I’ve heard from a lot of people who plan to upgrade to Snow Leopard as soon as they have it in their hands on Friday. For many this will be no problem. Others may find regret in their haste. Here are three reasons to consider postponing your Snow Leopard upgrade.

1. Apple projected a Snow Leopard release date of September. Most developers took Apple at their word because of their past track record on delivery. As a result, we’ve heard directly from several developers such as Marketcircle, Agile Web Solutions, and yes everyone’s favorite, Adobe, with news stating that their current versions are not compatible with Snow Leopard. Further these manufacturers don’t expect to have Snow Leopard compliant versions available for at least several weeks after release.
2. While early reviews from beta testers indicate many positive things in Snow Leopard including stability and Exchange compatibility, no one, not even the beta testers know what will officially be released to the public. You may recall that when Leopard was released, there was much hype about a lot of great new features that didn’t make it into the initial release; i.e., Air Disk functionality for Time Machine. While a few missing features may not be deal breakers, the features that you are planning to use after upgrade may not end up in the initial release. Believe me, wait a day or two and you’ll know for sure what did and didn’t make the final cut.
3. This reason specifically applies to business. If you use your Mac as your primary or even secondary business computer, exercise prudence and wait. Production equipment, desktops or servers, should be upgraded with much deliberation. You can always argue a worst case and say that if for some reason Snow Leopard isn’t all it’s cracked up to be or is problematic that you could do a reinstall of Leopard and restore from a Time Machine backup, but remember, that will cost you the better part of a day for most users. Lost productivity = lost revenue.

If you can’t stand it and you must upgrade on Friday, swing back by here tomorrow and read about how you should prepare your Mac for the Snow Leopard upgrade.

• New MacBook Pro 15″ – improved display, improved battery life, processor speed increases, SD Card reader now included, entry level price dropped to $1,699.
• Enhancements to MacBook Pro 17″ – entry level product now has 2.8 GHz processor and 500GB Hard drive, entry level price dropped to $2,499.
• MacBook 13″ Aluminum is now MacBook Pro 13″ – tops out at 8GB RAM and 500GB Hard drive just like 15″ big brother, entry level price drops to $1,199.
• MacBook Air – entry level price drops to $1,499, processor clock speeds bumped up to 1.6 GHz, 1.8 GHz, and 2.13 GHz.
• Safari 4 is out of beta. (It is super fast BTW).
• Snow Leopard to ship in September – $29 upgrade for existing Leopard users, $49 family pack available too.
• iPhone 3G S – launches on June 19, 2009 in North America and parts of Europe, the S stands for Speed, will ship with iPhone OS 3.0 (which is available on June 17, 2009), includes Video Recording/Edtiting, Voice Control, 3 megapixel camera with auto-focus. Available in 16GB or 32 GB option at $199 and $299 respectively. iPhone 3G 8GB option continues to be available and price is reduced to $99.
• iPhone OS 3.0 – available on June 17, 2009, free to iPhone owners, $9.99 for iPod touch owners, over 100 new features including cut, copy, paste, and spotlight search.

With the Daylite touch application you can manage your business on the go without the bulk of carrying a notebook computer. Some of the features of Daylite touch include:

• Multi-user Calendar management
• Contact management
• Opportunity management
• Project management
• Task management and delegation

We hope you’ll come out and join us as we demonstrate how Daylite 3.9 and Daylite touch compliment one another.

So, last week Apple, Inc. announced Q2 2008 results and again beat “The Street” and set a new record for Q2 results. Of course Apple stock has climbed its way back up in price to around $163 per share prior to yesterdays results disclosure. This leaves open the question of why people are in fact buying more Apple products than ever before, in spite of the speculation and assumptions that the analysts make. The answer is likely very complex but I’m going to offer my opinion about why this is the case.

Its never been easier to “test drive” an Apple product. With Apple’s growing retail presence their visibility has grown significantly and many folks have developed great curiosity about what exactly the Apple Store is all about. If you’ve never visited an Apple Retail store you should do so. Its not about computer shopping, its about experiencing Apple. But in my opinion, this in and of itself is only a supporting factor in the real reason consumer continue to buy Apple products.

I would say that the biggest reason that people are willing to pay a “premium” for Apple products is that once they experience the Apple Store, spend time checking out a Mac, iPod, or iPhone, they realize that the products are not priced at a “premium” at all, but in fact are probably being sold for far less than they could be. I know that there is at least one person who doesn’t believe what I am saying here so I would like to issue you a challenge. Launch your favorite web browser, open 3 new tabs, and navigate to the Apple Store online, the Dell Store online, and the HP Store online in each tab respectively. Choose a standard/stock iMac, MacBook, or MacBook Pro from the Apple Store online and then spec out a Dell and an HP so that it will come out of the box equipped and able to accomplish the same things that the Mac can accomplish right out of the box. Some things to remember when you do this:

1. Match hardware specs as close as possible, ie, Processor speed, RAM, Hard Drive size, display size, integrated camera for video chatting, etc.

2. Don’t forget to include the professional version of the Windows OS either XP or Vista, that is if you can make a determination about which of the 4 or 5 Vista professional versions is comparable. Feel free to err on the side of lower price if you really want to try and beat the price of the Mac.

When you have navigated through the 40 or so pages on which you configure the Dell and HP machines take a look their cost compared to the Mac. You’ll likely see that the Dell and HP machines end up costing more than the Mac. Aside from that, consider the TCO, or total cost of ownership from one simple perspective and that is expected length of service. I don’t know about you, but my experience has been that with Windows PC’s I’m lucky to get 2 to 3 years service. With my Macs, well, lets put it this way, my oldest machine is now a 9 year old PowerPC G4 and I’m running the most recent version of Tiger OS X 10.4.11. The only reason I haven’t upgraded that machine to Leopard is because I utilize it to support my clients that are still running Tiger. Anyone out there running Vista or even XP Professional on a 9 year old Windows box? I suppose its possible, but certainly not probable, and certainly not at all with Vista.

The bottom line is this, Apple products are not priced at a “premium”, they are priced based on the value that they bring to the end user. Consumers are far more educated these days and they understand that just because one product costs half what another costs does not mean its the best option. Couple that with the ability to actually interact with and experience the product before you buy and there you go my friends, the only question from most consumers is, “so I can leave with my new Mac today?”.