That is exactly what I'm afraid of. It reminds me of the switch from 68k to PPC. I can only imagine what a switch to 64bit processors would be like.
When I bought my iBook, it had 9.1 & 10.0.3 in it. At that time OS X was like BeOS in now (empty and useless) so I stuck with 9. When 10.1 came out it was finally usable. (Althought I didn't buy 10.1 until it was already out for like a year.) Then Jaguar came out requiring at least 16megs VRAM. That screwed my iBook-- and it wasn't even 2 years old! I mean, it works but it can REALLY slow down. And now the news is that 10.3 is coming out this year. I can't wait- maybe my TiBook will be kicked out of the loop too.
Apple is updating their line faster and faster now, so do I buy early at full price? Wait 6 months and get it a little cheaper? Or wait almost a year, but it cheap, then get screwed when the next model comes out 2 weeks later and the previous model's price drops $300? (the iBook comes to mind.)
People said "well, at least Jaguar is only $130! That's cheaper than XP!!" Well sure, if you look at it as a one-time purchase. But think about Win2k, it's still a very useable OS. Hell, even Win98 is still supported. What happened to OS 8.6? See ya.
Win2K goes for maybe $300? How about OS9 + 10.1 + 10.2 ? Now the prices start to even out.
I fully support Apple and OS X, and I'm just as eager to see the new processors and 10.3, but this pushing things ahead is starting to remind me of M$s forced upgrades. Keynote, Safari, iSync & iCal all won't work on anything but Jaguar. I wonder if the faithful old G3s will be able to run Panther.
Is it time to toss the iBook or am I just paranoid?
