Some interesting announcements from Apple...

flyingcheesehead

flyingcheesehead

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Perhaps most notably, that the software is all free - Both the latest operating system as well as all of the iWork productivity suite apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) as well as the consumer creative apps (iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand).

Another new thing is that they're starting to reshore production - The new Mac Pro is made in the USA.

The new iPad mini with Retina Display was what everyone expected, but they're keeping the "old" one as well, at a lower price (starting at $299).
 
So the latest operating system is free?

I have an old macbook pro and don't use it anymore because flash and stuff is not supported on the old OS, and I didn't want to pony up $150 or whatever it was for an OS upgrade.
 
dell30rb said:
So the latest operating system is free?

I have an old macbook pro and don't use it anymore because flash and stuff is not supported on the old OS, and I didn't want to pony up $150 or whatever it was for an OS upgrade.
Click to expand...

Mac OS X has cost $19.99 for several iterations.

EDIT: Should have emphasized that the new version of Mac OS X (Mavericks) is indeed free.
 
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dell30rb said:
So the latest operating system is free?

I have an old macbook pro and don't use it anymore because flash and stuff is not supported on the old OS, and I didn't want to pony up $150 or whatever it was for an OS upgrade.
Click to expand...

Yes, free. I'm downloading it right now. How old is your MacBook Pro?

Also, while it used to be $129 back in the "you've gotta buy a box with a DVD in it" days, it's been $29 or $19 for each upgrade since they started doing them online (10.6/Snow Leopard maybe?), and now it'll be free.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Perhaps most notably, that the software is all free - Both the latest operating system as well as all of the iWork productivity suite apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)
Click to expand...

From a business standpoint, that's kind of genius. Microsoft makes more on their office apps than they do on the OS these days. This is a pretty direct swipe at them.
 
rwellner98 said:
From a business standpoint, that's kind of genius. Microsoft makes more on their office apps than they do on the OS these days. This is a pretty direct swipe at them.
Click to expand...


Kind of reminds me of when Microsoft started giving away Internet Explorer to take a swipe at Netscape's paid browser market.

Delayed karma.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Perhaps most notably, that the software is all free - Both the latest operating system as well as all of the iWork productivity suite apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) as well as the consumer creative apps (iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand).
Click to expand...

Kent, I believe what I read today is that the iLife and iWork apps are free with a Mac or iPad purchase.

However, I just checked the App Store on my Mac (running 10.7.5) and I see Update buttons for both iPhoto and iMovie! (strange not Garage Band yet). I got all these via the App Store. My iWork apps were all installed/updated from the DVD based on iWork '09, and I don't see any free updates for me on those yet. I'm thinking perhaps I won't.

Free Mavericks for everybody is sweet, too!

Oh, and I checked the iPhone 5S I just bought four days ago -- all the apps show up free for me there too! Yay! Early Christmas! Thanks Tim!

And on top of all of that -- 7.0.3 dropped today as well.

flyingcheesehead said:
The new iPad mini with Retina Display was what everyone expected, but they're keeping the "old" one as well, at a lower price (starting at $299).
Click to expand...
I found it interesting they mentioned lowering the prices on the retina Macbooks by $200 (and hey no Haswell update for the non-retina models?) but essentially raised the price of the new iPad Mini from $329 to $399. I guess that speaks volumes about profits and units shipped.
 
rpadula said:
Kent, I believe what I read today is that the iLife and iWork apps are free with a Mac or iPad purchase.
Click to expand...

That's what they said, but as you noticed...

However, I just checked the App Store on my Mac (running 10.7.5) and I see Update buttons for both iPhoto and iMovie! (strange not Garage Band yet). I got all these via the App Store. My iWork apps were all installed/updated from the DVD based on iWork '09, and I don't see any free updates for me on those yet. I'm thinking perhaps I won't.
Click to expand...

I just brought my unibody 17" MacBook Pro back to life (bad hard drive) to work as a media server, and it offered free iWork apps even though they were installed only from a DVD on that machine. I think at some point I had gone on the app store and clicked "buy" and got 'em for free because I already had 'em... Maybe.

I'd suggest you go to the App Store, search for Pages or one of the others, and see if it says "installed." If so, do an update and you're on the app store version. Check this page out, too: http://www.macworld.com/article/2056159/what-you-need-to-know-about-apples-free-apps-policy.html

Free Mavericks for everybody is sweet, too!
Click to expand...

Amen. Got it installing on an older box to use as a media server right now. :)

Oh, and I checked the iPhone 5S I just bought four days ago -- all the apps show up free for me there too! Yay! Early Christmas! Thanks Tim!
Click to expand...

Thanks for reminding me, I hadn't grabbed them yet!

And on top of all of that -- 7.0.3 dropped today as well.
Click to expand...

Aha! I was thinking they'd need to do an update for iCloud Keychain, unless that was in 7.x all along.

I found it interesting they mentioned lowering the prices on the retina Macbooks by $200 (and hey no Haswell update for the non-retina models?) but essentially raised the price of the new iPad Mini from $329 to $399. I guess that speaks volumes about profits and units shipped.
Click to expand...

Yup.

I guess you could say it like this now:

An iPad costs $299.
Cellular capability costs $130
$100 each for Retina display, larger screen, and each level of memory bump.

I was hoping the Retina Mini would have Touch ID and a 128GB option...
 
What are the chances OS 11 will be free though? Win 8.1 update is free, so in that respect Microshaft And Frapple are equal this time.

David
 
dell30rb said:
So the latest operating system is free?

I have an old macbook pro and don't use it anymore because flash and stuff is not supported on the old OS, and I didn't want to pony up $150 or whatever it was for an OS upgrade.
Click to expand...

An image from an ArsTecnica article about Mavericks:

osx-prices@2x.png


So, never $150, and rapidly declining over time regardless.
 
FastEddieB said:
An image from an ArsTecnica article about Mavericks:

osx-prices@2x.png


So, never $150, and rapidly declining over time regardless.
Click to expand...

Still shameful that Apple would charge for the equivalent of a Service Pack to their operating system.
 
SkyHog said:
Still shameful that Apple would charge for the equivalent of a Service Pack to their operating system.
Click to expand...

So you'd say that OS X has only changed in service pack increments since it was released in 2001? How many operating systems has Microsoft released since then and how much did they cost?
 
SkyHog said:
Still shameful that Apple would charge for the equivalent of a Service Pack to their operating system.
Click to expand...

No. When Apple released OS X, Microsoft was still on Windows 98. Since then OS X has changed enormously, but Apple has chosen to continue with the OS X name primarily for marketing reasons, bringing in changes incrementally while building from a solid UNIX-based kernal. It may have the same name, but OS X Mavericks is hardly a service pack increase from the original OS X Cheetah and doesn't even run on the same architecture anymore.

Microsoft charged $$$ to go from 98-XP-Vista-7-8 during the same time span while making it incredibly painful to do each upgrade, and had some utter disasters (Vista, 8) in there too.

Oh, and I'm a PC guy, not an Apple homer.
 
rpadula said:
Kent, I believe what I read today is that the iLife and iWork apps are free with a Mac or iPad purchase.

However, I just checked the App Store on my Mac (running 10.7.5) and I see Update buttons for both iPhoto and iMovie! (strange not Garage Band yet). I got all these via the App Store. My iWork apps were all installed/updated from the DVD based on iWork '09, and I don't see any free updates for me on those yet. I'm thinking perhaps I won't.
Click to expand...

Be aware that some of the new iWork apps on OS X are not a continuation of the previous product line. They're built from scratch and are essentially the same as the iOS versions. There are a LOT of annoyed iWork users out there who have discovered the new versions are "dumbed down" and Pages/Numbers lack many features from iWork '09, and there are certain incompatibilities with your existing files.

I am not a Mac OS X user and can't comment directly, but the relevant message boards have seen some heated discussion on the new apps. It's not going over well as far as I can tell.
 
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dukeblue219 said:
Be aware that some of the new iWork apps on OS X are not a continuation of the previous product line. They're built from scratch and are essentially the same as the iOS versions. There are a LOT of annoyed iWork users out there who have discovered the new versions are "dumbed down" and Pages/Numbers lack many features from iWork '09, and there are certain incompatibilities with your existing files.

I am not a Mac OS X user and can't comment directly, but the relevant message boards have seen some heated discussion on the new apps. It's not going over well as far as I can tell.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have seen that. No problem here; I let the early adopters take the arrows in the backside! :D
 
flhrci said:
What are the chances OS 11 will be free though? Win 8.1 update is free, so in that respect Microshaft And Frapple are equal this time.
Click to expand...

SkyHog said:
Still shameful that Apple would charge for the equivalent of a Service Pack to their operating system.
Click to expand...

There will be no "OS 11" and 10.9 is not "the equivalent of a service pack."

Mac OS X is a marketing name. There was a complete change in the architecture between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X - It's a completely separate product. Kinda like Windows 95 vs. Windows NT, or Access vs. SQL Server, or whatever.

However, in keeping the "10" at the beginning of the version number, the major version upgrades are now the .1's. So, while MS has released Win2K, Vista, 7, and 8 Apple has released 10.1, 10.2, 10.3... 10.9.

The "service pack" releases are then .0.1 releases, such as 10.8.5.

So, there won't be an "OS 11", the next major version should be 10.10. And it'll be free too, most likely.

dukeblue219 said:
Be aware that some of the new iWork apps on OS X are not a continuation of the previous product line. They're built from scratch and are essentially the same as the iOS versions. There are a LOT of annoyed iWork users out there who have discovered the new versions are "dumbed down" and Pages/Numbers lack many features from iWork '09, and there are certain incompatibilities with your existing files.

I am not a Mac OS X user and can't comment directly, but the relevant message boards have seen some heated discussion on the new apps. It's not going over well as far as I can tell.
Click to expand...

I certainly am not a big fan of this strategy, but it's not the first time they've done it. Final Cut Pro, for example, was rewritten and lost a ton of features. Now, though, it's back to where it was and then some, with tons of new features, and it runs better and faster.

They did the same thing with iOS 7 - There were some features missing in the first version, but they've already plugged the most annoying holes within a month of release. So, there's certainly a ton of bad reviews right now, but they'll be fine.

I really don't know why they do that, though... Could be pretty annoying if you're one of the people who uses the "unimportant" feature that disappears for a bit!
 
Yeah, apple go stuck on 10 when they switched to the UNIX version of the OS (OS 9 was the last of the classic mac os's). It's sort as if Microsoft called all the modern versions of Windows: NT.
 
1) Apple haters gonna hate. It's a weird phenomena, but it is what it is.

2) I'm always hesitant to upgrade programs and system software. There are lots of things that have to play well together (drivers, older programs, etc.) and there can be time consuming and aggravating bumps in the road.

3) I did not much care for iPhoto when it came out. I had my own way of organizing images in nested folders and modifying them with Graphic Converter. Eventually I relaxed and tried it "the Apple Way" and it actually works quite well.

It's like if I want to play a certain song - I can open iTunes, search for it and play it - all without knowing, or really caring much where the actual file resides or what format it's in. Same with iPhoto - I can find any photo, modify it and share it in a variety of ways, again, not worrying about where the original is buried. If I need to grab a link to one, it's only a couple of clicks to export to Flickr. Or if I just need a .jpg, like for an avatar or eBay image, there's an "Export..." option and I have a special folder on my desktop for those.

Then again, I've resisted moving "up" from iPhoto '09. I use keywords quite a bit to organize "Smart Albums", and iPhoto '11 no longer features keywords prominently under each photo in a view - where I think they belong.

Still, it's probably time to bite the bullet and upgrade, for nice features such as PhotoStream. Probably will wait a week or so for the inevitable Mavericks bugs to gets squashed, though!
 
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jesse said:
So you'd say that OS X has only changed in service pack increments since it was released in 2001? How many operating systems has Microsoft released since then and how much did they cost?
Click to expand...

If you want to call point releases with no major updates to functionality outside of behind the scenes stuff a new operating system, then sure, each point release is a new OS.
 
SkyHog said:
If you want to call point releases with no major updates to functionality outside of behind the scenes stuff a new operating system, then sure, each point release is a new OS.
Click to expand...

Without quibbling on how the versions are named and numbered, as someone who has been a software developer on both the MACs and WINDOWS boxes for the past 15 years, I can tell you that **NONE** of the versions of NT Windows (NT 3.51, NT 4, 2000, XP, Vista, Win 7, Win 8) are NEW OPERATING SYSTEMS just as much as none of the OS X versions are new operating systems.

They underlying OS and graphics display technologies are the same. Both went through rather significant (in the Win 8, and Lion) changes to the program menus. Win 8 added touch screen support (more of an artifact of trying to have one OS fit all as opposed to Apple having a separate tablet/phone OS). You can argue the merits of the latter as we have since the days of the Palm OS and Win/CE.
 
SkyHog said:
If you want to call point releases with no major updates to functionality outside of behind the scenes stuff a new operating system, then sure, each point release is a new OS.
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Nick, there's a ton of new features.

Also, when it comes to operating system stuff, "behind the scenes" is every bit as important if not more so than the stuff you see.

Finally, where MS has major releases and calls them Windows 7 and Windows 8, Apple's similarly major releases are just called 10.8, 10.9, etc.

Or if you just want to be known as a hater, keep going. :rolleyes:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Nick, there's a ton of new features.

Also, when it comes to operating system stuff, "behind the scenes" is every bit as important if not more so than the stuff you see.

Finally, where MS has major releases and calls them Windows 7 and Windows 8, Apple's similarly major releases are just called 10.8, 10.9, etc.

Or if you just want to be known as a hater, keep going. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yes. But even a screenshot of the desktop between Windows XP and Windows 7, and Windows 7 to Windows 8 shows major differences. Its clear its not just a small update when you see Windows Upgrades. Look at the difference in the GUI between OSX Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion. Can you even tell by looking that its a different OS? Probably not.

Why? Because they're not major upgrades, which includes GUI and other usability features. If Microsoft rewrote the network stack but left the interface exactly the same, it would not be a new version of Windows, it would be a service pack.

And there'd be no charge.
 
SkyHog said:
Yes. But even a screenshot of the desktop between Windows XP and Windows 7, and Windows 7 to Windows 8 shows major differences. Its clear its not just a small update when you see Windows Upgrades. Look at the difference in the GUI between OSX Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion. Can you even tell by looking that its a different OS? Probably not.

Why? Because they're not major upgrades, which includes GUI and other usability features. If Microsoft rewrote the network stack but left the interface exactly the same, it would not be a new version of Windows, it would be a service pack.

And there'd be no charge.
Click to expand...
Apple is not stupid enough to make major GUI changes for absolutely no reason that then results in ****ing off all their customers like Microsoft enjoys to do.

They introduce major major features and changes and let you discover them on their own. You don't have to relearn everything over and over. That's not bad design, that's good design.
 
SkyHog said:
Yes. But even a screenshot of the desktop between Windows XP and Windows 7, and Windows 7 to Windows 8 shows major differences. Its clear its not just a small update when you see Windows Upgrades. Look at the difference in the GUI between OSX Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion. Can you even tell by looking that its a different OS? Probably not.

Why? Because they're not major upgrades, which includes GUI and other usability features. If Microsoft rewrote the network stack but left the interface exactly the same, it would not be a new version of Windows, it would be a service pack.

And there'd be no charge.
Click to expand...
What was the big user inteface change between Windows 98 SE and Windows ME?
Windows 98:
20130604234351!Windows98.png


Windows ME:
winme_rtm_0001.gif


What looked so much different about Windows Vista and Windows 7?

Windows Vista:
windows_vista.png


Windows 7:
Windows_7.png
 
SkyHog said:
Yes. But even a screenshot of the desktop between Windows XP and Windows 7, and Windows 7 to Windows 8 shows major differences. Its clear its not just a small update when you see Windows Upgrades. Look at the difference in the GUI between OSX Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion. Can you even tell by looking that its a different OS? Probably not.

Why? Because they're not major upgrades, which includes GUI and other usability features.
Click to expand...

No, it's because Apple knows how to design a UI and doesn't have to throw it out and try again every time like Microsoft loves to do.

Apple knows that good design means only changing the way the UI works in cases where it actually provides a benefit. Microsoft must really like their training partners who get to re-teach everyone how to use the latest version every time.

There are new *features* in the UI every time around. The entire look and feel does not need to change.
 
jesse said:
Apple is not stupid enough to make major GUI changes for absolutely no reason that then results in ****ing off all their customers like Microsoft enjoys to do.

They introduce major major features and changes and let you discover them on their own. You don't have to relearn everything over and over. That's not bad design, that's good design.
Click to expand...

This!
 
My home computer is a MacBook Pro 15", late 2008 version, hooked up to an Apple keyboard and a19" monitor.

Glad to see Mavericks goes back that far, though I may not get all the new features.

I will wait a couple of weeks to upgrade so at least some of the inevitable bugs can be addressed.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Perhaps most notably, that the software is all free - Both the latest operating system as well as all of the iWork productivity suite apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) as well as the consumer creative apps (iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand).

Another new thing is that they're starting to reshore production - The new Mac Pro is made in the USA.
Click to expand...
Apple's just trying to slow the release of illegal copies of their latest products
 
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