Apple delays Leopard for your own good
iPhone's magic to blame
Apple Computer has delayed the highly anticipated release of Leopard - aka Mac OS X 10.5 - by four months so it can devote developers and QA resources to its other labor of love, the iPhone. That slates the unleashing of Leopard for October instead of early June at Apple's developers conference.
The announcement confirms rumors that a final version of Leopard wouldn't be delivered until the fall, even if the basis for much of the speculation proved incorrect. A month ago, whispers abounded that Apple was delaying Leopard to ensure its Boot Camp feature was compatible with Windows Vista. That theory was debunked after Apple released a beta of Boot Camp that supported both 32- and 64-bit versions of the new Microsoft OS.
To hear Apple tell it, the real reason for the delay should bring a tear of joy to the Mac faithful:
iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can't wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is.
However, 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.
Apple will present a "near final" beta of Leopard at the June conference and even allow developers to take a copy home with them. While Apple acknowledges the wait for Leopard will be hard on everyone, the company is applying its characteristic sunny optimism to the situation.
"We think it will be well worth the wait," Apple professes. "Life often presents trade-offs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones." ®
COMMENTS
oops
Apple delay operating system ? Surely not.
Next you're be telling me that MAC's do crash and that IPOD's aren't the best MP3 players.
Perhaps hell will freeze over too. :)
Nokia the new Microsoft?
It's funny that Apple evangelists (apologists?) will back up any product Apple produce no matter how deficient. Chad H basically substitudes Nokia for Microsoft as the criticisms are identical. And even when Apple drops the ball the only defences people are putting up are "at least we're not Microsoft." I mean if that's the best you can do then don't bother. Although the iPod might be a brand leader, it's technologically so-so and suffers from poor quality construction and materials. I don't even think that's an article of faith, just ask any iPod owner about battery life and scratches. Given this history, Apple might sell this overpriced toy to the faithful, but there's better companies selling better phones already.
A good sign?
I'm hoping that this is a clue that Apple is preparing new Mac's for this Fall featuring Intel's new nano-technology, high-speed, low-wattage super-CPUs now in production.
I'm certain that Apple must produce such machines, it's just a matter of when they want to announce that the current Intel chips are obsolete.
heh
"Well, the real difference between Apple and Microsoft, is at least Apple can release their operating systems to schedule....
Oh."
Well, at least they're releasing something else, instead of just delaying and delaying while trying to figure out how to make it work, then releasing a beta. ;-)
Better if they were improving Leopard
I hope the real reason for the delay is that they'll add some more stuff in to Leopard to make the upgrade from 10.4 worth doing.
