Bought your mini before April 12th?
Yeah, as I’m sure you’ve all heard, the release date for Mac OS X Tiger (April 29th) was announced today, but as exciting as this may be, I was more curious about the upgrade path for recent mini purchases. Well unless you bought your mini on or before the 12th of April you’ll pay the going rate for Tiger. Listen I’m not coming down on Apple, hey they have the right to sell their software how they see fit, but I am a little surprised that the cut off date is less than 30 days from Tigers Launch.
If you purchased a new Mac on or after April 12 that didn’t include Tiger, you can upgrade for just the cost of the media.
Will I still buy it? Do bears poop in the woods? Of course I’ll still upgrade, but paying the full pop (for two machines) is going to sting a little.
B.Greenway
April 12th, 2005 at 4:25 pm
I know it isn’t a lot of comfort, but with multiple Macs, you can buy the OS X “Family Pack” which has a license for up to 5 Macs in one household for $200. Saves you $60 over buying two separate boxes at least…
April 13th, 2005 at 9:18 am
I agree that it’s a pain, but this is the way that most software companies work. The only reason that they allow people who buy a Mac between now and the 29th to get a free upgrade is that sales for the month of April don’t nosedive.
And while I’m a huge fan of paying less money in general, remember that most software that has an upgrade version costs $400+ and the upgrade version costs about $100. I tend to think that we’re ALL getting the upgrade price since everyone buying has to have bought a copy of the Mac OS at some point with their machine. It’s a just a little more than we expect, which is pretty much par for the course with Apple.
April 14th, 2005 at 9:36 pm
Although I knew Tiger was coming sometime second quarter I had to by my mac mini because I just could not wait anymore.
So I picked one from the local apple store at the beginning of April.
When the Tiger news broke on the 12th, I was a bit surprised. I did not really expect it til May-June. Perhaps I ought ought to have kept myself better in the loop, I might have know it was as imminent. Anyway, I immediately searched for the information on the upgrade path for recent purchasers and was a bit dismayed to learn that it only included purchasers from that day forward.
Luckily my fiancee knew just what to do. She called the store and mentioned the two-week price guarantee on the back of the receipt. After some discussion and prodding, they agreed to “return” the mac and “resell” it to me on that day. I was then able to participate in the up-to-date program. Must give big kudos to the Apple store for working with me on this. They did the right thing. And they also knew I was prepared to return the mac and pay the $87 restocking fee in order to get Tiger for that price instead of paying $129. And how knows, maybe the second time, I would not have purchased from them. Maybe I’d have tried Comp USA or Best Buy. I made sure they knew of these possibilities. Luckily it did not come to that.
Also, people should note that if you have access to any type of educational discount, you can get Tiger for $69. Not a bad price at all.
April 26th, 2005 at 9:45 am
Well I for one ordered a mini BEFORE April 12 from Apple.ca and they waited to ship and date the bill ’til April 13. Couldn’t ask for better sales staff than that.
August 19th, 2005 at 12:45 am
I know this is a little late, but…
I’ve discovered that if you take your Mac in for warranty service (ie., dead HD like mine), they will automatically upgrade it to Tiger (friend that works at Apple Store confirmed that they do it for other issues also, not just dead HD, even though they don’t have to reinstall OSX). Downside - no media, so if you ever plan on wiping your Mac clean (why? this ain’t winblows!), you’ll be back to Panther.