Wi-Fi Networking News: ‘Steve Jobs Says Apple Will, In Fact, Charge $5 for 802.11n Updater’

Glenn Fleishman, reporting on an email Steve Jobs sent to someone inquiring about the rumored $5 charge to enable 802.11n Wi-Fi on capable Macs sold prior to Apple’s recent AirPort updates:

Jobs replied, simply, “It’s the law,” which would confirm that the Sarbanes-Oxley requirement that seemed bizarre to me is, in fact, correct. In several reports, the law is cited as requiring different accounting for earnings on products that are shipped and later provide new functionality that wasn’t initially advertised.

Back when the 5.5G iPod were announced in September, there was a bit of speculation about why certain of the new features, like searching, weren’t made available via a firmware update for owners of original 5G iPods. A couple of friends at Apple told me their best guess was that it was for compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley.

★ Wednesday, 17 January 2007