Apple Does the Right Thing
'Family Priced' Mac Jaguar a Godsend
Dan Knight - 2002.08.16 - Tip Jar
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I was stunned to read Apple's wider iMac screen, Jaguar system are big steps Thursday morning and learn that "Apple is introducing family pricing for Jaguar. The company will sell for $199 a family version that can be legally installed on up to five computers."
I went to Apple's site. Not a word about it. We linked to Walter S. Mossberg's Wall Street Journal article on Apple Quicklinks, adding "News to us!" since neither Apple nor any of the Mac-centric sites seemed to have any information at all about this program.
Mossberg wouldn't make up something like this. He's no Anne Onymus. I wondered what would unfold as the day progressed.
When I got home from work, I found out that everyone was talking about the family package - and Apple was vehemently denying that all of our complaining about a lack up upgrade pricing had anything to do with this deal.
Yeah, right.
Regardless, the so-called family pricing is just what the doctor ordered. One copy of Mac OS X v10.2, five licenses, and one low price. Instead of having the opportunity to upgrade my copy of OS X for maybe $79, I can buy a five-pack to install on my TiBook, my beige G3, and the iMac with 320 MB of RAM. Or my wife can buy the bundle for her business, allowing each of her employees to upgrade their iBooks to Jaguar and have iCal available for coordinating schedules.
Or maybe we can skip the iMac. Two licenses for me, three for her. $39.80 per copy. What a deal! Whether Apple did this in response to their customers or not (and I have a hard time believing the hue and cry over the complete absence of upgrade pricing had nothing to do with this), Apple has done right for those who want to run Jaguar on two or more Macs.
On the other hand, a lot of people who have ordered more than one copy of Jaguar for their personal or business use are probably scrambling to cancel their orders and figure out how in the world they can order the family pack. After all, there's still no mention of this bargain on Apple's website.
As for those who only need to upgrade a single copy of OS X, you're still out in the cold. Maybe you can find four others, identify yourselves as a family, and share a family pack of OS X.
I wonder if we'll see family pricing on .mac next....
Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.
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