QotD: True Cost of Mac OS X
Posted November 29th, 2004 @ 04:09pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Question: What's the true cost of Mac OS X to you?
My Answer: Rosyna comes up with a number of about $300. I'd tend to agree, though I have added a few of my must-haves (none of which will be my own software. I'll go with MSRP, and not the prices I've paid for things, if I've even paid… The sum total:
Mac OS X $129 iLife '04 49 QuickTime Pro 30 .Mac 100 LaunchBar 20 TypeIt4Me 27 Synergy 10 ---------------------------- Total $365
Yes, I use iPhoto and iMovie. Not so much iDVD. Yes, I use .Mac. And yes, I view enough movies and whatnot that I don't care for the splash screen in QT non-Pro. LaunchBar and Synergy keep my hands on the keyboard, and TypeIt4Me makes sure I don't have to type more than necessary.
You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.
Donate Life
Posted 29 Nov 2004 at 5:40pm #
Have you checked out VLC yet? It's a very nice quicktime replacement, and supports a wide range of formats, and if you like foreign movies, has a subtitle format that's separate from the movie (sorry, my anime problem is showing :). Either way, it seems to be a lot more robust in general than QT is, or perhaps what QT offers is more in the unseen - but coming from the Windows world of media, QT is... well, I'll be kind and say I'd prefer something that had better support for non-native formats.
Posted 29 Nov 2004 at 5:51pm #
Just please answer the question, OK? I'm not an idiot. I have VLC too. It's not nearly as elegant or ten other things as QT Player. And it doesn't add things like "save from web" and so on.
So, again, just answer the darn question. 😛
Posted 29 Nov 2004 at 6:38pm #
I'll do it in dollars, I guess 😀
OS X: $130
iLife (for iPhoto, really): $49
VLC: nowt
Quicksilver (long since replaced LB for me): nowt
DEVONthink: $40
OmniWeb: $19.95 (edu)
$238.95. I could live without OmniWeb (Saft+Safari instead?) and DEVONthink, and there are alternatives to iLife if I only need photo management. The lesson? Pretty much everything you want to do can be had for free — and Quicksilver shows that it can even be better — but you can pay if you want the choice.
Much of my daily work is done in either the bundled apps — Mail, for example — or with free software. I could pretty much set up a machine for my use, and be happy with it, using only Fink and VersionTracker.
Posted 29 Nov 2004 at 6:47pm #
Ok, so sticking to the OS itself: OS X (0 EUR - how do you calculate ADC? - let's say 129 EUR to make it comparable), QT Pro 30 EUR, FTPeel 18.13 EUR (FTP helper is required because the Finder's support is, umm, not so good ;-), iLife 49 EUR / USD, QuickSilver 0 EUR, .Mac 100 EUR
Total: 326.13 EUR
Posted 29 Nov 2004 at 9:15pm #
Okay, things without which OS X is useless:
OS X: $130
Office V.X: $500
ARD: $400 or so
Script Debugger: $189
Ecto: $25
Paul Berkowitz's iCal/AB Entourage sync scripts: $30
Transmit: $25
BBEdit: $200
Total cost of Mac OS X *for me*: roughly $1500 US
No, I don't expect that anyone will agree, but that is what *I* need for OS X to be useful, therefore, those are unavoidable costs.
john
Posted 29 Nov 2004 at 10:13pm #
Save $20 for the LaunchBar. Use QuickSilver instead which gives you more for less. 🙂
Posted 30 Nov 2004 at 1:18am #
OS X - $69 (edu)
iLife '04 - $49
Shapeshifter - $20
Silk - $10
Adobe Creative Suite Premium - $374 (edu)
total cost = $522
Posted 30 Nov 2004 at 6:08am #
The True Cost of Mac OS X
From NSLog();
"Question: What's the true cost of Mac OS X to you?"
My answer:
Retail
Paid
OS X
$129
$129
MS Office v.X1
$400
$0
BBEdit Pro2
$199
$79
Acquisition
$15.99
$15.99
Ne...