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.
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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.