After Bryan’s article regarding the “free” Mac OS X 10.1 upgrade that we have to pay $20 for, I sent the following e-mail to a source that has been very useful to me before.  I won’t post the e-mail, but it goes to Steve Jobs, and it is very easy to figure out….

begin message:

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About the $20 “free” Mac Os X upgrade
Why is it that Apple is charging $20 for a “free” upgrade to Mac OS X 10.1.  In the July Keynote Steve Jobs said that it was going to be a “free” upgrade, and yet it appears that the only way to get it is with the $20 charge for the new cd’s.  

After we paid $30 for the beta, $120 for the “final” product, and now $20 to fix the final product, well, this is just rediculous.  If the upgrade price were truly covering shipping and production costs ($5 per unit) or even $10 then sure, that may be acceptable, and still considered a free upgrade, even though there is a cost invovled.  But at $20 it is quite obvious that Apple is trying to make a good profit at this as well, and after the statement that this is a free upgrade, well that just plain stinks. 

I have always been a heavy supporter of Apple, and one of the things that bothers me about this is that this type of policy is harming you “Loyal” customers more  than anyone else.  Those early adopters that are your bread and butter get reamed for it.  

This won’t change my support of apple or use of thier products, I just really think it stinks.  After I pay $3000-$6000 per year on Apple Hardware (2 G4’s, 2 G3’s, 2 Powerbooks, 1 iMac, and a lot more in the past 3 years) it would be nice if Apple would through us a bone every once in a while.

I doubt that  this will make any difference at all, I just want to voice my opinion.

Sincerly,

Jon Stanard
President, Dixie Direct Inc. 

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Today (the next day) I got the following reply, which came directly from Steve Jobs, although it was from his “PIXAR” e-mail, not his apple one, so I am positive that it is legit.  Message was as follows….

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Stay tuned….

Steve

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So I must say that it appears that there will be some better options coming in the future (it sounds like at least.)  See, whining and complaining does work sometimes…. hehehe

Well, that was cool.  The last time I sent a message about another very important topic for Apple directly to Steve Jobs I got a reply directly from Phil Schiller.  This time it came from Steve.  How cool is that.  My respect for Apple just shot up 1000%.

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Jon

I’d say its very cool.  Even though it was a short email, you know he actually reads his email.

I have continually trusted Apple to do “the right thing”, and history has shown that they have come through.  For instance, the MHz “downgrade” fiasco where they cancelled a whole slew of orders and told them they could buy a slower machine now, but for the same money - well they fixed that.  And I personally did not pay the 129.99 that they wanted for the final version:  I used the discount coupon that they sent out to those who bought the Public Beta, which basically paid us back (free beta!)  Ever since I heard Steve say “free” and then the news was “$20” for the CD, I doubted that when it came to brass tacks, Apple would do anything but the right thing again.  I feel strongly that they will offer up X 10.1 for free download.  I don’t think paying $20 for what might end up being 3 CDs is really unfair.  $20 is not that much, and as long as its an “option” to either download or buy, I would have no quarrel with that.  I actually prefer having the CD on hand so that if the bottom falls out of my computer I don’t have to reload one OS and then immediately upgrade it (all over again, possibly including one more mega download).  I hope that the new OS X 10.1 will be a “bootable” disk instead of a “bootable INSTALL disk”, which makes a big difference.  But anyway, I am off topic.

By the way, I was wondering about your company that you are the president of.  What kind of business do you do?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Retro on 2001-09-01 19:24 ]</font>

Nice letter, Jon.  I think it’s great that Steve wrote you back and I am VERY encouraged by that response.

VERY!

I also wanted to back up Retro that I have faith that Apple will “do the right thing.”  However, the company has needed nudging sometimes, and I think this might be one of those times. I should have said something to this effect in the column I wrote about this .

For those interested, I have taken a lot of heat from about 85% of the people that have commented or written to me.  Lots of profanity, lots of accusations that I “suck,” the usual suspects.  Even more interesting, this piece has elicited the most *e-mail* since we launched our comments for articles.

Lastly, those who agreed with me have been unequivocal in their frustration with the situation.

Again, I think Apple will do the right thing, just like it did with the G4 pricing debacle in 1999, pricing for Mac OS X Server, FireWire licensing, and every other situation that I can think of since Steve Jobs returned to the company.

I’m working on a column for Monday (Tuesday?) in which I look at this manufacturer/customer “dance.”

From what I’ve written so far, it looks like I’ve been reading too much Ayn Rand…

Hey, Jon,

I believe that your reply from Steve Jobs was legit. I wrote him a couple of years back. I received a terse reply (imagine reading tons of email, you’d have to be terse to reply to all of them, too). It came from the same Pixar address you noted.

Either Steve is one cool cat who replies to as much email as he can, or we were both duped.

Or, he has a staff that assists him with this stuff.  I doubt that though, because I can’t imagine a man like Steve being OK with other people saying things in his name.

The fact that the e-mail was sent to Apple and came back from Pixar tells me that it is legit.  If it came back from Apple, then I could always believe that someone is answering for him, but that would not be the case coming back from a Pixar address. 

My company is a Graphic Design/Advertising/Publising and what ever else I happen to be doing at the time.  Anywhere from 2 to 12 employees (so not too big) and I am also going to school full time to finish a bachelor’s degree.

And, yes, I agree with most everyone else.  Apple will do the right thing.  It’s just nice to see a personal touch from someone as high up (the top) as that.  Shows some real character.  Two thumbs up steve.

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Jon

Nice situation all around.

Of course, no one will believe me when I say that I kinda figured Apple might do something to mitigate the extra cost, tho I still don’t think $20 is worth complaining about for what we are getting. (That’s assuming that we are indeed getting something good in OS X.I.)

My faith in Apple dropped a bit when I had problems with my Cube AND my monitor right out of the box. The monitor was fixed quickly and we came to an understanding about the Cube (Wrong expectation on my part.), so my faith in Apple is back where it was.

This $20 OS X thing, I think, is blown way out of proportion, but it obviously bothers a lot of people, and I’m glad that there may be something Apple can do to help the situation.

Brings a tear of joy to my eye… excuse me….sniff, sniff! Steve is such a wonderful guy.

Now, if we can just get him to include Appleworks with every Mac…