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Mac OS X Updates Less Frequent

broken_keyboard said:
Frequent OS updates is one of the best things about being a Mac user. I hope they don't slow down too much - they will surely miss the annual payment from all the die-hard fans.
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Yah, but those die-hard fans have their limits as well. I was lucky enough to buy my new Mac when Panther was released, so I haven't had to worry, but I can imagine that there are many Mac users, even the "die-hards" that would start becoming less understanding with yearly OS upgrades costing $100+ - even they have their limits! If Apple can keep introducing revolutionary new features each go-around, that's great, and I'm all for it, but I think there needs to be a better balance, and it sounds as though this news about less frequent updates might do the trick.
 
He did not say they would slow down working on the release. Just the "releases" would slow down.
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Yes! Now they can actually test them! What a shocker.

"Tastes safe. Less frequent!" :D That's a little better than, but analogous to, "Tastes Safe. More features!"

Or, even better, in a Rocky and Bullwinkle-esque sequel moment...

"Will Tiger Earn Its Stripes...or will we all get 'Royed'?"
 
Slow news month, ehh?

Did no one else read this story everywhere else last week? What's going on here? One old story a day on the main page, one a week on Page 2. That lame transparency poll has been there for almost a week.
Just a little constructive criticism, I love this site.

Anyway, it seems that Apple is giving us Tiger as a "here, take that and shut up. Leave us alone for a few years." It will probably have every feature everyone ever thought OS X would have. Both Tiger's preview announcement and this story appeared in the same week.... on the rest of the internet, anyway.
Meanwhile, mad scientists at Apple have their 'people want this' and 'Steve wants that' plates empty, and are now free to implement some insane features that you wouldn't know that you needed until you had them. Yeah, more stuff like expose... like, even, OS X itself.
Yeah, they are going to try to kill Longhorn's press release. They are going to crash MS's little party.
Maybe it'll be XI, or 11, or maybe X 2.0. Maybe even 10.6 (just 'cause 7.6 and 8.6 were so cool). I'll be in line to buy it that day, whatever they call it. Because MS has already drawn Longhorn. They know everything about it except for what they can't feasibly do. It is based on predictions, and features will continue to drop as time goes by. Suppose computers really don't have terabyte hard drives in two years. Hell, how long have 250GB drives hung around for now?
But those mad scientists at Apple... they'll be throwing in a few things that weren't possible until the day before, that they just thought of that day, into a release that's coming out the next week.
 
I like this web site a lot, but there has been a dirth of rumors this year, and today's headline is kinda sad.

This is old, old news. Even CNET picked this story up last week.

Are we watching the slow end to MacRumors?
 
BWhaler said:
I like this web site a lot, but there has been a dirth of rumors this year, and today's headline is kinda sad.

This is old, old news. Even CNET picked this story up last week.

Are we watching the slow end to MacRumors?
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MacBytes had it on May 18. I think Arn was just trying to keep up discussion up on the main page during an incredibly slow news period. No, MR is not slipping, the rumors are drying up. Expect things to heat up as WWDC approaches.
 
wdlove said:
I think that as has been mentioned before, couldn't there be a DVD version for the G5 and the CD for all other Mac's. We are just along for the ride in all the decisions!
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Again, I must stress - is Apple willing to do this? If they aren't (which I suspect is the case), we won't see a pure 64-bit Mac OS until all current Macs are G5 or better at the earliest (more likely all G6 or better).
 
york2600 said:
Unless MS changed something you can no longer download IE for Win 98. 98 has been end of lifed and support (including downloads) was ended. Also the installer downloaded a different version for Win 98. It wasn't that MS hadn't changed anything between 98 and XP, but instead that they backported IE. Windows Media Player is the same. There's the XP version and the 98/ME/2k version.
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I checked the link before I posted my comment. There seems to be a link at Microsoft's IE site to download IE 6 for Win98, and it is in the list of supported operating systems for IE 6.

I do realise that Win98 has been EOL'ed, but that has only been recently (this year I think?). Try getting support or patches for OS X 10.0 or 10.1, which are much more recent than Win98. Hopefully the extra maturity of OS X post Jaguar, and the slower OS X release cycle will mean that each version of OS X will remain supported and able to run recent software for much longer.
 
okay, my thoughts:

Tiger this June
Lion (10.5) in . . . some time later. I expect this will be the last version of 10.
After Lion, OS 11: 64 bits of fun.

I figure the Lion will be made to work as a transitioning OS to the 64 bit fun, but hey, this is just me and my thoughts, feel free to point out all my flaws.
 
i guess they are losing their creativity..would be awesome if they could keep updating and retain the currently yearly releases..always thought that was cool, but i guess not....looking forward to longhorn.
 
SWC said:
Find me a place to buy components for a dual 2 gig G5 I can build myself for less than $2,700 and that point will be valid.
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I don't see this slow in releases as a bad thing. Just think: instead of just a few really cool updates and some tweaks here and there every year, maybe we'll see something really major every 18 months or so. Like some other people have mentioned, I hope that with the iPod in it's own division and the operating system updates slowing down, Apple we'll be able to focus a lot more on hardware updates. Instead of about 3 updates per line per year, maybe now we'll see five...

JOD8FY
 
I'm really quite happy with Panther, and I doubt I would upgrade to Tiger, given my current hardware.

I'd be pleased as punch if Apple simply kept up a steady stream of bug-fixes and speed enhancements, with a major OS revision once every two years. Wanna make me happy, Apple? Make Panther as fast as you possibly can; optimize the hell out of the code so that this is the least-bloated, most efficient, most elegant, most usable OS we can possibly imagine. Make what you've already got positively scream on the current hardware. THAT would be insanely great.
 
Spazmodius said:
Wanna make me happy, Apple? Make Panther as fast as you possibly can; optimize the hell out of the code so that this is the least-bloated, most efficient, most elegant, most usable OS we can possibly imagine. Make what you've already got positively scream on the current hardware. THAT would be insanely great.
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Compared to every other OS, that's where Apple is at now. The only reason Mac users put up with apple NOT keeping up with the rest of the world in hardware is because, you can not run their KICK BUTT OS on anything else.

If we still had to use OS9, I could see this "slow down" as a problem, but we are running in the Land of X!... and there is none better.
 
Misinterpretation?

There appears to be a major misinterpretation here. People seem to be assuming that Apple is slowing down production. That isnt what this article says. Just updates will be less frequent. Logically this means that if you get one years worth of features with every update, and they slow down to every 2 years wouldnt you get 2 years worth of updates in one package? More bang for your buck in other words. I think we can all agree that would be a good thing in its way. The fact is the money Apple are charging once a year is way too much for the average joe. Its not a necessary update, but it is keeping current and some programs demand 10.3 APIs. Some Adium features for instance run only on 10.3. Now if you're running 10.2, which you will be if you've got a year old Mac and decided against upgrading, you cant use those features. Thats a tad bit unfair isnt it? Not all of us are wallowing in money, despite the constant myth from Windows Advocates that we must be in order to afford Macs.

Frankly to me this seems like an excellent idea, kudos to Apple.
 
gadg said:
I just got 10.3 a few weeks ago, now I find out that in a few weeks time they're releasing a new version. That kinda sucks!
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Someone's probably already pointed this out, but there is no "new version" coming out in a few weeks. They will be previewing OS 10.4 at the WWDC.
 
Less Consumer Focus more Enterprise

Avie also stated a much greater push into the Enterprise space.

Having time to slow down in the Consumer space will allow Engineering to gear up for an Enterprise push and make Apple a serious force in Corporate America, as well as within the Federal Dollars.

Currently, Apple isn't even in the Top 100 on the Federal List. That will change and expect them to push hard this Fall.
 
Trowaman said:
okay, my thoughts:

Tiger this June
Lion (10.5) in . . . some time later. I expect this will be the last version of 10.
After Lion, OS 11: 64 bits of fun.

I figure the Lion will be made to work as a transitioning OS to the 64 bit fun, but hey, this is just me and my thoughts, feel free to point out all my flaws.
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G4s are selling right now. G3s still work on Panther.

Do you really think Apple will completely outdate all G4s in 2-4 years?
 
Tiger previewed late June, released in late September to mid October.

Lion I expect will be OS XI and released January 2006.

Trowaman said:
okay, my thoughts:

Tiger this June
Lion (10.5) in . . . some time later. I expect this will be the last version of 10.
After Lion, OS 11: 64 bits of fun.

I figure the Lion will be made to work as a transitioning OS to the 64 bit fun, but hey, this is just me and my thoughts, feel free to point out all my flaws.
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When Netscape updated their browser from 4 to 6, I was horrified to see how much Netscape 6 seemed to have gone down hill. I even asked a Netscape representative why N6 sucked so much. His explanation was that since Netscape 6 was essentially a 1.0 product, they were still trying to get everything added and get the kinks worked out.

This is probably similar to Mac OS X. It had been explained to me that 10.0 and 10.1 were just trying to get Mac OS X out and running. With later and future versions, they are trying to add more to the OS. Not really so much as bug fixes, but additions.

However, for software developers, with a new version of the OS coming out close to every year can become frustrating after awhile. It takes more time and effort to have to test for each of the levels, and yet even MORE time if someone is still supporting Mac OS 8.6-9.2. So, for myself, I wouldn't mind if the OS updates slowed down somewhat, but just don't stagnate to the level of OS 7 which was around for what....7 years or so?
 
mdriftmeyer said:
Tiger previewed late June, released in late September to mid October.

Lion I expect will be OS XI and released January 2006.
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As has been stated before Jobs himself has stated that OS X has legs and that it won't be replaced for what? I thought it was in double digit figures. Which makes absolute sense since the core of OS X is robust enough to last Apple at least that long if not longer. However what goes on top of that core, a.k.a. Darwin, is another matter altogether. Apple in the not to distant future will obviously optimize OS X for both the G5 and 64-bitness, but only after it starts selling G5 based systems across the board and has a majority of the system on the market based off the G5 and that isn't going to happen for a while. Right now we have one single product line based on a G5. By Fall of 2005 they most likely will have their Pro line across the board based on the G5 and possibly the iMac line. Im' doubting that that eMacs and ibooks will be going G5 ANYTIME soon.

My guess, Note the word: guess, they may shoot for a 2006-2007 timeframe for IBM\64-bitness optimizations but most likely no sooner. Its possible they may try and steal some of MS's thunder by claiming we were the first company to released the first 64-bit home computer (yes folks I now the debate over that.) and now introducing the next generation of personal computing OS. OS X: Lion - 64Bit edition. If anything would be a killbuzz for Longhorn it would be that. But again *shrugs* Wild guess. Probably wrong. Who knows.

Beyond that I don't see Apple releasing another OS X this year. I really don't. They have some serious work to do against Longhorn and frankly releasing minor updates each year costs time and money on their part. What? Do you think picking up after a release of an OS is easy? How many patches has Apple put out since Panther. Lets see 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, working on 3.4 along with a smattering of security patches. Along with serious fixes after Panther was released. (Or was that 3.1? I forget.) This once per year thing has to stop. Then need to sit down this summer if they haven't already, take a look at what MS is doing, see how and where they can do it better, select the features they are going to enhance and add, and move like they have a purpose.

Longhorn could be either a colossal blunder**** or a major hit. It's WAY too soon to tell but I'm getting the vibe that it's going to be the latter. (And so help me god I'm going to go off if someone pulls out the floating, as in toilet, specs for longhorn as a rebuttal.)
Apple needs to beat MS to the punch and yearly releases won't allow that. Again I hold fast to the notion of Winter\Spring 2005 for Tiger anything sooner, IMHO, says they haven't taken the time or effort to put anything substantial into the OS and is only looking for a cash cow to make some bank at which point I hope most Mac users flip Apple the bird. But I'm playing devils advocate here. Of course Apple is going to give us something major. ;) :cool:
 
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