People give me a hard time because I work at Microsoft and use Apple products. The truth is that I dev iPhone apps and you can only do that on a Mac. I still love Microsoft and Windows, but you got to do what you got to do.
The short and sweet version of this post…
Call 1-800-MY-APPLE (1-800-692-7753) and order Snow Leopard from Apple directly for $19.99. It’s now longer available from the Apple online store and any other place with cost you at least $56.
The long-winded dramatic version of this post…
A user recently reported a bug in my Unstar All Google Reader™ Starred Items Extension on Mountain Lion with Chrome Beta. My old MacBook Pro only has 10.5.8 on it and the latest version of Chrome beta isn’t compatible with 10.5.8, so I couldn’t test my Chrome extension.
So I set out to upgrade from 10.5.8 to Mountain Lion. The Apple upgrade page doesn’t mention anything about how to go from 10.5.8 to Mountain Lion, so I called my local Bellevue Apple Store. They said I need to first upgrade to Snow Leopard, then Lion then Mountain Lion. To go from 10.5.8 to Snow Leopard you need the install DVDs and then from there you can upgrade via downloads. I tried to upgrade using a MacMini OS Install disk, but that didn’t work because that can only be used to restore an OS on a MacMini, not an OS install on a MacBook Pro. To do the upgrade I need a generic Snow Leopard install DVD. The only problem is that the local store doesn’t carry the Snow Leopard DVDs anymore, so they recommended I go to the Apple online store to purchase the DVD.
I searched for Snow Leopard on the Apple online store and didn’t find anything, so I called the store back. They also couldn’t find it online so they recommended I buy it from Amazon.com or eBay. I searched online and found the Snow Leopard DVDs, but they start at $65 at Amazon.com and $56 on eBay. I knew the original Snow Leopard DVDs sold for $29.99 and I wasn’t about to pay double, so I called the store back.
The store recommended that I call 1-800-MY-APPLE (1-800-692-7753) to order the DVDs directly. I just got off the phone with them after purchasing the Snow Leopard DVDs for $19.99.
So, just do yourself a favor, save some time, skip eBay, skip Amazon and just call Apple directly. I’ll have my disk in a few days and I’ll do another post on how to go from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion.
Jon