Except they're selling incomplete software and preorders of may-never-exist software with complete/finished hardware.

Updates to things I trust my family's life and health to should be classified like recalls, a sign of manufacturer failure and not a consumer privilege.

> Updates to things I trust my family's life and health to should be classified like recalls

But modern luxury cars also feature many components that have little to do with safety.

If insignificant accessories are properly isolated then I suppose such 'updates' can just be optional patches. But if a media center bug means someone can cause my car to break hard or swerve then even those should be classified as recalls.

If any kind of common sense is used, entertainment and control systems are on completely different hardware busses.

> Updates to things I trust my family's life and health to should be classified like recalls, a sign of manufacturer failure and not a consumer privilege.

To be scrupulously fair, that's true of all software; it's just more important for safety-critical software, because safety-critical software is more important.

Apple does charge you to upgrade the OS.

Apple does not charge for OS upgrades.

Not right now, but they did. Snow Leopard was $29, Mountain Lion was $19.

I remain annoyed that there is no way to download the Mountain Lion I paid $19 for.

Why? Did you pay for a Mountain Lion hosting service?

That was 8 years ago. Mountain Lion came out before even Windows 8, where even Microsoft was charging for upgrades too before releasing the final version (major version, not build version) of Windows.

Doesn't MSFT still charge for every OS update?

Windows 10 is the last Windows for client in current plan. MS continuously upgrades features on Win10 instead.