Which is preferable? New Hardware, or new OS, first.

Well, it looks like Ivy Bridge is delayed. To me it creates a bit of a quandary, or at least some contemplation of a least desirable scenario.

Now we are left wondering whether new hardware will beat Mountain Lion, or not. I was looking forward to new hardware first, the Mountain Lion to follow shortly thereafter. That way, the new hardware would be able to run both Lion and Mountain Lion, at the user's discretion. If ML beats the Ivy Bridge transition, we are "stuck" with Lion being eliminated as an OS option.

I would have preferred that ML's release be shortly after the new Macbooks.

Does anyone see an advantage to simultaneous or ML first, release, provided they are less than a month or so apart anyway?

 

i'm more excited about the hardware

 

Mountain Lion just entered its first beta. I highly doubt we'll see a final release much before summer. I would bet on something similar with IB machines that we saw with last year's MBP releases. The first batch came pre-installed with Snow Leopard, then a couple months later transitioned to Lion. The first run on new MacBooks would do the same thing - have Lion pre-installed with later builds running only ML.

 

^ I agree. 10.8 is slated to come out around a full year after 10.7's release (pitting it for at least July) but Apple is still in the first beta edition. I doubt they are going to turn that around in 4 months to a final release. Granted, 10.8 is more of a service pack than an actual OS revamp so it may not take them that long to come out with something. They could even delay things until after Ivy Bridge units hit the shelves.

If anything, I see Apple following the same pattern as they did with Lion. Release new hardware first with Lion giving users the option to upgrade for free and then start pre-installing 10.8. As a software and hardware company, I imagine Apple would want to have the new hardware first to make sure everything runs fine (even if it is just with in-house builds of 10.8) before it is released to the general public.

 

i know why, it's so because eager buyers spend $60 extra for 10.8 later on




anyways, what i want 10.8 is the lag problem from 10.7 (old macs when installed lion, becomes very slow). and maybe support for Direct X 11.1

 

If Apple sticks to what they did with Lion, ML will only be $30.

Macs don't use DirectX, never have. Besides, DirectX support is dependent on your graphics hardware, not the software.

 

Most likely it'll be $30 - assuming they match it to the Lion price.

Either way, it could be worse, it could cost as much as Windows

 

Except that for Windows it's a one-time expense that lasts for years while Apple has been nickel and diming with more incremental updates. If you had a system with Leopard and have bought/will continue to buy every subsequent release, you're essentially at the same overall cost you'd be at if you bought a Windows system with Vista and upgraded to 7.

 

Windows 7 Ultimate (encryption and extra utilities that as far as I know are included in OS X) - $230 (google guess, I buy Pro and Enterprise Volume licenses for work)

Lifetime of the OS, Oct 2009 - Oct 2012 (estimate), so 3 years. So 76 dollars and change a year.

If OS X is $30/year, it's less than half the price of Windows 7.

EDIT:
And if OS X is missing some features we can compare to Win7 home premium upgrade ($150, or $50/yr), it's still cheaper with OS X.

 

Ivy Bridge release for the notebook processors is now expected late 2nd quarter, according to published reports, so closer to WWDC. Apple is certain to release updates to the MBP lineup once Intel is finally able to start shipping cpus in quantity, but whether the refresh will be the anticipated radical redesign of the MBP lineup that has been postulated for later 2012 or not is only known within the confines of 1 Infinite Loop. Probably not the latter.

OS X 10.8 is slated summer, and most likely mid-late 3rd quarter following precedent and schedule. Besides tighter integration of iCloud features, 10.8 is not expected to be a major improvement in OS over 10.7 compared to 10.6 -> 10.7 ... it's more akin to 10.5 -> 10.6 (Leopard -> Snow), as alluded to above.

 

I have gotten pro around $69 with tax included.

 

A legit copy? Even OEM is $150.

 

Why would I be even paying if it wasn't a legit copy?

 

Well, the price really seems like it was a used copy or non-legit. All of MS pricing is fairly set in stone, by MS. They don't usually have sales either.

The only other thing I can think of is maybe a student copy - which is only for educational purposes and not really an accurate price comparison.

 

MS has all kinds of online specials and coupons running around occasionally. a year and a half ago they had 2 family packs of windows 7 home premium upgrades ( 6 licences ) for $59.95

occasionally you will see great deals here
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Windows-Premium-Upgrade-Family/dp/B002MV2MG0/ref=zg_bs_229655_5 ( MS will activate an upgrade easily enough )
Windows 7 Special Offers | Find Special Discounts on Windows 7 Products
$84 Buy Microsoft Windows 7 Download or boxset version

or in brick and mortar retailers such as the " windows 7 upgrade for 7 days for $7" promo Futureshop had a week after its release here in Canada

and as was said above, depending on which student category you fall under it is $0.00-$30 but thats a different program but easy to get into

 

Student licenses are only for educational use, making it a non-comparison to OS X pricing.

However, I was unaware of the other deals you mentioned. I have not seen any in any brick and mortar store around here (Metro Detroit) nor any website I shop on.