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Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free

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Re: Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free

#161

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?

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.

Re: Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free

#162

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.

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.

OS X Prices by Version - http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/osx-pr...

Re: Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

The OSx86 Wiki [0] is a good place to start.

[0]: http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Re: Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free

#164
post #3

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.

Didn't Lion not support 2008 models? I think it's cool, and unusual, that they can now upgrade to Mavericks.

My girlfriend uses a 2008 aluminum MB (non-Pro), and I never had any issues upgrading her to previous versions of OSX. Now it's running Mountain Lion and downloading Mavericks as I type.

Re: Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free

#165

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?

I successfully installed Mac OS X in VirtualBox using iAtkos ML2, then upgraded it to the latest Mountain Lion through the App Store. You could probably do this, then arrange to mount your current drive and use Migration Assistant.

I might be doing this myself. Google "iAtkos ML2 VirtualBox" to find the settings for VirtualBox that will work.

Re: Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free

#166
post #3

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.

I'm hopeful I didn't misread the slide, and that the original Macbook Air will be supported. Not my primary laptop, but it'd be great to move up from Lion.

10.8 didn't support that MBA, so I'm not sure why you would hope that 10.9 would suddenly reintroduce compatibility.

Re: Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free

#167

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

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.

Re: Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a giant difference between "not officially supported" and "a cryptography chip locks you out".

I guess you should take a look at what installing a hackintosh system entails. It starts with flashing your BIOS and it doesn't get any better afterwards.

Nope. You burn the disk and install OSX as normal. Depending on the hardware you might need to download a few kext (Kernal Extensions AKA "drivers") Comparable to installing Linux or Windows.

Re: Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free

#170
post #142

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.

I think lack of app compatibility and broken websites would be a bigger incentive.
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