I've had it up to here *draws line 50 ft above my head* with people who refuse to accept that Apple has two seperate code bases, one for external seeds and one for internal.
Why? Because Microsoft has done it; and Microsoft is ALOT less secret than Apple.
When did they do this? Travel back to 2001 when XP was coming out. The new UI (can't remember for sure, was it code named Luna?) was not introduced until RC1 if I remember correctly (I was an official beta tester).
RC1!! Thats late in the process. Luna was a major internals change for UI rendering, yet they specifically pulled it out of prior builds to keep people in the dark.
Now think about this: People are complaining about how slow the fixes are coming in the seeds for "known issues". Ever stop to think they are already fixed? Maybe the newer versions of libraries with those fixes are DEPENDANT on libraries they aren't willing to introduce yet. Apple wouldn't take the time to back-port a fix to a developer seed when they are focused on moving forward.
Recently I read an article about Windows's code check-in process....it took a month on average for simple UI change code to get checked into the official build of windows for changing shut down buttons....because it goes thru localized builds, then team builds, and then finally gets scheduled for a merge with the full system. You have no idea how many things are fixed or features are added to Leopard that haven't made it up the check-in chain of command.
So yes, its possible and likely.
of course they have internal builds, but to expect the internal build has vastly different features than the seeded build is just nuts. there would be almost no point in having a beta cycle if apple engineers were working on a significantly advanced build. beta bug reports would be useless.
look i've been a beta tester for years on software you're probably using right now. i've been flown to corporate headquarters as early as the pre-alpha phase to advise on features and been around all the way through the release candidate phase where the companies would fedex me daily builds to install; if i said the software wasn't ready -- it didn't ship no matter what the ceo or marketing department had said (i wasn't the only one there were usually a dozen or so others).
when you change software, whether it's adding a new feature, fixing a big or removing something, that change cascades across the entire project. it is impossible for one engineer to anticipate how their change might affect the work of an entirely different department.
apple has the added responsibility of needing to appease developers as well, they cannot under any circumstance spring a release version of leopard on the public that breaks 3rd party apps. for one thing it's just bad practice, but apple really pissed off developers in the 90's, they can't afford to make the same mistake again.
bottom line, are there internal builds? yes, absolutely. do those internal builds have some new features? maybe. do they have a new UI? maybe. is the internal build at release quality stage? absolutely not.
if there are new features and a new ui, the only way apple will be able to keep it a secret is to follow the same formula they did with iphone. pre-announce the features, seed the new build to developers, then go through the beta, release candidate stage, gold master. the problem with that is the longer we don't hear anything means one of two things: 1) there aren't any top secret features or 2) the release date is going to be pushed back.
It'll start to stabilize around 10.5.2. Like usual.
