Snow Leopard $29? Not for Everybody…
Apple has announced that Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard, will be available for $29 in September. But a closer look at the Apple web site suggests that this price is not for everybody. If you have Leopard, or Mac OS X 10.5, it will be $29, but if you’re currently running Tiger, Mac OS X 10.4, this is not the case, as specified here:
If your Intel-based Mac is running Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, purchase the Mac Box Set (when available)[...]
This means that the $29 disc is an upgrade disc, not a full installation disc. Tiger users be aware that you’ll have to pay full price!
This is how Apple did upgrades years ago, like 10.1 -> 10.2 if I remember correctly.
The problem I predict (and has happened before) will be for those who own Leopard, but for whatever reason want to wipe and start over using their own partition/drive settings before installing SL. The upgrade CD will most likely balk if it doesn’t see Leopard on the drive first, making these upgrades difficult, if not impossible.
No, that won’t be a problem. Windows has done this for years: you launch the installer, then it asks you to insert the previous CD to prove you had an older version.
Apple’s upgrade installers never asked for a previous DVD to be inserted. It looks for an installed version. As Snow Leopard is Intel only, how many first generation Intel based Macs are still running Tiger? If they didn’t upgrade to Leopard, they probably have no interest in Snow Leopard either.
Just because they never have doesn’t mean they can’t; it’s probably a trivial technology.
How many are running Tiger? I know of several, just in my immediate surroundings.
OK, so ask the operators of those Tiger Intel Macs and ask them if they have any interest in ever upgrading to a newer operating system and new application versions to be compatible with that.
Thing is, if they want to use the latest iLife or iWork, they will need to upgrade.
Very true, but then they don’t need the latest at this time or they would have upgraded to Leopard already. Maybe there will be a need to upgrade to Leopard in the future and thus a need to upgrade apps and preference panes, and drivers. After going through all that, many users would be hesitant to go through all that again to take advantage of yet another operating system upgrade.
$29 is reasonable. It don’t think I would pay much more for it, seeing as it is just a bunch of little fixes to things that should have been done years ago, or things that they broke in Leopard for whatever reason (like the search bar in the Finder not defaulting to the folder that you are searching in).
Judging from the info on Apple’s page, it sounds like if you want to wipe and install, you will have to first reinstall Leopard, then install Snow Leopard.
According to Apple’s Snow Leopard tech specs site:
Upgrading from Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger.
If your Intel-based Mac is running Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, purchase the Mac Box Set (when available), which is a single, affordable package that includes Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard; iLife ’09, with the latest versions of iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and iDVD; and iWork ’09, Apple’s productivity suite for home and office including Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.
I wonder if this will be the only way for Tiger users to upgrade, by purchasing all that other software as well.
If that is what’s on Apple’s web site, then there won’t be a fresh install DVD available, just an upgrade disc. I guess that is why the price is just $29. A retail install would have been $129 if history is a valid guide. To respond to asmeurer, Snow Leopard doesn’t just fix little things that were wrong in Leopard, there are many performance improvements and some new features. I would imagine a future Mac will require Snow Leopard and of course come with a machine specific installer.
I still don’t think you’ll have to do a double installation – one point they made in the presentation was how much shorter installation time would be. No, I still think it’ll be like Windows, which just prompts you for an old disc.
I think the shorter install time is based on the smaller installed code footprint, thus taking less time to install less code. You have to later download and install your printer drivers and languages as needed. Remains to be seen about asking for a old disc if it finds Tiger and not Leopard already installed on your Intel Mac’s hard drive.
What do you mean by “a closer look”?
Everything I’ve seen, from the keynote presentation to the web site, makes it plainly clear that was a special price for Leopard users.
@BradMacPro
I disagree. The smaller footprint is due to Snow Leopard doing away with fat binaries—there is no longer PPC support and thus no universal apps in SL…saving just about 45% space.
There’s more than just no PPC code. I’ve heard that printer drivers are not all installed, but I’m not sure about language files. I’ve also heard that some files are installed compressed, and are uncompressed on the fly.
To flar, there is no disagreement, the “smaller code footprint” I said is because of the lack of PPC code, at least partly and also because of the the lack of printer drivers and the compressed files. Of course if you look in Leopard there are plenty of compressed .gz files. That of course are gzip compressed archives. Snow Leopard adds File Compression to the HFS+ file system and was designed to be used with Apple System and Application files that are normally read-only but updatable. If these files are copied by the system, their uncompressed sized will be reported and copied at their normal size. This should make them readable by older operating systems.
Thought I’d add my historical two cents (or maybe USD29?) worth: The Tiger-Leopard “upgrade” disc can perform a full OS install. It must: it becomes the default restore disc once the user makes the transition from Tiger. If Tiger is on the computer’s start-up volume the installer does an OS upgrade. If there’s no OS on the drive, the installer offers a full installation. My guess is the Snow Leopard upgrade disc will offer similar features.
I don’t know of any “Tiger-Leopard ‘upgrade’ disc”. I only know of a full version of Leopard, that you can install on any compatible Mac. OS X has always done upgrade installs, but that does not mean the disc are meant as upgrades, ie cheaper than full versions.
Besides the retail Leopard DVD, there is, or perhaps was is correct, a upgrade only DVD included (so called drop-in) with Macs after Leopard came out, but before it was installed at the factory. see http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2387/1964111613_f6c5f1ee6c.jpg?v=0 Similarly there were iLife upgrade discs. To reply to cglewis_au, if Apple does sell only these upgrade discs, you would still need to do 2 installs to get back to Snow Leopard. Eventually new Macs will come with a machine specific Snow Leopard installer.
FYI, there were Tiger drop-in DVDs too and they required 10.3 installed already to upgrade. These are not full retail install DVDs. I speak from experience. I’ve been updating Macs since they came out in 1984.
BradMacPro: I purchased a Leopard and iLife 08 “upgrade” discs through Apple’s Mac up-to-date service. This old web page has some of the details http://switchtoamac.com/guides/mac-os-x/version/leopard/how-to-get-a-free-leopard-upgrade-the-mac-os-x-leopard-uptodate-program.html Apart from the disc labels, they are no different to the retail versions. The Leopard disc is a full OS X 10.5 install DVD and gives all the options. It will allow me to upgrade Panther to Leopard, do a clean install and an archive&install. BUT (and there’s always a “but”) if presented with a Snow Leopard upgrade DVD, I’d back-up my start-up disk to Time Machine or other, and do an archive&install because 10.6 is a very different beast to 10.4.
While the Leopard upgrade DVD does offer full “install” options, I rather doubt it would work if Panther was the previously installed operating system. If it does, that was not it’s intended purpose as it was for specific machines as a drop-in upgrade and not a general purpose retail install from scratch. I would certainly backup before installing my Snow Leopard DVD.