“Along with a free update to OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Apple promised owners of its iWork and iLife suites free upgrades to the latest versions, as well as anyone that bought a Mac after October 1st,” Aaron Souppouris reports for The Verge.
“However, thanks to a flaw in the company’s Mac App Store, even users with trial copies are being given free editions of Apple’s new software,” Souppouris reports. “More worryingly for Apple, users downloading illegal software are being given legitimate copies in exchange.”
Souppouris reports, “In addition to the iLife and iWork suites, which include Pages, Numbers, and Keynote alongside popular apps like iMovie, iPhoto, and GarageBand, the issue also extends to Aperture, which was recently updated to version 3.5.”
Read more in the full article here.
Mike Beasley writes for 9to5Mac, “Since the Mac App Store now detects boxed copies of iWork and allows them to be updated to the Mac App Store version, it seems the trial versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are perceived by the App Store as being a full purchased copy.”
“It’s unlikely that Apple can even fix the issue, since the trial versions of old iWork apps are identical to the retail copies (but require a serial number to activate),” Beasley writes. “Since the apps use the same identifier whether activated or not, the App Store has no way to determine if the trial has been activated.”
Read more in the full article here.
Meh. More Pages, less Word. It’s all good.
If the software is free, its should be free. My iPad isn’t that old, why are you keeping pages from me?
I would imagine the cost of pages was built into the cost of the devices. It was not built into the cost of yours. When you got your iPad, there was no expectation that these would be free.
The cost of iWork was built into every iOS device. Whether or not the price is free, Apple got revenue. We call this “gross margin.” Some may call it gouging if price is “high”. If price is low or free, then its “loss leader” or something along those lines.
By your reasoning the navigation in my Accura should have been free as it is built into the cost of every device. Have you never heard of add ons? What about your PC you own, should it not have only come with Winblows but also Orifice for free, it was built in to the cost?
I’m saying that, depending on how one does the counting, the value, cost of manufacuring and pricing is already built-in because of the high margins. Apple can adjust prices up or down as it pleases. Its hard to say which came first — the price or the gross margin.
For Apples own software, what is the big deal? Apple have effectively written off the cost of the software so additional copies is not going to be an issue.
For third party apps, without an activation code it is hard to prevent theft.
A deliberate flaw? For Apple to give away as free for everyone, there are a number of legal issues, hence why they say it’s only free on new devices.
By allowing this to happen, it will get more Apple software in the hands of users, who will go on to ditch “the competition”. All sounds good to me!
Or perhaps an unintentional flaw that Apple deliberately chose not to fix. But I agree, the outcome only benefits Apple.
“…More worryingly for Apple…”
Wow. Not sure how these writers do not get it – Apple does not really care about money for iWork now. They want people to use it and if that means a few thousand (or few hundred thousand) pirated or trial copies get upgraded for free, it will not damage their bottom line.
Apple wants to change their software paradigm – instead of for meager profits, it is to get/keep users of their hardware. They aren’t MS, who in the desktop/laptop area are reliant on software sales & licenses for a substantial part of their bottom line. The writers seem not to understand the difference.
Don’t get your panties all in a knot. FREE is FREE. They are giving it away. Deal with it. (Especially you, Microsoft.)
Come to think of it, this article is probably sponsored by Microsoft to get Apple to try to quit giving out some of this for free, because it is killing them.
It updated my trial of Aperture to a full blown real version! Thanks apple.
Same here.
I have auto update turned on now, opened the Mac store to look at the history.. There’s aperture as being updated. 🙂
iWork/iLife is no big deal IMO.. But aperture?
Wonder if it worked with final cut?
Didn’t do it for mine. Was your trial stillin trial date?
I don’t see this as a big deal. Apple is going to give it away free and it would be a bigger mess is some legitimate copies don’t get the free updates. Apple erred on the side of caution which retains apple’s image. Unlike microscum which makes me phone in to and verify my copy of windows every time i do a clean install.
Doesn’t sound like a flaw. It sounds like policy.
according to this article, it is policy.
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/24/apple-offering-free-updates-to-all-users-of-aperture-iwork-and-ilife-not-worried-about-unethical-users/
“While we are aware that this enables piracy of our apps for unethical users, Apple has never taken a strong stance or action against piracy in the past. We like to believe that our users are honest, even if that belief is in vain.”
Like Apple really care. They’ve always been very lax with regards to pirated software. iWork and iLife were both incredibly easy to get a copy of – if I recall correctly, boxed versions of iLife required no activation whatsoever.
And there’s a very good reason for this: if you want to use iLife or iWork or Aperture or Logic, you gotta get a Mac. No other way. It’s the hardware they make their profits on, not the software – that’s just there to entice people to come and join the ecosystem.
And another good reason: they want everyone running the same, up to date software. Apple absolutely hate fragmentation – something made even more obvious through their decision to give Mavericks away for free, even to SL users.
I highly doubt Apple cares. There was never strict licensing on anything they had anyway. It was always kind of a free for all.
Who gives a shit? iWork’s is free going forward.
So, I BOUGHT my version of iWork when I bought my MAC, and now Apple is allowing illegal and free-beta versions to be updated for free.. AND, their asking me to pay again??
NOT LIKELY IN OUR COLLECTIVE LIFETIMES.…
Real question here…where can I get a trial version of iWork, Aperture?
When it was first released, Apple had a full demo version of iWork 09 up at their Downloads site. I don’t believe it is around any longer.
I was wondering what was going on. Thanks for the free versions of the new apps Apple, I guess!
For Apple, the maginal cost of distributing one more copy is near zero. The benefit, as others have stated, is significant. By helping every Mac user discover IWork, they’ re seriously painting Microsoft into a corner.
And they don’t have to screw around with “who gets an upgrade and who doesn’t” There are some writers who don’t get that the world has changed and stuff that used to be important just isn’t, anymore.
I have iWork 08, and the App Store doesn’t seem to know it. What does it take for the App Store to detect an old version? Does it matter that mine are in a subdirectory inside Applications? Is my version too old?
Try putting the app in the applications folder, log out/in to your App store account.
Can’t hurt to try that.
And Apple doesn’t delete the old apps, they will be put in a folder in the Applications folder.
Whatever you do, don’t purchase the new apps.. The Mac App Store will detect the old ones, and they will show up as free updates.
How does the App Store app detect previous versions? Do they show up under Purchases or Updates? How do you know that it will update the apps?
I opened up Mac App Store, and looked at Updates.
I only had them on the iMac at the time, I did a full clean install on the MBP earlier in the day and had not installed much software. They showed up as full price on the MBP, and as Updates on the iMac. As soon as I clicked “update all” on the iMac, they showed up in purchased on the MBP.
Scroll up and read the link I posted earlier, basically Apple is giving everyone iWork/iLife free. If you purchased it or pirated it, they don’t care. Kinda like iTunes match.
Final Cut Pro X is also handled this way.
I downloaded it from PirateBay and installed it only to see how it automatically was taken care of and got updates and extra content direct from Apple.
It is now listed in the app store as a purchased app.
This is a real problem unless Apple also wants to give that and Logic Pro X away.
Yes, I also tested with Logic Pro X and it is now installed and “purchased”.
What Torrent did you download for FCP?
As has been pointed out on other Mac sites.
“Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X have never been released as boxed software so there’s no way to trick MAS into thinking you own it.”
Unless someone can prove *everyone* wrong..
Hey, how did you get Logic Pro X updated? The App Store won’t recognize my version of Logic.
While I’ll need a bit of time to get used to the new version of Pages, Numbers & Keynote I CAN say NOW that I don’t like some of what I see…… While using Pages this afternoon I more than just a bit felt like someone had slipped a copy of ms word onto my MacBook Air. There is WAY too much of a ‘wordiness’ feel for my like.
‘Instant Alpha’ has been buried a level deeper than before. You can no longer paste images into items that have been defined as ‘Media Placeholders’. You can no longer duplicate a page by clicking on a thumbnail and hitting ⌘-D. All the different things like this make working in Pages slower and more tedious than before…… Maybe Apple should slap a big “BETA” sticker on iWork too……….
shows up as a free update for me. Everything else shows as a paid upgrade.