There is reason to the points system, which has been explained way too many times. I fail to see how an Apple site, which is used by Apple enthusiasts, who have to read manuals, and help files to figure out how to do things on an Apple that is beyond cut/paste, etc.
Anyways, rant aside, the points are there b/c you also earn points on the XBox, which also is going to have access to their Music/Video store.
Besides,if MS made their system that simple, Apple enthusiasts would have yelled and screamed bloody murder at Apple for stealing "1-click".... even though 1-click is just like any other eCommerce site that has been around way before iTunes that lets you save your credit card info on their site.
Having read this article... I wish I could afford to break every Apple product I own out of pure shame of being affiliated with the same product as this site.
I've been watching the Open Darwin project since 2001 when I first got an iBook, I even tried installing it and setting up a couple servers on Darwin only many moons ago...
in the end, after geting my hands dirty, my conclusion is the marketing team at Apple quit caring if the public sees them just like Microsoft, and Apple has accepted that it follows the same practices as MS.
The argument against WGA (and other software companies using the exact same method of piracy "prevention") always amuses me....
Apple does not need to go this route YET, b/c of the sheer numbers. Fact is, more people use Windows. Until Apple gets about 10-20% higher in userbase, and is OS X is installable on anything, APple and its users won't realize what a necessary evil "phoning home" really is.
I'm a tech who works with both Macs and PCs in design/print/media companies. I have less heartache with PCs than with Macs. More often than not, the old saying that on a mac it either works or doesn't is true. With a PC there are things I can try, poke around here and there, workaround somehow. On a Mac, not so true.
Whenever anyone asks me if I think they should get a Mac, my answer is always "it depends what is it going to be used for?". And when the question, "does it really have less problems than a PC" comes up, the answer is always "no, Macs and PCs suck equally".
In the PC world, if you use quality parts, you have a quality machine. If you try and save a buck and go down to a subpar piece of hardware, then you end up with a subpar machine.
If your wife just wanted more ease connecting to the servers at work..... why not just have IT setup "appleshares" on all the shares on the servers? Its what I did at one Media firm who wanted Windows Servers, but Apple workstations for its employees. Works like a charm.
I partially agree with the comments regarding the prices for Mac OSes being lower all around, so there is no need for a special discounted upgrade price.
But I disagree with the statement that MS charges $299 for XP and then you wait 5 years for the next version, whereas apple only charges $129. Looking at it that way, and not getting into the which OS is better debate, $300 for a product for 5 years comes to $60/year. Compared to $129/year. Twice as much for the same type of product. They are both OSes, so shouldn't they be the same price?
And like someone else said, MS is a software company. Apple is a hardware company. Apple charges an arm and a leg for hardware. That's how they fund their R&D.
That aside, I partially agree, they should offer some form of a discount to keep users upgrading to their latest OS especially considering it took them 3 versions to get OS X useable (that's $129 * 3).
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