Apple to charge for final Boot Camp

This was posted by the Inquirer about an hour ago. I'm not sure if it should be here or the Boot Camp Forum?

"MAKER of entertainment gear Apple is set to charge for software that will allow MacInteltosh users to run Windows and MacOS X in dual boot mode.

According to Apple mag, MacScoop, Apple executives have decided to charge current users of Mac OS X Tiger for the final version of Boot Camp more than $29 to run the software.

Boot Camp will be a free feature included in the new version of the operating system 'Leopard'. This means that Tiger users who want to use Boot Camp will either have to upgrade or stump up the extra cash.

The fact that Apple had released Boot Camp and enable users to run XP had been one of the sweetners that led to the product's success. New versions of Boot Camp will apparently run Windows Vista.

Apple has been getting increasingly mean lately, working out lots of ways to screw extra pennies out of its users. Last week it released a $1.99 software update, enabling 802.11n wifi on their Airport adapters. The update was to activate hardware functions that its users have already paid for."

Is this an extra reason to wait for OS 10.5 before purchasing my Macbook?

Paying for bootcamp or upgrade seems fair to me. Most people upgrade anyway so..........

i'll just get leopard

and the new bootcamp can run vista? that would be pretty awesome

That's fair play if you ask me. I'd only complain if it wasn't included for free with Leopard. $29 is a small price to pay to run Vista.

It was almost assumed it would be either this case or they would can Tiger availability as soon as they released Leopard. The beta versions will expire and no longer work once Leopard comes out

I'd have to say pretty fair also. Surely Apple has a lot of R&D in Boot Camp. Free with the new OS I think is going to encourage a lot more people like me to give Mac a shot.

And one would think most of the R&D at this point has been related to making sure Boot Camp and Leopard play nice. This means that the final version as related to Tiger, would really be backwards compatible. A reasonable fee to offset support costs doesn't seem out of line. After all, we really are talking about Apple supporting Windows. This surely has not been and will not be, at no cost to Apple.

Apple was clear that the Boot Camp was a beta and that it would expire when the final version came out with Leopard. Anyone who is surprised by Apple not giving away the final version for free either wasn't paying attention or is clearly insane.

dohidied said:

Apple was clear that the Boot Camp was a beta and that it would expire when the final version came out with Leopard. Anyone who is surprised by Apple not giving away the final version for free either wasn't paying attention or is clearly insane.

Click to expand...

I wasn't paying attention

When you say "expire" do you mean that a currently installed version of the beta product will cease to function or that it will simply be no longer available from Apple? (for Free)

RNDdave said:

I wasn't paying attention

When you say "expire" do you mean that a currently installed version of the beta product will cease to function or that it will simply be no longer available from Apple? (for Free)

Click to expand...

Apple was never clear whether it would stop working or whether we were just no longer licensed to use the software. Here's the part of the License Agreement that I'm talking about:

Term of License. The term of this License shall commence upon your installation or use of the Apple Software and will terminate automatically without notice from Apple upon the next commercial release of the Apple Software, or September 30, 2007, whichever occurs first. Your rights under this License will also terminate automatically without notice from Apple if you fail to comply with any term(s) of this License. Upon the termination of this License, you shall cease all use of the Apple Software and destroy all copies, full or partial, of the Apple Software.

Click to expand...

It's hard to know for sure, but it seems that the Boot Camp "software" simply performs the setup of a Windows partition. Seems hard to believe that you would no longer be able to boot into that partition on October 1st, but we'll see.

It's no matter for most of us anyway, since I imagine the majority will be installing 10.5 when it comes out (worth it to me for Time Machine alone).

If you have to you have to I guess. I wouldn't pay for it. Seems a little much to me. There was a hack out before bootcamp that allowed people to run XP, and I expect that people will continue working on it now that Apple is going to charge for the functionality. A number of open source bootloaders have been available for years on generic x86 hardware (and PPC for that matter), so maybe we'll see something from that direction as well.

Seeing as Apple just posted record profits, this nickle and dime strategy they've decided on lately seems just a bit greedy to me.

not fair too charge but probs get leopard after a few months from when it released anyways.

I want the Time Machine thing so I think I'll be a leopard adopter as well (that's if actually buy a macbook before 10.5 - tomorrow might be my day).