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Leopard or wait till next one?

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macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 22, 2002
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I have Tiger and had generally decided that I'll take the approach of buying every other release of OS X rather than buying every single release (so, 10.4, 10.6, 10.8, etc). However, I'm considering getting Leopard anyway just because it is supposed to be the biggest release of OS X yet.

Wat's a good guess on how long will it probably be until the next OS X? A year? 1.5 years?

I consider the incredibly advanced filesystem that'll be coming in the next version to be a huge deal. Does anyone know any other things that are pretty certain to be part of the next big release (things that didn't quite make it into Leopard, for example)?
 
You are probably looking at another 2 years to wait for the next release.

The next version will also be the biggest release of OS X;)
 
Are you serious?
Dude, OS X 10.6 is not a discussion piece, there isn't even a cat codename for it. Just buy Leopard and be done with it already. You think too much.
 
What is your logic behind only buying every other point release? That seems quite silly to me, especially considering the length of time between Mac OS X releases.

We don't know anything about 10.6. I could begin to speculate, but why even bother so early in the game? You certainly shouldn't be basing any decisions off preliminary guesses.

That said, it will likely be at least a year and a half before we see 10.6. There's nothing wrong with 10.4 if it works for you, but arbitrarily holding off upgrading seems foolish.
 
Considering the length of time from Tiger's release to Leopard's, I would say that at this point in time, while Tiger is a good operating system it is somewhat old for OS X and combine that with the advancements that Leopard has made in terms of performance and all things under the hood in addition to the x+ score of new features, it would behoove you to upgrade now unless you really plan on waiting for 10.6, which is easily 18-24 months out. At that point you will still be using a 4 year old OS.

There are basically two types of people:

Those who jump on bandwagons.

Those who drive them.

Because if you choose not to jump on the bandwagon, then you're just on, or driving a different bandwagon. What this has to do with anything. Symantically speaking. Nothing. Either this message or your brain will self-destruct in trying to digest it.
 
Wow. That is so random... I've bought every version of OS X since 10.0 and I have never regretted doing so. It's not like 10.5 is Vista...
 
We're going to see a lot of Leopard-only apps over the next year, especially considering all the advanced frameworks and developer goodies worked in under the hood. Plus the release time between OS X versions has been increasing over the last few years, so you're probably looking at a year and a half to two years at least until 10.6 comes out.

And, as people have pointed out, we actually don't know ANYTHING about what will be in 10.6. The filesystem thing is all speculation.
 
Lol, every other release? That is like 3-4 years (or at the current rate, 5 years). By the time 10.6 comes out whatever hardware you are using will be obsolete.
 
Considering Steve Jobs said that Leopard is going to be the last major revision of OS X for some time to come(at least through the end of this decade) I think you would be pretty self disciplined to not upgrade to Leopard ever. From what Jobs says it sounds like he is happy with this OS, and that they are just gonna make updates to it to make it even better. No 10.6 in the works yet though, I think you are looking at at least a 5 year wait...:apple:

EDIT: So i looked up the article I got that idea from, and I guess I read it exact opposite of what it was saying, Jobs says that he is happy with 12-18 month releases, but
Apple has said it is slowing down its development of the Mac OS because the current pace had not been sustainable
Click to expand...
So I guess it is up to you, but I think you will be missing out on some things without Leopard. It's been running great for me, but some people complain of the occasional bugs, if you don't like bugs, wait a month to upgrade.
 
hankolerd said:
Considering Steve Jobs said that Leopard is going to be the last major revision of OS X for some time to come(at least through the end of this decade) ... From what Jobs says it sounds like he is happy with this OS, and that they are just gonna make updates to it to make it even better.
Click to expand...


Source please.

Edit: Just saw your edit. That's better. :cool:
 
You gotta pay your "Apple tax"! This ain't Windows, it's actually worth upgrading
 
Upgrading odd or even numbered releases is pretty common for OS's such as Linux (I'm thinking Fedora Core, specifically). However, those core updates come out roughly three times every two years. That's pretty frequent and is justifiable in that situation.

In regards to Mac OSX however, it doesn't really make sense to upgrade every even or odd releases. Just upgrade to Leopard when the 10.5.1 update is out and be done with it.
 
I don't see why everyone is reacting so intensely about the idea of not buying every single release.

OS X came out in 2001. We are on the 5th version of it right now. This most recent version was unusually full of changes, however, the average time between release is 1-1.5 years. Jobs has stated that he generally would still like this to be the norm. I feel that the fact that the most recent version took much longer than the norm, if anything, gives reason to believe that the next one can be expected to be in the shorter side of the norm range, not longer as many of you seem to think.

There were some big things that almost made Leopard but didn't. This tells me that they are only barely not ready and that, thus, it might not take much longer for them to be completely ready. I feel Jobs has got to want to get ZFS in to replace the ancient ext fs as soon as possible -- ZFS is incredible -- it'll shoot AppleFS from very old-fashioned to most advanced FS in the world.

I don't want to argue though. I will probably buy Leopard. Please tell me what all these under-the-hood changes are though, because, frankly, I find Tiger beyond easy to use and I really don't see myself needing Spaces, Stacks, all that stuff at all. Nor, in the next couple years, do I anticipate buying any 3rd party apps that I don't arleady have -- I use my computer as a tool only and as a tool for a couple things that I already have everything I need in.

My orientation is things that bring performance and robustness. Right now, Leopard is less robust and I haven't seen any information on things it has that I actually need at all. If you told me it was faster on Intel machines than Tiger, things like that, then you'd be telling me the things I want to hear. But shiny docks, spaces, timemachine (when I already have backup system I need), I can pass on for basically the price of a small Nano.
 
Leopard is a better system than Tiger in almost every way, even though it's still technically a ".0" release, and will require updates from third-party vendors over the next few months.

I haven't run into any serious bugs or problems with this system yet, except that it uses more RAM than Tiger did.
IMO, 2GB should be the absolute minimum if you intend to run multiple applications; 1GB swaps frequently with Photoshop and InDesign running.
 
admiraldennis said:
What is your logic behind only buying every other point release? That seems quite silly to me, especially considering the length of time between Mac OS X releases.
Click to expand...

Hey, I used windows 2000 until a few months ago when I got my MBP, so umm, 7 years? wow.

I mean, honestly, there was really no difference between Win2k and WinXP (until pretty recently with some updates and such), it was mostly just interface differences. I had no reason to go to XP. XP just increased the amount of general annoying-ness in windows.

I am generally a very late adopter of things. But I did get leopard right away because I got it cheap with Up to Date.

So yeah, if you consider 2 years to be a long time, think about how long i waited from win2k to XP (which was exactly the same but with cheezy graphics), and then vista (which i decided not to get, and switched instead).

Long time apple users just don't know the meaning of patience I guess.... :)

In the windows world, I just never saw any real advantage of features or nice little things in an OS, it was just sort of a launching point for programs. Now I can see that an OS can be enjoyable to use, and do a lot of great things for you.

IMO, it's fine to budget yourself to every other release. It's not like everyone is super rich (although all you apple people seem to enjoy spending the cash...) :rolleyes:

dukebound85 said:
i bet its 3 years before we see 10.6

i mean tiger was out for 2.5 years and the releases i think will continue to be further apart
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's because apple is making all this stupid junk like ipods and iphones and pretty soon there will be iCars and iOvens, iMicrowave ovens, maybe even iKea... iThink iApple iMay iEven iEnd iUp iAffecting iThe iEntire iEnglish iLanguage! With all this stuff going on, how can they possibly release any sweet OS's? I won't be satisfied until there is a holodeck OS that you can actually go into and fly around and go into folders and open doors into applications. Only MS couldn't do that because the system would crash and you would be stuck in there forever!
 
Lol

LOL, imagine if you had this philosophy if you were a Windows user! You'd be waiting for at least a decade for every other release!:D
 
I would ignore most of these condinsinding remarks.
If you are happy with Tiger and there are no features that you really want or care for I say stick with it. By the time 10.6 comes out you will be having a hard time finding new applications that work with 10.4. Depending the Age of your computer that you are currently using you may end up upgrading to Leopard if you decide to get a new Mac in the mean time. Other then the latest and greatest Apps which may no longer work on Tiger the only other reason to upgrade is that after a while Apple will stop offering Security Fixes. But that will go on for a while, and many of these secuirty fixes are for Local Exploits not Remote ones, and for the remote ones you usually need to be carful on what websites you go to and stay behind an external firewall. I upgraded to Leopard and for the most part I am happy with it. But if there isn't anything you need I say just keep Tiger and be happy with it. If you buy every other version then you are saving like $500 over 10 years. Doesn't sound like a lot but it could get you something nice.

nicefeet101 said:
LOL, imagine if you had this philosophy if you were a Windows user! You'd be waiting for at least a decade for every other release!:D
Click to expand...

They are out there. There are places who are still using Windows 2000 and guess what they are happy with it. There are some spots with Windows 95 and 98. Some systems out there that are still running DOS. And it does what they want and they are happy with it. Upgrading to a new OS doesn't always equate to Happiness.
 
idk about anyone else but i thought this was a joke thread by the topic kinda like the should i buy the macbook or wait till may topics
 
xUKHCx said:
You are probably looking at another 2 years to wait for the next release.

The next version will also be the biggest release of OS X;)
Click to expand...

LMFAO yeah 10.6 will undoubtedly be the biggest release of OS X. I'd wait.
 
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