14 DAY TRIAL // Ken Segall recently-published book, Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success, reveals quite a few interesting facts about Steve Jobs and what made him tick. It also highlights some abandoned projects, among which the ad-supported Mac OS is mentioned.
Segall recalls Steve Jobs’ idea to ship a version of Mac OS 9 that was completely ad-supported, in what would entice customers to buy the $99 ad-free OS after they tried it out.
“Rather than charge the normal upgrade price, which in those days was $99, he was thinking of shipping a second version of Mac OS 9 that would be given away for free – but would be supported instead by advertising,” writes Segall.
“The theory was that this would pull in a ton of people who didn't normally upgrade because of the price, but Apple would still generate income through the advertising.”
“And any time an owner of the free version wanted to get rid of the advertising, he or she could simply pay for the ad-free version. Steve's team had worked out the preliminary numbers the concept seemed financially sound,” according to the book.
The project, however, got cancelled. It isn’t clear why. Apple never publicly disclosed the reasons behind the decision to scrap the concept. In fact, they never went public with the idea in the first place.
However, that didn’t stop the Cupertino tech-giant from patenting Jobs’ idea. This also isn’t clear why. Apple has been successfully selling its Mac OS for over a decade now, and there’s no sign of stopping.
All OS upgrades from OS X 10.5 Leopard have been charged $30, the latest of which (OS X Lion) is being distributed as an exclusive digital download from the Mac App Store. The same process will be applied to OS X version 10.8 aka Mountain Lion, which Apple plans to ship in late Summer 2012.