As we all know only too well, nothing comes free in this world, and even those things that seem too good to be true do have a hidden catch. This applies to pretty much every aspect of life, including our gadgets, some of which prove to have an ultimate ownership cost seriously larger than what we'd have normally expected.

Apparently, that will also be the case with Apple's latest trick, the iPad, which will start officially shipping on April 3, and that's because, as Gizmodo informs us, it seems that all future iPad firmware updates might come at a price, especially if users want to fully benefit from the software enhancement provided by the respective applications.

So, it appears that the licensing agreement for the iPad OS version 3.2, which has been recently released to developers, contains the following text: Apple will provide you any iPad OS software updates that it may release from time to time, up to and including the next major iPad OS software release following the version of iPad OS software that originally shipped from Apple on your iPad, for free.

For example, if your iPad originally shipped with iPad 3.x software, Apple would provide you with any iPad OS software updates it might release up to and including the iPad 4.x software release. Such updates and releases may not necessarily include all of the new software features that Apple releases for newer iPad models.

In other words, Apple is going to work hard on improving the whole iPad experience, but they're not about to do any charity work, and while base updates will be available for free, the more advanced (and typically, cooler) ones will only be available for a fee... yeah, much as in the case of the iPod touch. Well, what can we say... we knew that Apple is very good at monetizing pretty much everything about its products, so this should come as no surprise.


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