@By Bobak Fakhraee

Quote: "Either way - its an existing OS which they just patch up - MS have created a new one. Might not be the best - but fair play to them, they've spent a bit of time on it"

Amongst all the other FUD and misinformation in this thread, this has to be the funniest of the lot!

"MS have created a new one..." bwahahahahahahaahaha!!!

Anyway....

Since 10.0 was released in 2001, the grand total cost of all versions of OS X is:

10.0 = $129 (I actually have a vague memory that it was $99, but I'll go with the higher price as I can't say it was $99 for certain)

10.1 = free (if you got the CD at a store) or $20

10.2 = $129

10.3 = $129

10.4 = $129

Total = $536 maximum for a version of the OS that is still far better than Windows Vista (Ultimate) in most respects, which costs $400 full price. However, people have been stuck using XP for the past 6 or so years which is wholly 1990's technology and was already out-of-date when it was released. Vista is not much of an improvement on XP in that regard. It has some modern tech in it, but on the whole it is a largely circa 2001 to 2004 UI stuck onto pretty much the exact same 90's tech as XP. MS have let down their developer base and users so badly with Vista, it is an enormous embarrassment. Now we'll have to wait for the next version for the gravy, or so MS tell us (and should we believe them... they have consistently lied to us for the past 6 years about the release dates and technology that they were going to include in Longhorn/Vista?).

At least OS X users have been experiencing the benefits of modern tech all the way through, with every single upgrade. 50 to 60% of what Vista brought to the table was already available in OS X 10.0 way back in 2001!

With Leopard, the cost for using a fully modern OS will be $665 for Mac users that have paid for each and every OS X upgrade which might seem a lot, but at least they aren't still stuck in 90's-ville. No comment on how much better than Vista it will be, but "a lot" springs to mind.