SOURCE: Apple, OSX Yosemite
Why Apples OS is free and Microsoft costs you hundreds!
With the announcement of OSX Yosemite at Apple's WWDC 2014, many Apple fans, and less fanatic mac users alike are rejoicing! Another free upgrade, and this one actually has some pretty cool upgraded features!
This may be leaving some of you wondering why Apple is releasing OSX Yosemite free of charge like they did with their previous version OSX Mavericks. Surely they've spent a lot of money and diverted a significant amount of resources to work on all the upgrades in Yosemite. They have, with the OSX Yosemite "transparency" revamp and general UI/UX taking up a lot of Jony Ive's precious time. Ive's role has recently expanded to not only be in charge of Industrial design, but also software design, a feat which would ordinarily break any other man.
Still though, Apple continues to reiterate that they're not abandoning the mac side of their business as they believe it is still growing (+12% OSX growth vs -5% decline for the overall PC industry). This is actually pretty significant to be trending up in a downtrend industry.
SOURCE: Apple, Mac vs Industry Growth (decline)
The reasons for Apple's charitable spirit (other than them being one of the richest companies in the world) are quite simple: