
Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free - jdmitch
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2013/10/22/apple-says-new-os-x-mavericks-will-be-offered-for-free/
======
Zenst
The whole free OS which can only run upon hardware they have already sold you
is reminding me of how IBM used to sell AIX and moved into giving it away free
as it would only run upon hardware only they made and sold you.

Question is though, what about support. You have a 3 year old Mac of some
flavour and upgrade to this OS, what about issues you may have.

ANother aspect would be that by in effect making this level of OS available to
all supported models out there warranty wise, they make life in supporting
systems a little bit easier and very likely will drop support for the other
older OS's on these models quicker. Again making life in support easier in
many ways as well as making developers lives a lot easier. Especialy if they
can target toward the a single denominator OS wise and take advantage of all
the features without working towards only features common to the previous
flavours.

Either way a good move. Though can bet there will be somebody on the older
flavour of OS who will have some essentual application that they must have
which has issues. But time will tell.

Good move on many levels I'd say by Apple.

~~~
masklinn
> The whole free OS which can only run upon hardware they have already sold
> you is reminding me of how IBM used to sell AIX and moved into giving it
> away free as it would only run upon hardware only they made and sold you.

On the other hand, once upon a time Apple made you pay for software which also
run upon hardware only they made and sold you. Back before Snow Leopard, that
was $129 per user (though installable on an unlimited number of machines)

~~~
willimholte
IIRC it was not legal to install on multiple machines (perhaps it was legal
for multiple personal machines?).

~~~
3825
No, but there was no technological measure preventing you (serial number or
phoning home) that would stop you as far as I can recall.

You can buy a single copy or a family pack for five computers.

[http://www.amazon.com/Mac-10-4-Tiger-Family-
Pack/dp/B0007LW1...](http://www.amazon.com/Mac-10-4-Tiger-Family-
Pack/dp/B0007LW1MW)

[http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Mac-10-4-Tiger-
VERSION/dp/B0002G...](http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Mac-10-4-Tiger-
VERSION/dp/B0002G71T0)

~~~
yaddayadda
Apple has taken measures to technologically limit your ability to do so. When
I bought my most recent MacBook Pro it came with Lion. Because of network
issues at work I could't use Lion (still can't), so I tried to put Snow
Leopard in a VM (using the copy I had previously put on my now defunct MacBook
Pro) but Apple and VMWare had put in technological blockers to prevent putting
SL on a Lion VM or Lion on a SL VM. So, I repartitioned and copied my old
MacBook over and am still living happily with SL.

~~~
CrankyPants
I suspect there were other factors which prevented your success.

There were no measures to technologically limit one's ability to perform
multiple installations from a purchased OS X install disc. You could buy two
different Tiger installers and they'd checksum the same, and there were no
serial numbers to be entered. It was an honor thing.

~~~
danielparks
There was a restriction on VMs, but they've since eased up on that. I imagine
it was because of the Hackintosh thing.

I'm reasonably confident the OS didn't actively try to detect that it was
running in a VM, but VMware Fusion (and presumably other such software) would
prevent you from installing the OS.

There was a relatively simple work around (a hack) that allowed you to install
in a VM. I think it was as simple as touching the right path.

~~~
yaddayadda
At the point that I was trying to solve this problem (and not getting paid as
a result) I was unable to find anyone who had successfully gotten SL to run in
a VMWare VM or Lion to run in a SL VM. Interestingly, I did find individuals
who had Lion running in Lion VMs, but that didn't help me get back up and
running.

Edited to add: You are correct, the technical restriction was on the VMWare
side, but IIRC it was because of legal threats from Apple. Apparently earlier
versions of VMWare would run SL without any problems, but the VMWare version I
had would not not and I couldn't get a copy of the older version.

------
jasoncartwright
Here is the App Store link to upgrade now...

[https://itunes.apple.com/app/os-x-
mavericks/id675248567?mt=1...](https://itunes.apple.com/app/os-x-
mavericks/id675248567?mt=12)

~~~
corresation
Installed it on a Mac Mini (3rd gen i7) and after the install it sat on a
blank screen (with mouse cursor), but a forced restart and all was perfect and
everything is operating brilliantly. Fantastic treat that it is free.

~~~
aroch
Kernel Caches that aren't cleared properly will do this, the display drivers
changes significantly and they're stored in PRAM

~~~
Zr40
That's definitely false. PRAM only contains firmware settings and boot
parameters. It isn't big enough to contain drivers.

If the display driver is at fault, grandparent wouldn't even see a mouse
cursor.

I don't know anything about 'properly cleaning the kernel caches', but it's
clearly not a problem since grandparent was able to continue by rebooting.

~~~
aroch
PRAM stores a bootarg that boots off the current caches. There's an issue with
DMProxy and the display drivers that causes the black screen + cursor issue
described. Hardrebooting has the benefit of causing the magic in the EFI to
supply a -f (ignore kernelcaches)

------
ics
If you're too busy to read the whole article or watch the keynote, also note
that you can upgrade directly from Snow Leopard or later. They listed the
hardware models which will take it as well– the 2007 Mac Minis and MacBook
Pros are supposedly good to go.

~~~
bluedino
I wonder what the technical reason is for not letting Leopard users upgrade.
It seems like everyone I know with a 2008/2009 is still on 10.5.8

~~~
xenonite
The most technical reason for not offering an upgrade to all 10.5 users is:
PowerPC-Architecture! 10.6 was the first Intel-Only OS X, and 10.5 the last
one for PowerPCs.

~~~
wtallis
The question isn't why they aren't offering upgrades to all 10.5 users, it's
why they're not offering upgrades to any 10.5 users.

~~~
acomjean
As someone who is using Snow Leopard (10.6) on some older macs. The path to
upgrading seems to be through apple support or buying a snow leopard disc. (as
the app store offers me mountain lion upgrades on machines that don't support
it).

------
ChikkaChiChi
Some would say that Mavericks was launched for free because Windows 8.1 did
the same. Those same people might also say that Apple did one better by
offering the update for computers running older than the most recent version
of their software.

~~~
danieldk
This has been coming a long time. The updates were already very cheap
(20something Euros) compared to the old days (> 100 Euro if I remember
correctly) and it fits in with the iOS strategy of having the latest version
on every device.

OS X upgrade revenue is now such a minuscule piece of the pie that it probably
doesn't matter anymore.

~~~
masklinn
> the old days (> 100 Euro if I remember correctly)

Yes, 129 for single-user and 169 for family (5-user).

And these are not so old days, Leopard was 129 and that was in 2007. Snow
Leopard and Lion were 30, and ML was 20 (in USD, IIRC $129 translated to 129€
but ML is "only" 18€)

------
josteink
Right. Apple event today.

What on earth compelled Nokia to launch their new Windows-tablet on the same
day?

~~~
jbigelow76
Nokia announced their event first. Two ways to read Apple then targeting the
same day -

For the Apple Fanboy: Apple wasn't even aware Nokia was releasing anything,
because honestly, it's windows mobile so who cares, and this is pure
coincidence.

For the Msft Fanboy: Apple releases a sad, incremental improvement in hardware
that isn't their primary focus anymore in an attempt to keep the attention off
of a rival.

~~~
potatolicious
Or Apple knew, but it didn't affect their timing at all. Apple _only_
announces on Tuesdays, and there are only 5 Tuesdays in October - and we've
known this announcement was coming this month for a very, very long time.

I sincerely doubt Apple gives one tiny hoot about Windows tablets when it
comes to timing their announcements. A flagship Android tablet maybe.

------
wmeredith
Jesus, between this and Android, Microsoft's cash cow has now been fully
commoditized. Ouch.

~~~
hkdobrev
Actually because of patents royalties Microsoft gets more money from Android
than Windows Phone.

Every sold Android phone is putting few bucks in MS pocket.

~~~
csense
Can you cite any sources for this?

~~~
millerm
Here are a couple (I only took a quick glance), as many articles pop up with a
search:

[http://www.itworld.com/open-source/372628/microsoft-makes-
bi...](http://www.itworld.com/open-source/372628/microsoft-makes-big-money-
android-phones-and-tablets)

[http://allthingsd.com/20130718/microsofts-making-more-
money-...](http://allthingsd.com/20130718/microsofts-making-more-money-from-
phones-but-much-of-that-could-be-from-android/)

------
SeanLuke
Wasn't there a McCain-Feingold rule which made free upgrades illegal that
entangled Apple in the past?

Edit: Sarbanes-Oxley, not McCain-Feingold. I had forgotten.

~~~
publicfig
I think you may be thinking of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, which is what Apple
cited for charging for some upgrades in the past (that and GAAP)[1]. If I
remember correctly, things have changed on that level now, though I don't know
if it's through legislation or through a reform of accounting practices

[1][http://appleinsider.com/article/?id=2419](http://appleinsider.com/article/?id=2419)

------
panacea
A boot to the face of Microsoft.

~~~
revelation
Microsoft sells software, Apple sells hardware with matching software. But
make no mistake, they are a _hardware_ company - OSX won't even run without a
chip confirming its an authentic Mac.

The idea that they would charge for these smaller OSX updates is bizarre, and
the price point has been in the "we need this for accounting" range in the
past.

~~~
foogered
I feel the need to point out that you can run Mac OS X on pretty much any
recent Intel processor and a wide range of motherboards. It is not locked to
Apple hardware.

~~~
josteink
Have you seen the docs for what it takes to get that running? Have you seen
the docs for what it takes to complete a normal "update"?

Trying to run OS X on non-Apple hardware makes the old days of "cumbersome"
Linux-systems look like kindergarten-stuff.

I'd hardly say it just runs.

~~~
donwil92
If you spend the time to research and get the parts that are supported by OS
X, building a Hackintosh is breeze. I have had no problems with the one I
built.

~~~
tricolon
Could you give us a couple links to kick off our own research? I've been
wanting to do this for some time now but have been putting it off.

~~~
josteink
Maybe I was unlucky with my hardware but for me it was an uphill battle all
the way and I never got anything near working.

The best I had was a system which booted (incredibly slowly) and for which I
could never get wifi working.

YMMV, but you have been warned. Even with good documentation, there is
absolutely no guarantee you'll get anywhere at all.

~~~
mattsfrey
You've really got to just follow the hardware guides to the tee, and I
personally recommend using their prebuilt configs. If you go on tonymac or the
other hackintosh sites they will have different hardware lists that are more
or less guaranteed to work, as all the components will be ones used in mac
desktops and have built in support. There is definitely a huge dick around if
you try and be adventurous and go off the beaten path, and you will spend
hours messing with the loader configs and kexts etc.

------
qwerty_asdf
So where can I go to download an ISO?

I'd like to burn a bootable DVD, and load it up as a non-networked offline
install. Is such a thing even possible?

~~~
pat2man
There are a few tools that will do this for you, basically copying the hidden
restore partition onto a USB stick. Bootable DVD though? Really?

~~~
qwerty_asdf

      > Bootable DVD though? Really?
    

In light of recent events involving the NSA and leaked documents, yes. A
bootable DVD. Really.

For some heavy-duty discussion on the withertos and wherefores, take a quick
gander at a recent thread, over here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6532642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6532642)

Remember that part where GCHQ stormed the offices of The Guardian, and took an
angle grinder to one of their laptops?

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-
fil...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-files-drives-
destroyed-london)

~~~
falcolas
In light of the recent NSA revelations, I'd want to use Linux, not Mac, for an
ephemeral offline OS.

Of course, Schneider uses Windows, so to each his own.

~~~
nwh
Offline means nothing in a world where NSA slides reference jumping airgaps
with hardware backdoors.

~~~
gohrt
How exactly will their hardware backdoor transmit its secrets back to the NSA?
By sneaking out your apartment backdoor?

~~~
nwh
If you'd read any of the background on it rather than down voting me, you'd
know!

------
Alex3917
So can we now file a class action suit for all those times they told us it
would be illegal to not charge a fee for upgrading?

~~~
k2enemy
No. FASB changed revenue recognition principles in 2010 to allow this type of
update.

~~~
millerm
Wow, great response! I was wondering when someone was going to bring that up.

------
smaili
This is very significant because it has signaled a shift from a time where
Operating Systems was once a major revenue stream.

Very interested to see if Microsoft will follow suit.

~~~
uptown
"Very interested to see if Microsoft will follow suit."

And what? Make it up in volume? Unless Microsoft's Surface sales take-off,
they can't afford to give Windows away for free apart from what are
essentially service-packs like the 8.1 update they just released.

~~~
scarmig
I thought Office, Exchange, etc. products actually formed the bulk of their
revenue.

~~~
uptown
Windows is still a major component of their revenue:

[http://www.tannerhelland.com/4273/microsoft-money-
updated-20...](http://www.tannerhelland.com/4273/microsoft-money-
updated-2012/)

------
naicuoctavian
This is part of a bigger company wide strategy to offer software updates for
free for their products, a strategy they pioneered with iOs.

There's also a huge difference in what each update adds when compared to 8.1 .
Where 8.1 tries to fix all the initial issues with W8 (missing start button
anyone?), Maverick adds serious new features (1+ hour of battery, compressed
RAM).

The free iWork suite is a direct attack to MSFT Office. Giving it away for
free will pay long term in decreasing market share for Office. Office H&O is
$220. Buy a Mac/iPhone/iPad and you get that for free.

~~~
laureny
> This is part of a bigger company wide strategy to offer software updates for
> free for their products, a strategy they pioneered with iOs.

Pioneered?

Android updates have been free since day one.

~~~
naicuoctavian
June 2007: iPhone is released July 2008: iPhone OS 2.0 is released September
2008: Android 1.0 is released

------
csense
I haven't used any Apple machine since 2004. Some HN'ers like Apple, so I've
been kind of interested to see what Apple machines do that PC's don't. But I
don't want to pay premium prices for iGoods.

Does this mean I can run the new OS in a VM to check out the Apple ecosystem?
Or is this only free (as in beer) to people who have an existing paid license
for a previous Apple operating system?

~~~
gnur
Apple devices aren't really that overpriced. Try to get a comparable device
(power, weight, battery life, slimness) for the same price and it's harder
then you think. If you can find me a good alternative for a 11" macbook air
for less then an macbook air I'd be delighted to hear what it is because I've
been dying for a good ultralight laptop that can run ubuntu without dealing
with efi/uefi/bootcamp stuff.

~~~
ansgri
efi/uefi seems to be a solved problem for ubuntu. I'm running Linux Mint on
Asus UX31A (which would be best laptop ever if it was more reliable) installed
all-by-default without _any_ problems, even with hotkeys and touchpad. Also a
colleague of mine happily runs Fedora on UX32A.

~~~
gnur
On other devices this is true, but on my macbook air I keep having issues
where I either have to wait for several seconds (10-20) at a black screen with
a blinking underscore or that the options in the boot menu don't correspond
with what gets booted. (mind you, I have been using ubuntu for at least 7
years now but the macbook air is the only device I couldn't install it
reliably, guess it's even worse then using Windows on mac hardware :))

------
beagle3
As a recent Mac convert, who plans to do Mac software development but hasn't
started yet - is there a way to copy the existing mountain lion install on my
Mac to a VM image so I can test on ML after I upgrade to Mavericks?

~~~
itafroma
You can: I upgraded my Mountain Lion test machine to Mavericks when DP1 landed
and created a Parallels virtual machine for Mountain Lion.

However, I found—at least with Parallels—you can't just take an existing hard
drive image and use that: you have to create a new virtual machine, install
Mountain Lion from scratch on it, then use OS X's Migration Assistant to move
everything over.

~~~
beagle3
Thanks. My Mac came with Mountain lion pre-installed; where can I find install
media to install ML into parallels?

~~~
itafroma
You'll need to re-download it from the App Store (it should automatically be
flagged as purchased, though, so you shouldn't need to re-buy it: just check
the "Purchases" tab).

It'll download as an application: "Install Mac OS X Mountain Lion.app". If the
installer automatically launches, just quit out of it. Right-click on the
application, select "Show package contents", then navigate to
Contents/SharedSupport. In there, you'll see "InstalESD.dmg": that's the
Mountain Lion image.

You should be able to use that image directly in Parallels et al, but if you
really wanted physical media, you can burn that image to a disc or create a
bootable flash drive using Disk Utility. If you go the flash drive route,
you'll need to use the GUID partition table.

~~~
beagle3
Thanks!

------
malandrew
Hypothesis: Apple OS X is now knocking hard at the doors of the enterprise,
and it's removing every barrier to entry except their main source of revenue,
hardware costs.

iWork is more than good enough for many MS Office use cases. If you work on
documents that you often don't need to exchange with co-workers, then you
don't really have any barriers to switching. Obviously, financial analysts
with their massive models in excel aren't going anywhere anytime soon, but
real estate agents like my mother and others like her have few reasons not to
switch.

Next time someone goes to upgrade office, they are going to have to compare an
expensive software license with putting that money into a brand new computer
instead and who doesn't love having a fresh new computer.

~~~
nraynaud
I guess somehow they are already completely inside with the iDevices?

I guess it's more seen as a push to avoid maintaining old software at high
costs, and limiting fragmentation, by migrating as much people as possible. I
guess the longevity of Windows XP must be seen as a scary thing. Also on a
psychological level, the users get used to upgrade without too much fear. The
company can retire the products sooner, flip the technology faster.

------
trimbo
I love how it's free for the "first time ever"...

... except before... I think it was... System 7.5? All new OSes used to be
free for Mac and Apple II.

~~~
shinratdr
OS X is a seperate OS. Apple didn't say that this is the first time they had
given away an OS. They said this is the first free OS X release. Which it is.

~~~
trimbo
"Today we're going to revolutionize pricing. Today we announce a new era for
the Mac. Today we announce that Mavericks is free."

This is a quote from the Verge's liveblog of an Apple guy. Note he said "Mac",
which made me think of it.

------
nandhp
What about virtualization? Previously, one would only be allowed virtualize OS
X if they purchased a copy (you can't virtualize the copy that came with the
computer). Since it sounds like that's no longer an option, do I get
virtualization for free now?

------
chm
I own a 2008 15" MBP. I didn't want to upgrade from Snow Leopard - there
seemed to be a synergy between SL and my hardware.

Even for free, I'm weary of upgrading my OS. Too scared to take a performance
hit.

~~~
dilap
Recent releases of OS X, and probably this latest one too, have focused a lot
on actually improving the efficiency of the OS. Can't know for sure w/o trying
it, but I'd expect to get a performance improvement from the upgrade.

~~~
masklinn
Initial reports from the GM tell of many improvements, especially the memory
subsystem which aside from the possibly gimmicky memory compression finally
stopped sucking and swapping for no reason because it couldn't handle its own
caches correctly. Users on even high-RAM configurations (16~32GB) which would
still end up swapping in previous versions due to memleaks and memory
mismanagement report 0 swapping.

------
hcarvalhoalves
I believe they are offering this update for free since it's more about
performance tweaks and library frameworks for app developers, not so much in
terms of features or bundled apps, so it makes sense to have as much people as
possible running it. Given OS X updates are a pretty streamlined process (and
Time Machine helps in the case it borks something), I hope they keep this
trend.

~~~
DSingularity
Thats certainly a reason to offer it for a cheaper price. I think once you
offer something free -- its hard to go back. I imagine it will tick off
customers. So I dont think the incremental nature of OSX is the reason its
free.

------
ville
Free as in free beer, not as in free speech.

~~~
lukifer
Just give it up, and call it "liberated software" or something. Language is
defined by usage, and no one outside the FOSS community thinks that's what
"free" means. (And while we're at it, the media is never, ever going to adopt
the word "cracker" either.)

~~~
lucasnemeth
free fre·er, fre·est, adverb, verb, freed, free·ing. adjective 1\. enjoying
personal rights or liberty, as a person who is not in slavery: a land of free
people. 2\. pertaining to or reserved for those who enjoy personal liberty:
They were thankful to be living on free soil. 3\. existing under,
characterized by, or possessing civil and political liberties that are, as a
rule, constitutionally guaranteed by representative government: the free
nations of the world. 4\. enjoying political autonomy, as a people or country
not under foreign rule; independent. 5\. exempt from external authority,
interference, restriction, etc., as a person or one's will, thought, choice,
action, etc.; independent; unrestricted.

~~~
lukifer
lit·er·al·ly

1\. in a literal manner or sense; exactly.

2\. used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally
true.

Words are _literally_ defined by how they are actually used by humans over
time. If I hold up a sign saying "Free Donuts", no one is going to think I
mean that pastries should be liberated. To unnecessarily cling to the word
"free" when it has a more obvious secondary meaning is to tilt at windmills;
there is no shortage of synonyms.

~~~
tomflack
If there is one argument it's impossible to win, it's an argument with people
trying to impose their own "original" or "traditional" word usage over the
more colloquial understanding of it's meaning.

------
ucha
It's definitely a great incentive for users to update their hardware. If you
could still use iOS3 on your iPhone 3GS, it would be reasonably fast and
responsive but because the upgrade to iOS6 is free, you go for it only to
discover that it is now unusable. Same logic goes now for Macs.

~~~
krrrh
Check out whited00r if you Have an old 3GS that you want to make snappy.

As for OSX, this update (like many in the past) has several features which
rejuvenate older hardware. It does the opposite of what you claim.

------
malbs
Damn disappointing to see I can't upgrade the Mac mini I have from ~2008. It's
a Macmini2,1, but I have upgraded the ram from 500mb to 4gb (3gb addressable),
the cpu to the fastest possible (2.3ghz core2), and a samsung 840 128gb ssd.
The machine is a beast now, except for the fact the sound occasionally stops
working (sudo killall coreaudiod!)

I understand the why - the chipset/cpu is 32bit, and Mavericks is 64-bit only.
Bit of a bugger. The user won't notice though (My wife)

I'm sure the upgrade experience would be better than my Windows 8 -> Windows
8.1 experience of last week. The best way to describe that would be train
wreck.

~~~
jffry
When I went into MSFT's Store app on my Win8 VM and installed the 8.1 upgrade,
it rebooted and then went through the entire first-time setup routine.
Everything it wanted, was already configured, so asking me again is just a
sloppy experience!

------
netcan
Seems like a sensible move and going with the flow. OS upgrades seem like a
strange thing to pay for these days. It adds to the proposition first time
macs converts.

One downside is that paid software upgrades provide a useful feedback
mechanism. It must get over the 'is this worth $100' bar to sell. I think this
is probably important for iwork also. Between creating revenue vs enhancing
the mac's value & pulling users deeper into Apple-land, I think the right
decision could be to go free. OTOH, that would absolve iwork from having to be
good enough that users choose to pay money for it.

Still, free OS upgrades seem like the right choice.

------
Tyrannosaurs
Curious to know whether the fact that OS X is no longer a revenue stream might
mean that Apple are more inclined to open it (or at least parts of it) up.

As with a mobile OS, the services layer on top of the OS seems as important as
the operating system itself. With so much of the value in owning a Mac being
iLife, iWork, iCloud, maps, iTunes, the Appstore and so on, could Apple open
up OS X in the way Android is open (by which I mean for inspection more than
contribution and just the core, not the services)?

Seems against their culture but this takes away one of the big reasons why
they wouldn't.

~~~
ranebo
No chance this will happen. All their software and services only have one
purpose, to help sell more hardware. Thats where their money comes from.

------
yeukhon
Finally. There is almost no point if you are selling your OS for just $30, $40
dollars. I am going to wait a few months until I upgrade. Most of the software
I use probably be better off with the current version.

------
kailuowang
Does anyone know if this upgrade is worthwhile for software development?

~~~
perishabledave
Battery life is said to increase an hour and the multiple screen monitor
functionality has been improved. Nothing that would really change your
development drastically. That being said it is a solid release and quite
stable, I wouldn't see much reason not to upgrade.

------
mindo
I would be just happy if it would be possible to upgrade, but I've tried 3
times the downloading keep crashing. I don't understand why they just don't
make it so the updates would roll out on bittorrent like network. Its 5.29GB
after all and every time it stops I would have like 1.6 - 3GB downloaded. And
that is not to mention the download speeds that are just awful right now...

------
mustapha
After perfecting the NSA OS with cloud based keychaining for easy access you
can now be backdoored, free.

------
shurcooL
This is the biggest reason this is awesome:

    
    
      Base SDK = 10.9
      Minimum Deployment Target = 10.9

------
gdonelli
...and the Developer Tools have always been free! I would say OS X is the best
dev environment ever!

------
saejox
First i heard this i immidiately gone to apple.com/osx looked for iso
download.

Yes i am naive like that.

~~~
D9u
We can download hundreds of fully functional iso for a myriad of unix-like
systems... Why is it naive to expect Apple to follow suit?

Is it their software which is so costly, or is it the hardware upon which that
software runs?

------
viseztrance
It sounds great, but an OS upgrade shouldn't had been paid in the first place.
For instance I would be pretty pissed off to pay to upgrade my phone's
software. This is just a reminder that computers have become general consumer
items.

~~~
meepmorp
Would you apply that same logic to Windows? Say between 7 and 8?

~~~
viseztrance
If they can cope with the UI, absolutely. Computers are a commodity.
Personally I know very few people that even upgrade windows. They just buy a
new machine (which like their current machine, already comes with windows
preinstalled).

~~~
meepmorp
Companies often buy Windows upgrades without new hardware. But basically, as
long as you hold a license for an OS already, upgrades ought to be free?

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samstave
Can anyone try running this in a virtualbox?

Can anyone point me to an ISO of this?

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dlau1
13 hours battery life now on my 11" 2013 macbook air, wow

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ndrake
Anyone know what the JVM situation is on Mavericks? Does Apple still provide a
version of 1.6 or would I be required to upgrade to Oracle's 1.7 install?

~~~
ndrake
Finally got a chance to test this on a spare machine at work. Apple directs
you to download Oracle's Java 7 installer, but I was able to download the
recent 2013-005 update and install it on Mavericks. Seems to run fine.

[http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572](http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572)

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frank_boyd
Of course.

The competition is already free and Apple has still a high security prison as
far as the lock-in effect of its technology is concerned, so they're still
safe.

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free652
May be a silly question. But did they put some any "lawyer" language to
prevent hackintoshes from running maverick?

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shill
I lost all notes in the Notes app after upgrading. The data file is still
there but I'm not sure how to reattach it yet.

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AsymetricCom
I guess this one is on the NSA. Thanks guys!

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mpg33
s w e e t

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D9u
Real breakthrough would be for OS X to run on Windoze devices... If you're a
distro hopping nixer there's nothing to see here... Move along.

~~~
tomschlick
Yeah if by breakthrough you mean shits the bed. The reason OSX works so well
is because Apple has a limited set of hardware they have to support vs the
wild west of hardware that windows has to support.

~~~
D9u
No, by "breakthrough" I mean support common x86 devices, which OS X _does_
support to a limited degree.

~~~
ctdonath
OS X exists _entirely_ to facilitate selling more Apple hardware. Apple has
zero interest in giving anyone a reason to buy anything other than Apple
computers (broadly defined from Mac Pro to iPod Shuffle).

