Where is the Leopard upgrade program?
Speculation around the Leopard delay is not going to end any time soon. Why did Apple do it? Don’t they have limitless resources? Is there a conspiracy? What was Steve Jobs thinking? It goes on and on. I am not here to debate that or even try to guess why. But there are some issues that need to be brought up. Most of the people waiting for Leopard aren’t even interested in the iPhone according to Adrian Kingsley-Hughes of ZdNet.
Apple seems to think there are more people interested in the iPhone. If that is the case and many seem to think it is then claims are floating around that Apple has abandoned its current user base and replaced it with a new one. I would say it’s more like Apple has two user bases, those that like the shiny toys and the long time Mac users.
The ones upset about the delay are long time Mac users or those who are looking to make the move over to Mac. The long time Mac users might have been looking for an upgrade which now must be delayed until Leopard is out, unless you want to shell out $120 for an OS upgrade in a few months, you will want to wait. The same goes for those who are looking to purchase their first Mac, why buy it now if a new OS is going to be out in a few months.
This is going to hurt Mac sales for a few months as people are just going to hold off until Leopard is released. My friend Triston pointed out a few things Apple could do to alleviate those concerns but there is one thing I would like to add to it. Institute an Express Upgrade program like Microsoft did only without all the problems.
Apple should do something to assure those who don’t want to hold off on buying a shiny new Mac that they won’t need to shell out more money for an upgrade in just a few months. How about all new Mac purchases made between June and October (or until the release of Leopard, whichever comes first) are eligible for a free copy of Leopard when it releases, yeah, that would work. Apple should do that. That might even help BOOST sales.
It could be there is an as yet unnanounced program that Apple intends to employ but if they were going to, I think they should have at least announced it by now. It’s still possible but I’m not going to get my hopes up.
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April 17th, 2007
I was going to buy my first MacBook this last Feb but waited till now (which is after “Early Spring”) to get the new OS. You can see how pissed I am by their October delay. I am not going to wait till October, so it would be sweet if a free or discounted Leopard upgrade program is happening. It will surely boost their sales till October.
If there is such a program, I wonder why they didn’t release it with their delay statement? That would have been the best time to do it. So I am really having doubts they even considered something like that.
April 19th, 2007
Well, sometimes Apple just needs encouragement and when their customers get upset, they may not care but they do understand the bottom line and this usually makes them do the right thing… that or… federal regulations but that doesn’t apply in this case.
April 25th, 2007
I was waiting for Leopard in 06, along with iWork ’07 now they are going to be ’08′s. I am very happy with my MacBook even though the reason that I broke down and bought it was that my Toshiba Satellite finally after 6 years bought the farm! And for those who wonder I made the decision to make the switch to the Mac when XP Service pack 2 caused my Toshiba to go kabluey! It was one of the 3%. I have done my homework and with the exception of joining a windows domain server and sharing files on a Windows network with-out the company having to do anything special for me I am quite happy.
September 23rd, 2007
I just bought a mac mini and would love a free upgrade to Leopard. I really hope they do, as MS offered free Vista upgrades.
Richard Kristin is wrong, btw. Those are the complete wrong reasons to “go mac”. XP SP2 doesn’t cause computers to go “kabluey”. Usually it’s either people who don’t know how to use them or it’s hardware issues like either defective hardware or the company making junky drivers that don’t work right. I’ve never had any problems in windows since XP came out that weren’t my own fault. OSX is nice, but too often people blame MS for their own mistakes or for hardware problems that could be REPAIRED UNDER WARRANTY. Apple uses the same hardware as XP does, they just toss on a chip that says it’s ok to run OSX. Other than that their hardware is pretty average for the components and below average for reliability when you consider the price. Fortunately, I got my mini on a deal.