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“According to Apple, Snow Leopard wasn’t so much a feature release in the sense of sporting 200 or 300 flashy goodies. Instead, it was meant as a slimmer, trimmer OS, without the code for PowerPC Macs, which were no longer supported. New features were intended to create the foundation to allow developers to build more powerful and speedier apps. That is, when they got around to adding support for the new features, and that situation is still very much a work in progress,” Steinberg writes. “Since Snow Leopard wasn’t intended as a full feature release, Apple exacted a modest $29 for a copy for 10.5 users. If you are running 10.4, there is a special Mac Box Set, the latest version of which, recently released, adds iLife ’11 and iWork ’09 to the mix, and sells for the standard $129.”
“That takes us to Lion,” Steinberg writes. “It’s widely expected that Mac OS X Lion will cost $129, same as the standard issue Mac OS X upgrade. Or maybe not. You see, Apple has been busy reducing the prices of consumer grade software of late, so the latest and greatest iLife is now $49, rather than $79. Does that signal a trend?”
Much more in the full article here.
My guess is $99. It can’t be cheaper than iLife.
Meanwhile, major iOS updates are free.
Do the math.
I’m thinking 129. This upgrade will be significant and I’ve no doubt as the release date draws closer we’ll learn more about Apple’s latest offering.
I think it will be sold through the Mac App Store for $29. Yes, you can do a major OS upgrade online, as long as the user has a reasonable broadband connection. Developers and beta testers get pre-release versions through a download.
As an alternative, Apple can sell it for $39 in a tiny box with a USB flash drive (like the one that comes with a MacBook Air).
Apple makes most of its profit selling hardware. In the past, before iPhone and iPad, selling a major Mac OS X upgrade for $129 was necessary to boost overall profits. Now, it is more beneficial to encourage users to upgrade as quickly as possible, by charging a nominal fee. Doing it through the Mac App Store will greatly reduce the cost of distribution. So decreased cost and increased participation will offset any benefit from selling it for a higher price.
I’m going $49.99
Afterall it’s about selling stuff now.
Since Apple owns 10% of the PC market, otherwise known as a rounding error, the worth of Apple’s OS X must necessarily be 10% of the worth of Windows 7. So applying this logic leaves us with the conclusion that Lion should be priced at $5.
@ Ballmer’s left nut
By that reasoning, a Zune HD should be priced at about $2.
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Yeah but how much will Mac OSX 11.0 Lion Home Premium Edition Super Deluxe cost?
Who cares – I had very little interest in the features that were included in the sneak peak of Lion. The best thing was the App store and that doesn’t need Lion. I really hope Apple has a number of other good ideas in the works.
Regarding iLife 11 – it was cheap because it was half ass. Only 3 of 5 apps were updated and none are 64 bit.
I appreciate all the work done on the iOS platform, but Apple needs to higher more people. Switching good folks from the Mac to work on iOS is not the answer. Good new features and apps for the Mac from Apple are becoming much more scarce than they were 4-5 years ago.
@ballmer’s nuts – Since Apple owns 10% of the PC market,…
I’m gonna stop you right there.
Obviously you haven’t figured it out yet, Apple owns 100 percent of the Mac market. They have abolutely nothing to do with the PC market, except of course their 100-percent influence over everyone who makes, sells, or uses, a PC.
Now if you want to count those who insist on running Windows on their Macs, sure it might be 10-percent.
But let’s be clear, Macs are not “PCs”.
@ Ryan
Hopefully, Apple will not hire high people.
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Thank you for that thoughtful comment. Now go get yourself a cookie.
Anyone who needs 64-bit iLife should consider upgrading to something other than granny software.
If Apple “highered” you Ryan, what do you think you’d bring to the Mac?
@Not Bill
Agreed. I’m thinking they already had plenty working on the last version of iPhoto. :o)
I find it interesting that Snow Leopard was $29 while at the same time broke more old software than most new releases. I conclude from that the goal of the low price was to encourage adoption. So I suspect that the price point of Lion will be based on the impact of the change. If a lot of new features, I expect $49 to $79. But if it’s going to break a lot of current software due to more drastic changes underneath, then look for the $29 price point.
I’m going with $49.99 if you buy it off of the Mac APP Store. $79.99 if you buy it on DVD.
There’s an interesting phenomenon concerning consumers and pricing. If Apple prices Lion too low, typical consumers (who don’t analyze their purchase options/prices rationally) will think there’s no value. If the price is too high, those same consumers won’t buy. Good pricing is as much psychological as it is cost plus reasonable profit. Except for MS Office where the essential monopoly has kept it artificially and unreasonably inflated.
You remember “Back to the Mac”. When Apple starts to bring successful iOS features back to MacOS, why stop with the AppStore when one key element in software dynamics is the free update for the next operating system.
Maybe Apple starts in two weeks with a free MacOS 10.6.6 download to every Intel Mac user because this could double the potential AppStore clients and this will double the AppStore success.
@G4Dualie
I didn’t say I could make the software any better I said Apple could. They did in the past and they should continue that same standard of excellence. This last iLife release was a joke. I took Apple over a year and half to update 3 of 5 apps, one of which completed deleted some users photo libraries.
Regarding 64 bit, Apple released Snow Leopard which updated basic apps to 64 bit and encouraged developers to do the same. Over a year later and iLife 11 can’t incorporate this technology?????? Give me a break. While it’s not top of the line software, I wouldn’t call in granny software. iLife certainly handles more complex task than iCal, iChat, etc, but Apple updated all of those to 64 bit.
It’s pretty clear that demand for Apple’s products has grown faster than Apple’s HR team could handle.
@Ryan
Maybe they could higher more people by relocating to a sky rise. Bungalow campuses are way too 1980’s for a powerful high end computer manufacturer like apple.
$49 stand alone, $89 bundled with iLife’11, either distributed on a flash drive. Rotating hardware is so passé.
No meaningfu conjecture here, except to say it definitely won’t end as $.99.
Not more then 100$ not less then 49.99$. I’m pretty sure that’s safe to assume?
@ lurker
The future is download and this is also the end for the dominance of huge software bundlels which were typical for the DVD era and the complex distribution of physical media. You will be able to buy each app of iLife or iworks individually in the MacAppStore and the entry card for this new online experience is the operating system. In future Apple will earn more money indirectly with a successful AppStore and with services like mobile Me than with direct sales of Lions and followers.
So it seems to me that future MacOS updates will come for free as downloads just like with iOS devices. Apple also dropped the update payments for ipod touch because even 10 dollar slowed down the adoption speed of new iOS versions.
So Microsoft will be soon in real trouble, because they are surrounded by more modern operating systems, which come all for free. Online will change the whole business model and Apple is very well prepared for this new era.
I haven’t heard of any features so far that make this new system worth more than the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade.
Ryan
Proofread before you post.