Leopard Won't Leap Until October
To everybody who's asked if they should wait to buy a new Mac until Apple ships the next version of Mac OS X: You might as well get the new machine now, because Leopard won't ship until October.
Apple released a statement late yesterday saying that this new release of OS X would no longer arrive this spring, as previously advertised, because it had reassigned too many OS X developers to finish up the iPhone's software:
iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price -- we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS® X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned.
The statement concluded on a philosophical note: "Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones."
I am less than shocked at this news. It has been almost two years since Mac OS X 10.4 shipped, but I didn't expect Apple to stick to shipping out a new version of OS X every 18 months or so--that kind of pace has to burn out developers. (I thought the last version showed some signs of being a rush job.) And Leopard incorporates some non-trivial changes under the hood--for instance, a continuous-backup system called Time Machine.
If the extra time ensures that this and other new features works reliably, that's fine. It's not as if Tiger is some horribly flawed product; this operating system remains a pleasure to use, and having to run it for another few months is no cause for depression.
The news may, however, justify a certain amount of schadenfreude in Redmond, considering how Apple poked fun at Microsoft's struggles with Windows Vista last year.
By Rob Pegoraro |
April 13, 2007; 11:02 AM ET
| Category:
Mac
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Posted by: wiredog | April 13, 2007 1:04 PM
I'm still with Panther, and I haven't even had a compelling reason to upgrade to Tiger yet. Lack of support for 10.3 will make me upgrade to Leopard, but until then, I can wait.
Posted by: Pat | April 13, 2007 1:25 PM
Boo! While I like Tiger, I can't wait for some upgrades or new bling, especially for Safari. That's one boring browser, with basically no changes, updates, or upgrades in two years. Let's let the Leopard leap!
Posted by: umm.huh | April 13, 2007 1:43 PM
I agree with Rob that Tiger is running just fine. My G5 iMac is 2.5 years old and my wife's G4 iBook is 3 years old. Leopard threatens to make them obsolete, or really push the edge of performance. And then, I'll probably have to but at least a TB Hard Drive for Time Machine. As it is, CoreImage in Tiger won't work in my wife's iBook.....
Posted by: Snaab4 | April 14, 2007 6:07 PM
Though Tiger is a fully 'Mature' OS that doesn't really need to be updated, new features are always welcome.
The feature that made sense and that I was really looking forward to was being able to create "To Do's" out of emails. There are times when I go through my emails and am not in the mode of taking action right then (like reading my emails in bed after I wake up, with my cup of coffee!). Currently some tend to get lost.
Regarding Apple's decision to delay Leopard in favor of the iPhone: a big part of Apple's current computer popularity is due to the 'Halo Effect' of the iPod. We have every reason to expect the iPhone to have a similar Halo Effect. More people switching to Apple means more software pubishers and hardware makers will pay attention to Apple and make sure that their software, printers and the like are fully compatable with our computers.
I agree with Apple that they made the right decision.
Posted by: Chris Harnish | April 16, 2007 12:16 PM
Schadenfreude you say?
6 months vs 6 years.
6 months to deliver a new OS with Time Machine and more excellent NEW features, because the company is delivering a breakthrough product in cellphone features and easy-to-useness.
6 years to come up with yet another carbon copy of a Mac thing. Period.
Schadenfreude you say?
Posted by: Walid | April 17, 2007 7:33 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
I certainly don't see anything compelling in Leopard. New mail app with phishing protection? I protect myself from phishing by not doing online banking. New Spotlight works across networks? My machine is standalone. (Except for internet. Does spotlight try to index the entire web?)
The old Spotlight is wonderful, btw.