Upgrading, Why It Hurts To Be A Mac User
I am about to speak on a subject that annoys me greatly. And what is worse, it annoys every veteran Mac user out there as well. What am I referring to of course is upgrades. Though before I get too worked up I should be more specific and say Apple upgrades. You see, most software companies like to reward their loyal customers by knocking off a portion of the price of a current piece of software if they already have an older version of their product. It is really a great system because it not only encourages your customers to stay loyal but also to upgrade in a timely fashion. Everyone seems to be on the same page here, everyone, that is, but Apple.
Allow me to give you an example. If you were to go over to Adobe’s website you might stumble across a rather popular product they sell called Photoshop. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Well, the current version retails for a mere $649. A bargain to be sure. However, let us assume for a moment that you already own the last version of Photoshop. Why, in that case it will only set you back $169. So, Adobe rewards you for sticking with Photoshop by knocking off $480 from its current retail price. That is a savings of slightly under 74%. Not bad for sticking with Adobe is it?
But wait! What if, by some horrible mischance, you actually had a computer running Windows? I know, the very thought of it makes me ill, but some people still do it, despite warnings to the contrary. So, you have this PC running Windows and you decide to upgrade to the latest version. How much will it cost you? Well, $299 will get you a brand new copy of XP Professional. But once again, like Adobe, Microsoft rewards its customers for using their software. Because if you already own a copy of Windows it will only cost you $199 to upgrade. And while this discount isn’t as great as Adobe’s, $100 off is still 33% off its current retail price. That is right, Microsoft, who will do its best to pump the last dime possible out of everyone of their customers, offers a discount if you upgrade their software.
And lastly we have Apple. Walk into an Apple store anywhere in America and you will pay $129 for a copy of OS X Tiger. However, if you already own Panther (or any other version) you can then be expected to pay. . .$129. No discount. No price break. Nothing.
But wait! What if you buy the latest version of iLife? The newest version (iLife ‘06) will run you $79. But for being a loyal Apple customer you also get to pay $79 if you want the newest version. The same is true for iWork as well. No matter how many older versions you might have you always have to pay full price if you want to upgrade.
Now, Apple does offer upgrades in its professional lines. Final Cut, Logic and Shake all have upgrade options, but that doesn’t help your average user very much, does it? So, my question is why? Why doesn’t Apple offer an upgrade path? Any path? The only answer I can come up with is greed. Certainly it wouldn’t break them as a company to cut us a small break, would it?
Here is the upgrade path I would like to see:
OS X 10.4 -> OS X10.5
Full Version $129
Upgrade $99
iLife ‘06 -> iLife ‘07
Full Version $79
Upgrade $49
iWork ‘06 -> iWork ‘07
Full Version $79
Upgrade $49
Maybe one day Apple will finally cut us loyal users a break. Until then I suppose we will just be selling all of our old versions on eBay.
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Comments
And the idea that Apple doesn’t discount upgrades because they’re software is already discounted is so wildly absurd that one could only get away with such an inane comment on an Apple-fan site.
First of all, to compare the box-price for XP is largely irrelevant. NO ONE pays that. Virtually everyone who has XP got it with the computer they bought and they have paid no further upgrade costs.
So a person who bought a computer two years ago and has the latest version of XP paid a hugely discounted price that was built-in to the box by Dell, Gateway or whoever. However, the person who bought a Mac two years ago and wants the latest OS has shelled out an additional $129 at least once, probably twice, in addition to the premium price of the computer they bought in the first place.
And if you compare the prices on software that I use, like FCP, Apple prices are comparable but not exactly generous. FCP costs $899. Adobe Premiere Pro costs $699. To me, it’s worth the additional cost, but it’s not what I would call “pre-discounted”, as some here have ludicrously claimed.
Those ARE upgrade prices. Every Mac comes with iLife and Mac OS X ... so if Apple wanted to throw away $20 for each updeage to Mac OS X, no one would get the “full” version” because either 1, Mac users already have a version of OS X, and 2, If you don’t have a Mac, then you can’t run OS X or iLife, then you buy a Mac and it already has OS X and iLife on it!
Those prices are upgrades because virtually every Mac user has Mac OS X and iLife. Winows and Photoshop are different since they don’t come always come automatically with computers like Macs come with OS X and iLife.
Attacking the pricing of consumer apps by invoking the pricing of FCP is incongruous and disingenuous.
If I wasn’t clear that I was referring to the consumer applications, I apologise. But, considering that the original story only quoted prices of Apple’s consumer products and the OS, I thought this would be obvious.
Beeblebrox! You’re back!
I have missed your comments greatly. How goes life? How did your movie turn out? How is it that I find myself agreeing with your take on this issue?
Ok, to everyone here who is defending Apple’s pricing strategy let me try and help you to understand my point. My issue isn’t that OS X is a bad deal when compared to XP. My issue isn’t that Apple’s prices aren’t low enough.
My problem is that Apple gives no price incentive to upgrade. Personally I find it just a little annoying that iLife ‘06 cost $80 regardless of the fact that I already have ‘05.
And please stop with this “Apple already charges a discount price” nonsense. If that were true then they wouldn’t offer any upgrade discounts for their Pro line of software.
Um, excuse me, am I missing something? Apple offers an upgrade to iLife ‘06 for $9.95.
See here:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/uptodate/
Oskar,
Yep, you are missing something. That deal only applies to those people who have bought a *NEW* Mac in the last 2 weeks and thus didn’t get iLife ‘06.
“And please stop with this “Apple already charges a discount price” nonsense. If that were true then they wouldn’t offer any upgrade discounts for their Pro line of software.”
Interesting point. I’m just not too sure things scale in a linear fashion as your statement would suggest.
It’s common knowledge that Apple makes a nice profit on all their software. That said, I believe the new version of iLife to be worth $80, upgrade or not. And, since corporations exist to make a profit, this doesn’t offend me. I suppose you’re making the point that the margin is gratuitous?
I simply believe the new version of iLife to be worth $80, upgrade or not. Ultimately, could Apple charge less for those among us who want to upgrade. Yes, I suppose they could. Should they? Not if the difference comes out of the R&D;budget.
Aside from all that, and quite ironically, this kind of pricing is pretty close to the subscription model Jobs has rejected in other areas.
If you don’t like the prices, don’t upgrade, go spend a ton more on comparable (right) windows products and get your SWEET upgrade discount.
So much love on this board. So much love.
I have agree also. I think Apple shows respect for its dedicated customers and fans when it offers an update price. I figure we’ll be seeing an update of iLife at least every year or every other year, and so it can be quite taxing to pay full price, plus the annual $99 .mac account that iLife increasingly seems to be depended on.
I mean, really, is Apple only looking for certain type of clientele with more than a modest income?
Personally, I have found myself wishing there were upgrade prices for OS X and iLife. However, when I think about it objectively I have to admit that these products represent such great value for money that I can’t really complain.
I can’t comment on the Pro apps, mere mortal that I am.
As a Mac user is my experience that Apple rewards its customers. When i upgrade to Tiger OS X i paid $99.00 dollars for the software at JR store. The store also gave free isight webcams to the first 50 customers a value of $150.00 dollars a piece courtesy of Apple. If you want to save money buy the software family pack for example, buy ilife 6 for 99.00 dollars and install the application in 5 computers. You paid only $20.00 for the application. Sweet deal right!
Attacking the pricing of consumer apps by invoking the pricing of FCP is incongruous and disingenuous.
Inconvenient facts that completely undermine the ridiculous idea that Apple’s prices are pre-discounted is not the same thing as “disingenuous.” For one thing, I mentioned OS X and why it’s absurd to suggest that the TCO somehow comes out even remotely close to XP. That’s not to say that OS X isn’t worth the extra money, only that it certainly does cost more.
I also mentioned an app that I happen to use that happens to be a pro-app. No one that I’m aware said that we were excluding pro-apps from this discussion, and if they did it would only be for the reason you did, which is that it illustrates the exact opposite of what the apologists are trying to suggest.
I have missed your comments greatly. How goes life? How did your movie turn out? How is it that I find myself agreeing with your take on this issue?
The movie is going great. I’m in post right now and happy to report that Final Cut Pro is the f-ing bomb. I couldn’t be happier with it. And my Mac mini has been handling the job surprisingly well. Not as well as my brother’s dual G5 of course, but I have few complaints (note that I say “few” and not “zero").
That said, and me being me, I have to say that I am extremely disappointed in the buggy piece of crapware called Soundtrack Pro. Apple should be embarrassed for calling this “Pro.” It’s a beta at BEST.
As for why we agree on this particular issue, it’s because, unlike many of your other articles, you happen to be right this time.
Do we have to keep hearing this crap until every idiot gets it?
OS X and iLife: come with a new Mac, so you’ve already bought one. All the others are upgrades. How hard is this to see? Do these somehow not “count”? Or maybe you feel that you should get a $13.17 discount on iLife because you already have the current version of iTunes? Ooo, that means that there are really only 5 apps in iLife and therefore cost a whopping $16 each to upgrade. A lot of shareware costs more to upgrade. I tell you what, you could get a special upgrade version that upgrades all the iLife apps you have for say only $63, but you don’t get iWeb, because that’s new and you don’t already own a copy, so it’ll cost you another $16.
I will grant that even if you buy every update, you get no discount relative to someone who only upgrades every other year, but then you are paying to have more current functionality. If you don’t upgrade for several versions, you save money, but miss out on the new functionality in the mean time.
This is also my argument for why it’s worth paying $129 for OS X every 1.5 years (slower than 1/year now). With Windows since XP, you could say that the higher cost is amortized over many years and thus works out to be less per year than OS X, but think of this: even if you paid Microsoft, you wouldn’t have had any significant updates since 2001 because they did not produce any. XP is not up to date - not by choosing not to upgrade, but because there are no upgrades. Apple is working to keep the OS fresh, and that costs $129 every year or so. You can not upgrade one cycle or two, but then you’ll have an old OS like XP.
The Pro apps: these don’t come with every Mac, therefore, not everyone has purchased a copy, so that is why those have upgrade pricing and the consumer apps and OS that come with every Mac don’t. Simple.