steve emphasised "free" software upgrades for ipod, apple tv & iphone in his keynote just made me feel like as if it would not be the case in apple's future..... sure this would be a huge revenue to generate profits from the already shipped product, thumbs up for business aspect and all the way down for consumer's.... i hope my feeling about this is totally wrong...

You buy a product. It comes with everything advertised. Now apple are giving you a bunch of brand new stuff.
If they decide to charge then whats the problem. Your getting something new so why not.
Of course we would all rather its free but they are giving you new things so paying is fair if they want us too

I think there's some legal reasons in the US for not updating some products (which sounds a little crazy, but true).

Btw, I don't think any iPods have ever had feature updates except for the iPod touch and maybe the 5.5G, meaning more free feature updates have been done more recently, not in the past.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act. It's to do with the changes in accounting for public companies after Enron and their ilk went into meltdown a few years ago. We've already seen Apple use it as justification when they charged a couple of dollars to switch on the 802.11n functionality of some cards.

But then of course the iPhone had free updates and why didn't Apple charge $2 for these new apps?

everyone keeps quoting sarbanes oxley...

what about microsoft.. they offered a completely new firmware upgrade to all zune owners for free... drastically changing a shitty media player into a somewhat acceptable media player.....


edit
everyone being those who are quoting sarbanes.... not those who arent!!

If the software updates were predominantly fixing bugs, then it should certainly be free...

And of course some apps it's in Apple's best interests to provide free - Quicktime, Safari - if they want to be an industry leader in that product type.

I guess ultimately they are fully entitled to charge for software updates that are actually providing new features etc though...

There is nothing I want in the upgrade. I would rather pay less for a Touch and not have the extras.

I think they have just given future purchasers a nice choice.

I had heard it's because they are assigning the iPhone income over a three year accounting period and I assume things like the iPod Touch are charged as one-off items. However, I happily admit to not knowing much about accounting and having just spoken to a mate who worked with accounting systems in the US I'm now even more confused.

My authoritative answer as of now: NFI

The point I dont get is they added all this functionality to the apple tv and didnt charge the consumer but they some how charge $20 on the iTouch?

i gotta agree hear. i know john c dvorak loves complaining about sarbanes oxley, but really, it cant be used as an excuse for everything..

A bit of clarity from the Macalope: http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13509_1-9...pe:AnAppleblog

The short story for those who got to class late is Apple must charge for substantial enhancements to products that do not have revenue recognized on a subscription basis or it has to restate prior earnings. The iPod touch does not have revenue recognized on a subscription basis. The iPhone does. As does the Apple TV. Hence, they get free updates and the iPod touch does not.

It's a somewhat complicated accounting convention and perhaps you can argue that the iPod touch revenue should also have been recognized on a subscription basis, but then it raises the question as to whether or not all iPods should have their revenue recognized that way and pretty soon it all devolves into communism and everyone's getting everything for free and even Randy Newman doesn't want that.

A reader comment on the above post:

You're not paying the subscription, Apple is accounting for certain hardware "as if" it were a subscription.

If Apple sold $8 million worth of iPod touches last quarter, they can say they sold $8 million and report it as earnings. If you want to upgrade, Apple has to charge you.

If Apple sold $8 million worth of ?TVs last quarter, they can say they sold $8 million but can only report $1 million as earnings. The other $7 million is spread out over the next 7 quarters. Apple can give you upgrades for free.

Apple is realizing higher earnings each quarter with iPods, but have to charge for upgrades.

Apple is taking a hit in current earnings with the subscription accounting of ?TVs, but this let's them offer free upgrades.

Speculation: The stand-a-lone mp3 player market is reaching saturation. iPods integrated into other products, like the iPhone, is where we're headed and subscription accounting offers free updates as a marketing advantage.

When you say they 'have' to charge for upgrades do you mean by their logic or by law? If it is by law, it doesn't make sense that they would charge $20 compared to the $2 AirPort enabler which also apparently was under this 'scheme'.

Based on all the discussions that insist that updates not part of the original spec can be charged for, I'm fully expect the iPhone/Touch SDK software will constitute a similar 'software update', and cost to download... both for the developers to get the kit, and the end-user to enable the option to run the final apps.