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Leopard Release Officially Delayed, Dated


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Apple has officially announced that Max OS X 10.5 will be delayed until October 2007.

 

In Apple's official statement the reason for the delay is stated to be the need for development resources to be redirected from Leopard to the iPhone.

 

A "feature-complete" beta version is due to be distributed to developers at the WWDC in June, with the final release delayed until October.

 

Meanwhile, our own forums report the seeding of Leopard build 9A410 to developers. The build reportedly has numerous issues, supporting Apple's statement of the need for extra time to make Leopard suitable for mainstream use.

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damn, not many people are going to buy the iphone, they should have their prioritys swithced

 

Do many people actually buy a Mac OS X upgrade though? As opposed to it being pre-installed on a new Mac?

 

I wouldn't be shocked if they sold more iPhones than boxed copies of Leopard.

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we'll still get a feature complete Beta at WWDC, so i guess instead of pushing out a buggy software, Apple is playing it safe and using Beta testing to iron out the bugs. the iPhone excuse is pretty lame though...

 

Yeah, at least there's something to look forward to still. Although, why put the iPhone ahead of Leopard?

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I only know 1 person who actually bought a copy of Tiger who already had a mac with Panther loaded on it.

 

I am having the hardest time trying to get my girlfriend to let me GIVE her Tiger for her iBook even though she just spent the past 3 days rewriting a paper for psychology because she accidentally put it in her sociology folder.

 

Spotlight would have saved her days of work and she did not want to upgrade for ZERO cost because the idea of a new OS seems a little iffy to her. She firmly believes that if it wasn't preloaded then it will not work.

 

Had the hardest time trying to convince her to let me put Office on there for her for the same reason, she was about to go buy a new laptop because it came pre-loaded with the 30-day trial that could be converted to the full version by entering a key!

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Oh my gosh... have you explained her that a mac is not a typing machine ? :rolleyes:

 

Yeah, at least there's something to look forward to still. Although, why put the iPhone ahead of Leopard?

 

Maybe because the iPhone make stock holders happy whereas Leopard doesn't.

Last years, Apple was more interested in making their stock holders happy rather than their customers.

 

I'm asking myself how many developpers are working on Leopard...

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Maybe because the iPhone make stock holders happy whereas Leopard doesn't.

 

Not that I'm saying you're wrong or anything, but why would the release of the iPhone make Apple's stockholders happy, as opposed to Leopard being released?

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A liitle disappointing, but I guess it's not really that bad. We'll still get a copy in June, and we'll have something even better to look foward to in October. At least we have release dates (sorta) now. :rolleyes:

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Eh October? Bleh. It's better to release these sort of things over summer. I would have bought a MacBook for college in September if Leopard was released and pre-installed on their notebooks by then. With an October release, it's now impossible. Nice going, Apple. They're going to lose out big time on a lot of educational prospects.

 

Of course I can buy a MacBook now and then install Leopard later, but the last thing I want to find out is that some major features are hardware-related and that I'd miss out on some shiny new model that would come out later.

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Good point Takuro. And it will be a little too early for it's release to make as big an impact on holiday shoppers. Seems they picked possibly the worst time of the year. I'll still be getting a macbook for school, they should be releasing a new model soon-ish hopefully.

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I'm a little dissapointed myslef in this action. Although I think the iPhone is a fine product...leveraging that as an excuse to delay leopard seems a bit lame, and obvious something else is wrong in my opinion. Im using Tiger on my Macbook Pro, and its more than enough (considering it can still takeon Vista), but my dad was eyeing my MBP, so my plan was to give this to him, and hopefully purchase a new MBP (maybe a new design) before the next acadmic year starts (sept). Now that that plan is kind of foiled, I have no other option other than to stick with Tiger for now.

 

The features in Leopard developer releases havent been anything to go gaga about, but still I always thought that Apple only needs to show the developer the developer side of leopard...and not the "secret-features", and as a result, they would still be on schedule. But 4 months delay is not bad...but its bad when you delay it in the wrong quarter. This would affect university/college students the most, as any one who was going to purchase a Mac for the academic year but was waiting for Leopard will now either have to settle for Vista...or go the Linux route. Even if they had done this delay from January to June....I wouldnt have cared, but the timing I belive is so wrong now.

 

Another thing is creeping in to the back of my mind as well...and this is what I fear the most out of everything...that Apple is slowy shifting focus from Macs to the digital lifestyle that they seem to have interst in nowadays. I hope I'm honestly wrong...but I keep thinking in that rouote. Delaying a full fledged operating system for a phone that the company has had no experience in (albeit its still exceptionally well done, but still)? This seems a bit weird for me to comprehend, and again, this is probaly just me. Even though many would argue against me for this, I would rather have superior operating system that servers my purpose well with good stability and functionality than to simply have an excellent phone.

 

Another thing to consider here is that due to this decision to delay Leopard...Microsoft's Vista will be able gain time to pick up some speed. SP1 is just around the corner for Vista, and this could somewhat damage Apple's attempt to make switchers.

 

Hopefully, when Leopard does release in October...it will trully be a showstopper, as thats the Apple I've always and still do look up to. :rolleyes:

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i doubt that apple will make certian 10.5 features for hardware that is released after it comes out

Well there's the elusive Blu-Ray media support. Apple will also probably throw in a better CPU and do certain things to optimize new machines for Leopard.

 

Try installing Tiger on any pre-Tiger machine. It definitely won't run at it's complete potential speed. I know 4 people who use 10.3.9 because Dashboard and other features would slow their systems down too much for it to be worth their while. :/

 

I would rather have superior operating system that servers my purpose well with good stability and functionality than to simply have an excellent phone.

I agree. Although most Mac fanboys don't like to admit it, Apple's most lucrative products lie in their iPod line and future multimedia devices. However, even I don't like to see Apple skimp on their original focus - computers. Whatever sales the iPhone manages to bring in probably won't compensate much for the sales they're going to lose in computers for the academic year.

 

A lot of people, including myself, definitely want an iPhone but wouldn't buy one because of the ridiculous price tag. I have an iPod and I have a cell phone. I don't have any idea why I'd fork out $600 to get a device that can do the job of both devices but not necessarily equally well. 8gb of flash memory can hold more cell phone numbers and contact data than you could ever need, yet it holds an unsatisfactory amount of songs and video.

 

Ok, so you can turn your iPhone to the side and access coverflow mode. Nice trick, but I rather have Leopard.

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Okay i know the forum rules, but i'm so pissed right now that leopard is delayed that all i can say is F.U.C.K!

 

I mean, i brought 3 macs in last 3 months and have to use tiger on them till October!

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God...this is BS. It seems to me that Apple is starting to focus more on their Media Products than their actual OS. Not sayingthat I blame them, because their main focus with the company seems to be with Media. I'm getting the iPhone, though, so I shouldn't be complaining...as much.

 

What's stupid is that the M$ fanboys will laugh and say "OMG Mac OS X Leopard WAS D3l4yd! Macs n0w sux soo badd~!oneeleven1!!1" Even though Vista was delayed for the longest time. It may not happen now, but wait and see and mark my words.

 

Hopefully, Apple will include some new features to make up for the long wait and fix any bugs that would have been there on a scheduled release. At least I'll be able to "acquire" a copy of the "near-final beta" of Mac OS X Leopard.

 

However, I am VERY bummed out by this delay. Nothing terrible though because Tiger is still similar or better, in a way, to Windows Vista.

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The thing is...we have come a long way from 10.0 to 10.4.9, and Apple basically made the operating system that they originally planned when they moved from the days of OS9. As such, it will be increasingly difficult for them to implement more and more features in the same timespan as previous versions of OS X...because Tiger has reached a level of maturity thats doesnt need constant updating and patching up. Any new features will either have to be so large that it would take more than 1.5 years to implement, or Apple would choose to go the route of updating even the most smallest aspect of the OS incrementally over a period of time, so it doesnt look as if the operating system looks like the developmental stages of Windows XP --> Vista. What I'm trying to say is...you cannot expect Apple to release in the same frequency as they have been, and future releases will tend to be further apart (which is a natural thing), because all the basic and advanced features of the core operating system are already there...I hope I explaind this clearly, and not in a confusing way lol.

 

Dont confuse this with XP --> Vista because XP had nothing compared to Tiger...and Vista is an improvement to some degree from some angle.

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I know that pushing back the release of the iPhone would not be good for Apple, but you would think that with a company Apples size they could hire some software engineer and QA resourse instead of stealing from other divisions and roll both out on time! Which makes me wonder if that really is the case.

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Or...what Apple could be doing (just struck me now), is they could be postiong Leopard as a consolation surprise if iPhone does not sell like hotcakes. This makes more sense, becuase this way, they have a backup plan that stretches to the whole year...and will be able to still maintain their usebase of Mac users if iPhone doesnt serve up to expectations (I hope it does.)

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Or...what Apple could be doing (just struck me now), is they could be postiong Leopard as a consolation surprise if iPhone does not sell like hotcakes. This makes more sense, becuase this way, they have a backup plan that stretches to the whole year...and will be able to still maintain their usebase of Mac users if iPhone doesnt serve up to expectations (I hope it does.)

 

Your just kidding, right? :rolleyes:

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