET apps with the .NET runtime, I just can't see documentation. Not ideal but I guess I'll take it.
You somewhat prove my point. You think your car is superior. The problem is your not comparing on an equal basis. Of course your car is faster and more fun to drive. It is far more powerful. Also safty can be higher to. I don't know what model BMW you are comparing to what model VW. A 5 series BMW is going to be safer than a Golf not do to build quality but by the fact it's much bigger and has a few x more times steel in it. My point was compairing cars of the same class. The actual build quality of your BMW and VW's is very equal. If you were to get very nity grity on which is better on quality both companies would be very high. VW makes very well built cars.
Quicktime Pro allows you to do this, I don't think that normal Quicktime Player allows you to do this :(
Stopgaps: you know, they fill a need. They aren't supposed to be all things to all people (or to anyone). They are supposed to fill specific gaps in the OS X application market: the basic things people do with their computers like email, photos, (raising the bar to) home-movies.
Set the bar: you know, nobody will be able to sell software that isn't at least *as* good as the iApps. They'll have to try harder to please Mac users! The end result is that the top Mac titles meet or exceed some very high standards.
Then again, I shouldn't have to explain this to you. You will still enjoy the benefits even if you don't understand it, which is another tenet in the Mac credo. If you feel like a gullible guinea pig (an experimental subject?), and you were surprised by this, just what kind of experiment were you duped into?
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
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!
Unfortunately, that approach will all too often yield an improperly set up computer. There is lots of hardware out there which has special drivers written for their almost standard NICs, modems, screens, etc. If you load stock Windows, you get a lot of almost working subsystems which is hopefully good enough to get on the Internet and download the actual drivers for the machine. Of course, if the drivers were actually distinguishable by name, it might also help.
They changed it with Ver 6? I've had a QT Pro since 5.0, and before that I got the popup the first time it ran every single day it was run.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Advancing the clock got rid of the nag screens altogether.
I discovered that trick in a Usenet posting when I was looking for a way of minimizing these screens. I have had several machines and OS's from Win 98SE to Win2k, and all of them showed the nag screen once a day.
My newest machine, an Apple Quicksilver, displayed the nag screens as well, but I registered QT 5 shortly after getting it (part of Final Cut Pro pkg), so I do not recall how often it displayed the message.
I have always seen the nag being a "once a day" thing.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
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.