Finally, someone at Apple has officially conceded what we knew all along — that the Mac OS X Snow Leopard upgrade DVD can be used to upgrade any Intel-based Mac, though the company frowns at such a practice and points at the licensing agreement.

After some squirming and question avoidance, Alan Eyzaguire, director of software product marketing at Apple EMEA, told Charles Arthur at The Guardian that customers could buy the SL upgrade disc and use it directly, instead of buying the four-times-more-expensive “Mac Box Set” that’s meant for users of Tiger and earlier operating systems.

Alan repeatedly extolled the virtues of both iWork 09 and iLife 09, which come in the full-blown box set, as reasons why Mac users will play fair and buy that version.

You can’t blame Apple for trying to maximise its profits, and it’s likely that a number of people will want the productivity and lifestyle software suites in any case (though if you’re after a new Mac any time soon it’s worth noting that iLife 09 comes with most, if not all, new machines)

What it does highlight is that, at least where the operating system is concerned, Apple generally tends to trust its customers to do the right thing.

You’ve always been able to install OS X on multiple machines at once, regardless of whether you buy the single user or family pack discs. No obvious “phone home” rubbish to content with here.

It is unusual to get this sort of admission from anyone at tight-lipped Apple. Alan wouldn’t be drawn on how many box sets had been sold, instead preferring to say that they’d been “incredibly popular”.

Not many, then.

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