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Apple Delays Leopard Release

amac4me said:
Image how upset the people who paid for WWDC will be. Just at a time where Apple could have positioned themselves to really stick it to Microsoft and make inroads in the enterprise we get this news. I'm very disappointed and shocked. You can bet Redmond is very happy with this news as Vista sales will likely be better now that Leopard will be released in October.

So where's the focus at Apple? It looks as though the Mac and Mac OS X are not the top priority anymore. It appears that Apple is more concerned with iPods, iTunes, iTV, and the iPhone. I guess when Apple dropped "Computer" from their name we should have seen this coming.
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I agree with you amac4me. Apple always seems to drop the ball at just the wrong time. I guess that's what's made it such an interesting (and frustrating) company to follow!
 
dontmatter said:
apple TV is delayed, leopard is delayed, iphone was announced after years of speculation and it's a LOONG time until it ships (and apparently isn't yet ready), mac pro and C2D updates take way too long, video features of itunes store are still not up to the equivalent of the music at the time of the launch of the music part, and on and on and on....

Apple, get on the ball. Trendy, cool, and always late to the party and f*ing up just doesn't cut it. Whatever happened to that glimmer we had with the intel switch, where things happened ahead of schedule, prices and features were better than expected, and updates were superfast (mac book pros before they shipped!). I sure hope the secret features are good and nothing gets delayed further.

The other thing about this that just seems like bad business: not only did they make the mistake of making a promise they couldn't keep (which you should NEVER do, it makes people so much more pissed than if you didn't make a promise at all), but also, they did it for a product that's enormously risky. Now I agree with those who say that publicity wise, it's better to delay leopard than the iphone (though they shouldn't have to delay either), but it's just an ugly situation to mess up a product central to your business plan for one that's totally untested and risky. Sure, the iphone rocks, but it has more than one potential Achilles heel, and if it's a flop, this will look like a BAD decision.
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Agreed. They're abandoning their core customers for the hope of getting new customers in a VERY competitive field with many players. iPhone has an excellent chance of being a flop. It has no chance of taking over the market.

In my naive view of the world, I thought Mac OS X was getting enough positive reaction that the network effect might take over. Get enough critical mass to start taking over serious market share from Microsoft. Big resistance has been in business, and in my very large company we were starting to consider Macs. This announce says that Apple is not interesting in computers and therefore doesn't make big customers eager to jump on an abandoned ship.

Maybe Linux...
 
I just find this announcement all too convenient after Mac's sales are projected to fall this quarter in anticipation of the new OS release (I just saw somewhere that sales will be down 200,000 to 400,000 units). It's as if they announced a delay to boost sales again, prompting people who are waiting will just go buy the new system. Then instead of having another sales lag before October, they'll release Leopard shortly after WWDC...miraculously surprising everyone with an earlier release than October.
 
shrimpdesign said:
1. So Apple is taking more time to refine OS X, but it won't have secret features like they promised? Mmmhmm. Sure.

2. Dvorak makes up crap to get people to read his steaming pile of $%*! he calls "articles"

3. Yawn. FUD.

How is this the end of the Mac era? Last I heard, Apple is going to release Pro apps at NAB. Would they release software for a "dead" platform? Why is the iPhone using OS X as it's OS if Mac OS X is dead?

Anyways, your analogy to the Mac team taking Apple II's resources is flawed: The Apple II was replaced by thr Mac (eventually). The iPhone won't replace the Mac, never will.

Your post is pure FUD crapola.
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Thanks, that's what I wanted to hear after an effing tiring day at work...now back to my normal fanboyism...GO APPLE! :rolleyes:
 
mustard said:
So how many people are still going to wait to buy a new system until Leopard is released?
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I will. I already have a PC running Vista and a 'server' running Linux. I was looking forward to a new Intel Macbook running Boot Camp, Parallels, with Leopard and all that shiny jazz. I just sold an old 12" iBook, a G4 Mac Mini, and two old sun workstations to make the money for it. I can wait to hand my money over to Apple. May I will wait to Christmas and get a little more money from family and get something a little nicer...
 
This thread is moving so ridiculously fast I wonder how many posts are actually being read in it.

After a few minutes to calm down I am not to terribly worried it will be ready when its ready and we will get to see the "Secret Features" at WWDC.
 
I think I'm more upset that now I'm going to have to wait 4-5 more months before FINALLY learning what those "super secret new features of Leopard" are. :D

If this is a one-time aberration, I think we should cut Apple some slack. If it's the start of a worrisome trend, though... (of course we won't know that until 2008 or 2009)
 
glennp said:
Straight from the horses mouth:

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/

Apple Statement
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. While Leopard's features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones. [Apr 12, 2007]
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Apple has a habit of surprising on the upside and with good news in the long-run. As such, let's parse this in terms of the good news it states or implies.

1. iPhone on schedule.
2. Described as a "magical product".
3. It runs OSX, hence the need for OSX programmers and QC folks.
4. 10.5 features will be complete by WWDC-07
5. The latest beta of 10.5 WILL be distributed
6. The recent ADC seed of 10.5 has many known issues so you folks should hurry up and identify bugs so we can all have a stable 10.5 beta at WWDC-07.
7. 10.4.10 is looking more likely :)
8. Stable is good.

Rocketman
 
It'd be fun to see Microsoft releasing a mass TV-conunter campaign in response to all the criticism Apple threw at them after all the Vista delays.

Guess Jobs needs a slap or two in the face every now and then.
 
dmelgar said:
Agreed. They're abandoning their core customers for the hope of getting new customers in a VERY competitive field with many players.
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Wait, did Apple announce they're abandoning support of all previous versions of Mac OS X and postponing development of Leopard indefinitely or is there just a 4 month delay? Maybe I read the story wrong.
 
PCMacUser said:
Leopard is not a new OS. It's simply an update of OS 10. A new OS would be OS 11. Two and a half years for one decimal point update is a long, long time. Maybe Tiger will become the new XP SP2?
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Oh, like Vista became the new XP SP3? It isn't a new OS, either. It's simply an update of XP.
 
I guess the rumor about Leopard getting delayed due to Boot camp's Vista compatibility was partly true...
 
MacVault said:
Oh, and October really means Macworld SF 2008. I mean how can we beleive Steve Jobs or Apple anymore???
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Will there even be a Macworld anymore? Last Macworld keynote had nothing to do with Macs. They'll probably rename it to PhoneWorld! or maybe A-CES (Apple Consumer Electronics Show).
 
HEY! I smell a new Mac ad...

Mac: "Hello, I'm a Mac"

PC: "And I'm a PC"

Mac: "What's worrying you, PC?"

PC: "Oh, it's my new operating system, Vista. It's causing me no end of problems, and now my users are unhappy. Say, Mac, how's that Leopard thing doing? It seemed like, for a while, you couldn't stop talking about it - I bet you're excited!"

(Mac refuses to meet PC's gaze, shuffles his feet and mumbles incoherently)
 
Kilamite said:
iPhone offers a completely new style of phone. Completely touch screen with the best OS in the world.
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Don't drink Steve's Kool-Aid. The iPhone is not a "completely new style of phone." It's basically an LG Electronics KE850, but done right. The iPhone will surely be much better than the KE850, but it just isn't THAT revolutionary. It's evolutionary; an opportunity to apply Apple's design expertise to a previously untapped market.

If a Korean manufacturer could release an admittedly mediocre iPhone-like device several months before Apple, it doesn't make sense that Apple would need to steal resources from its MacOS development in order to complete the phone on schedule.

So I suspect the truth is far simpler; Leopard is buggier than Apple wants to admit, and Jobs hoped to use the lemon of a Leopard delay to make the lemonade of some additional free publicity for the iPhone.
 
A sliver of a silver lining...

For me personally (if I may say so myself :) the news isn't all that bad. You see, I'm about to spend some of my hard earned $ on extra RAM, so having to shell another $200 shortly afterwards (Leopard+iLife) was making me feel a little nervous/guilty. This will delay the pain :)
 
My God, if everyone stressed so much about waiting for updates and buying products, every company in the world would go out of business because all of you would be whining and whinging about whether or not the newest and latest is coming out.

It's not as if you purchase a Macbook Pro today, it'll stop working when the new ones come out.

I'm writing this on a 600Mhz G3 iBook...and it still works fine, almost 6 years after the fact.

Stop crying about delays and if you NEED the computer now, then get it and stop waiting. If you just want the latest and greatest, then shut up, sit down, and wait, especially if it means this much to you.
 
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