It’s interesting to note though how Apple are learning from the iPhone and iPad with the new Retina MacBook Pro and the imminent release of Mountain Lion. OS X releases are tumbling in price while devices are seemingly becoming more ‘fixed’ at the point if purchase. Just as you can’t upgrade the internals of your iPhone or iPad you can’t upgrade a new Retina MacBook once you commit to a configuration.

I think Apple are pursuing the model they’ve used in the mobile and tablet sector – working towards a scenario where OS X releases are free and devices are obsoleted not by the age of the hardware, but by incompatibility with the latest OS update. From Apples perspective it makes complete sense, it reduces the requirement of developers to support multiple OS versions (making OS X a more attractive development platform) and most importantly (for Apple) drives hardware sales.