In article , RJH wrote:

Not really suprising as adobe have gone this way and essentailly Apple
have
too you buy the device and get **free updates** for the 'life' of the
product
which is one reason why Apple devices are a bit more expensive to buy.

nonsense. the price of apple products has absolutely nothing whatsoever
to do with updates and are comparable to prices of similar competing
products, plus android and windows also have free updates, for devices
that often cost *more*.


I'm not sure if this is the point that either of you are
making/disputing, but doesn't Apple provide some quite decent software -
Pages, Garageband, Keynote and so on - that you don't get with Windows?

yep, also for free.

Well, I'd have to agree with Dave on this - it's not free.

they are free.

If Apple
didn't provide the software, then I'd have thought their computers would
be cheaper.

you thought wrong.

I thought differently :-)

no, you thought wrong.

apple's product prices did not increase to cover the cost of pages,
garageband, keynote and the operating system when they all became free.

put another way, if apple were to start charging for that, the prices
of the computers and phones would not decrease.

I think it's a culture thing. I have a group of friends who constantly
celebrate 'freebies'. We go to pubs where they claim they get a 'free
pint' if they buy 4. It's not free. They had to buy 4 to get it. And
then add insult because they didn't want 5 in the first place. But
somehow manage to cram it in ;-)

did the price of 4 pints go up to cover the cost of the free 5th from
when it wasn't ree? or is it just a promo, to get more customers? hint:
the latter.

many stores offer free samples of food and even wine. you don't need to
buy anything to partake. someone could be a mooch and go store to store
munching on the free samples and even getting a bit of a buzz. the idea
is that you buy whatever it is they're sampling, but you don't have to.