GTM Sauce

Apple · maker of iPhone and Mac

Stop charging $129 for OS upgrades so everyone updates automatically

Enabled automatic overnight updates; profits at record highs anyway

Workedpricingretention

What they did

Apple charged $129 for Mac OS X upgrades (people lined up at stores for them) and $5 for iOS upgrades, then made OS upgrades free. Being free let Apple default users to automatic updates installed overnight a couple of months after each .0 release.

What happened

Gruber says it was clearly right: nearly everyone upgrades, and Apple's revenue and profit are at record highs.
2:00:50
“it's clearly was the right decision to just make the operating system upgrades free, to encourage all users to upgrade, and to sort of steer them towards automatic updates because they can do that because they're not charging”
John Gruber

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