Some MacBook Pro and MacBook customers have the faster 802.11n Wi-Fi chip already sitting in their systems, but it will cost $2 to light it up.
Apple on Thursday confirmed reports that it plans to charge customers a fee to download software that will enable the 802.11n capability in the Wi-Fi chips found in some MacBook and MacBook Pro systems. But it won't cost $5 (£2.53), as many reports indicated. It will cost $1.99 (£1), and will be available on Apple's website, said Lynn Fox, an Apple spokeswoman.
Every Mac with Intel's Core 2 Duo or Xeon processor has the 802.11n chip, except for the 17-inch iMac with the 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo chip, Apple announced last week at Macworld.
Customers who purchase the new $179 (£90.65) Airport Extreme Base Station also unveiled at Macworld will get the software for free as part of that package when it ships in February. But those who don't want to buy that product will have to pay to download the software, which will appear on Apple's site when the base station starts shipping.
Apple said it is required under generally accepted accounting principles to charge customers for the software upgrade. "The nominal distribution fee for the 802.11n software is required in order for Apple to comply with generally accepted accounting principles for revenue recognition, which generally require that we charge for significant feature enhancements, such as 802.11n, when added to previously purchased products," Fox said in a statement.
Several companies have been releasing 802.11n products based on a draft of the new wireless standard. The final standard is not expected to be ratified until later this year, but the Wi-Fi Alliance has said that it will begin certifying products based on a draft of that standard. The 802.11n standard offers significant improvements in bandwidth and range over the 802.11g Wi-Fi standard, and it's backwards-compatible with older Wi-Fi standards.
Talkback
Another anti-Apple article? Your blatant bias towards Microsoft can only be down to one of two things:
1: You are so used to a Microsoft dominated market that any possible competition is dismissed as irrelevant or unworthy. You are unable to look beyond the MS spin and hype and acutally see that their products are highly lacking in the areas that count. Your inability to fairly evaluate ALL aspects of the IT market mean Apple is never taken seriously, even though they are delivering content 100 times better and more relevant than MS.
2: You are intimidated by Microsoft to the point of not wishing to risk writing about things which may anger them. Perhaps a posative and realistic article on Apple would earn you a phone call from Mr Ballmer? I admit, that is a scary prospect....
..is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. If Apple were to ship this for free then it would be deemed to be retrospectively adding value to a product which has already been shipped, Enron anyone?
I am not a reporter but 5 mins on the web turned this up, come on ZDNet, this is appalling.
...you'll notice the sentence which reads "Apple said it is required under generally accepted accounting principles to charge customers for the software upgrade". No we don't mention SOX specifically but that is because Apple did not mention SoX specifically to our correspondent. Yes we could have Googled it, but we prefer to use information that we have sourced first-hand.
It does throw up an interesting issue though, and we've been scratching our heads here as to what this means for the wider industry if the reason Apple gives is true: for instance does it mean Microsoft should charge for every service pack?
Personally I find Apple's reason rather incongruous, but I'm no accountant so we shall look into this further.
Matt, thanks for your reply. The reason they have to charge is because enabling additional functionality above and beyond the sale spec could be construed as retrospectively adjusting the value of an item already sold. I can't see it applying to Microsoft patches because they are simply fixing something which should have worked when shipped and to a lesser extent providing incremental software updates/minor enhancements. The situation with the Apple WiFi upgrade is that it makes the hardware function at a level above and beyond the specification of the original unit, this is effectively giving the consumer a hardware upgrade and so cannot be given out for free due to SOX constraints. This is nothing more than Apple covering their backs because of the whole Enron drama, perhaps your article would be better titled: "SOX forces Apple to charge for update"....
I fully appreciate that Apple may well have to protect themselves; God knows we have enough SoX nonsense to deal with just as a subsidiary of a US company (screams of auditors auditing auditors auditing auditors often echo around the corridors). I see your line of reasoning and even it is correct I still find it hard to believe though. Perhaps I'm just in a state of denial.
Anyway, I think had we known for a fact at the time that SoX was to blame then your headline suggestion would have been the perfect fit (looking for a job? As I said we shall look into this and you may well see some more stories on the general issue.
Thanks Matt, if you need headline advice on Apple stories let me know!
Don't talk to me about auditors though.
I'm glad to see this feedback from ZD, even if your Apple articles need some adjusting your attitude to your readers is top notch.
Until the next article then.... ;-)
As a fairly platform-agnostic guy who likes and dislikes aspects of both Apple's & Microsoft's behaviour, I find ZDNet pretty balanced in its editorial. Time and again they have penned articles and leaders that blame some aspect of MS's corporate behaviour, and I read these with relish. I also enjoy reading about Apple's occasional booboos.
I've commented before about these odd attacks on ZDNet's non-existent MS bias, which invariably follow nearly *any* article about Apple. Don't you guys ever read any other ZDNet content, or do you specifically google for 'flame-baiting' articles, as one silly sod accused ZDNet / CNet / Silicon of a while back?
Just asking!
I've no affiliation with ZDNet btw, I simply use their site along with many others to keep up-to-date.
How on earth is this article anti-apple, pro-MS?
Why don't Apple just say that the laptop includes 802.11n capability (that needs activiating) before sale, thus actually activating it won't increase the spec of the machine, as the purchaser was aware of it before purchase?
Seems odd to me, maybe Apple are just using the accounting rules as an excuse to charge for a few extra dollars.
Thanks! My sentiments exactly.
..pro MS, this time, but there is a very worrying trend of negative Apple articles from ZD.
I'm fairly new to Apple having spent years working with MS stuff and they are simply in a different league. I just think people need to realise this and some of ZD's articles will put people off.
Please read the rest of the talkback comments on this article.
I have read all of the talkbacks, and it seems the problem is due to the SoX, not Apple. However, Apple are the only ones who, from what I have seen, are charging people to use the MIMO features. Are any MS based products charging to activate MIMO? If so, then I agree that highlighting Apple and not MS would be biased, but if only Apple are doing so (for whatever reasons), then that is just quite simply unbiased journalism.
An interesting questions though, is who is right? Either Apple are correct and everyone else is wrong in their interpretation of SoX, or Apple is wrong and everyone else is correct (unless Apple made a mistake in not advertising the potential functionality before purchase).
Either way, I would be fuming if I purchased an Apple and had to pay to activate that particular function, regardless of the cost.
I don't think this is MIMO, this is activation of a pre-standard feature which was unavailable on sale(.n functionalitly, a significant speed boost). Apple kit with this feature was not advertised as such so as far as the customer is concerned they got what they paid for. This is effecively a hardware upgrade (albeit software activated). My personal opinion is that it is unclear whether this is chargeable so Apple are playing it safe. Given the recent stock options probe, who can blame them...!
802.11n is an extenstion to 802.11 that adds MIMO techniques, thus the cores had pre-standard 802.11n embedded, just not activated. The multiple inputs/outputs (i.e. MIMO) is what gives you the data rate increases. Search for "802.11n" and "MIMO", there are plenty of references, or check the IEEE website
Corrected. That's how I'm currently standing.
D'oh!
Whilst I knew MIMO was a feature of .n I thought it had been around in other forms (Netgear's RangeMax, .g MIMO) but it turns out these were just the first examples of .n draft. Sorry!