Still sucks for all those people who either got their new Mac for Christmas or bought it before the end of the year for tax purposes. I realize the full prize still isn't a horrible lot of money, but it would have been nice if the time period was December 1, 2008 on.

who wait.

Yeah most usually wait to MacWorld Show for product announcements. Because think of people who spend $2799 and could have got a New 17" Mac Book Pro with 8 Hour battery and can Build To Order Memory to 8GB.

This was announced the same day as the keynote, so why is it just making it's way here now?

And to the idiot who suggested torrents, how cheap can you be to not pay the $79 that a really good suite of software costs? If you don't need it, don't get it, but don't rip someone off.

jW

I urgently needed to buy a new machine yesterday here in France. It was impossible to find any Macbook Alu's at the big computer retailers, with the Applestore online also quoting a 10 day wait! In the end I picked one up from a small reseller I tracked down, and yep, no iLife 09 in the box.

I placed my order for the 'up to date' pack earlier, and paid my 9 Euros. I am being quoted 31st Jan for dispatch, and 3rd of Feb for delivery at the earliest.

If Apple would provide free upgrades to iLife as any other system upgrade. I just bought my wife an iMac in July and while she loves it, it was expensive and one of the things that made it attractive was the built-in iLife. For Apple to be charging for an update seems a little cheap compared to the rest of the Apple experience we've had so far. I will say that the "family" license is very reasonable, and even the $79 single license isn't bad, but Apple portrays iLife as part of the OS (which they update regularly) but then they have a separate upgrade charge for it. If Microsoft tried to do this with parts of Vista (like Windows Movie Maker or Media Player), people would go bananas. We all just like Apple though so we allow them to walk on us just a little bit. I just think they would better serve their "we have a better way" experience by offering iLife upgrades for free (not iWork since it doesn't come in the box with every iMac and is clearly sold separately).