[Ham-Mac] Who is *NOT* upgrading to Panther?

[Russell Finn]

On Oct 28, 2003, at 1:20 PM, Brian Short wrote:
> I would have to agree.  These upgrades are a bit expensive and they 
> are just "point" upgrades.  I'd pay for OS-11 but this is a fairly big 
> expenditure and so soon, too.

On Oct 28, 2003, at 2:21 PM, Steven M.Palm wrote:
> My personal view? It's ludicrous for Apple to demand full price for 
> *upgrades*, I think that they should offer a version upgrade for a 
> lesser price, say, $69.95 or so... Nobody would even agree on what 
> that price should be, but it should be something of a discount 
> nonetheless.

I see similar opinions frequently from both Mac fans and Mac critics.  
Allow me to make a rebuttal.

It seems fairly obvious to me that the difference between 10.2 and 10.3 
is more than a mere "point upgrade" (as was true of the difference 
between 10.1 and 10.2).  The published list of feature enhancements in 
Panther should be sufficient evidence of that.  The real "point 
upgrades" are labeled "10.2.1", "10.2.2", etc., and have been delivered 
for free via Software Update over the last year.

In my opinion, Apple feels it has invested enough in the "Mac OS X" 
brand that it does not want to move away from the "version 10" label 
anytime soon; so it has adopted an arguably non-standard version 
numbering convention for the OS.  I imagine this mostly bothers the 
more technically inclined members of the customer base; the "average" 
consumer is unlikely to notice or care much, especially since Apple is 
de-emphasizing the version numbers in its marketing materials ("Jaguar" 
instead of 10.2, "Panther" instead of 10.3).

Now, you can argue whether the upgrade is worth the asking price or not 
(if you don't think it is, don't buy it); you can argue over whether 
people who bought a previous version at retail should be entitled to a 
discounted price; and I suppose you can even argue whether the upgrades 
are coming too soon.  But to reject Panther because the numeric version 
number is "only" going from 10.2 to 10.3 makes no sense to me.

(I happen to believe Panther is worth the money -- $10/month to improve 
the performance and user experience of the one piece of software you 
use every time you use your computer seems more than fair to me.  As 
for "full price" versus "upgrade price" -- one could argue the "full 
price" of the Mac OS is whatever you paid for your Macintosh; the 
"upgrade price" is $129.00, and everybody with a Macintosh gets this 
price.  Unlike other software, you can't buy a Mac without the OS, and 
you can't use the OS on anything but a Mac.  And if you think the 
upgrades are coming too soon and are too expensive, by all means skip a 
release and wait a year for the next one.  Just be glad you have that 
option; Microsoft seems to make you wait three, four, five years or 
more between OS upgrades.)

-- Russell Finn, WA3YSW