[DM-MUG] OS X upgrade questions

[Matthew Wheeler]

See embedded responses.

On Mar 23, 2005, at 10:51 AM, John Eller wrote:

> hi folks
>
> just had a canon printer go kaput.  the replacement arrived today. but 
> it requires an OS upgrade, dang it.
>
> i'm running 10.2.8 and had been hoping to get along until i could 
> acquire a rev2 20" imac with tiger installed.
>
> what's the latest version i can get?
10.3.8 is the latest OS version available online (for at least another 
day or three). If you buy it on CD it will be 10.3.5 and you'll have to 
update it manually or through the Software Update function in the OS.

> will i have to pay full price again to update my powerbook, too?
Yes, I cannot condone installing single licenses across multiple Macs. 
<wink, wink, nudge, nudge> You can always buy the Family Pack which 
includes 5 licenses of the OS for $199. (go to: www.apple.com/store and 
do a search for "family pack")

> and pay again to update it to tiger?
>
Apple has yet to offer any "upgrade" pricing for owners of the previous 
OS. ONE EXCEPTION is if you purchased the OS around 30 days before the 
release of the new OS, you qualify for the Up-To-Date program that will 
allow you to purchase any new version. It costs roughly $20. That's 
tough to calculate, however.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/

> (is "tiger" even the name of the next version?  i can't keep track of 
> them all!)
>
Yes, Tiger is 10.4. It will be released soon. I just found out today 
that Mac OS releases have always been on the 24th of the month. Likely 
it will be April, and not tomorrow because 10.3.9 isn't even released 
yet. Indications from Apple marketing materials trend toward the 
"confused to clueless" which further reinforces that it will be at 
least another month.

> thanks much for any replies.
>
> (currently using a 4.5 year old imac dv500 with a gig of ram
> and a 2 year old alu pb 867 with 640 mb ram)
>
Both of these Macs will run Panther very well, and you should even 
notice an increase in performance if all is running well now and there 
are no hidden problems. I would recommend getting what you need to run 
the printer now and not worrying about Tiger (10.4). It may be another 
month before Tiger is released, it may be 3. Besides, 10.4 will 
invariably have problems that will require updates. Instead, you'll be 
running Panther (10.3) right away with a tested and stable OS--and a 
new printer.

Matthew
TechnicalMac