Originally posted by IJ Reilly
I can't believe nobody else has noticed this yet, so I guess that leaves it to me to lay on the really big kahuna: The last time Apple rescheduled an event at the last minute, the G4 iMac was released.
Um, what the heck are you talking about? The G4 iMac was released at MWSF '02, and MWSF took place at the same time it normally takes place: the second week of January. There was no rescheduling at the last minute.
Plus, the rescheduling of WWDC is HARDLY last-minute. The original date for WWDC was the END OF MAY. We're only in the end of MARCH. That's 2 months, and now WWDC is 3 months away.
Anyhoo, I believe that the major reason for this change is to position WWDC as the summer keynote event. Yes, WWDC is aimed chiefly at developers, but Apple only wants to do one show per year for consumers, so it makes sense to have a major venue through which to announce new products (probably mainly software upgrades like Panther and such), even if it's not at a consumer event. They'll probably reserve "Apple Events" for major hardware upgrades.
Also, remember last year how Apple changed its Mac OS X website when Jaguar was previewed at WWDC to tout Panther? This is going to be the same thing: Apple is going to announce Panther, say it's going to be shipping sometime in the next few months (I doubt that Panther is going to be released anytime later than December of this year, and I would bet on late summer), and they're going to update their Mac OS X website so that consumers can get all hyped up about the next major upgrade.
As for those people crying about having to pay for another upgrade: um, you have to pay for software development. If you like and want the features, then buy it! If you don't and can live without them, then you can keep on using Jaguar or Puma or Cheetah or whatever. You're not obligated to upgrade. I don't think $129 for a major upgrade like Jaguar was unreasonable, and charging again for Panther is not unreasonable either, as long as it has enough new features. Apple did the same with the Classic Mac OS releases, although it offered a small discount if you had bought the previous release and proved it with a coupon. I personally think that Apple should reinstate this policy, but I'm not going to get up in arms if they don't.
Besides, if you DO get a new Mac, Apple usually offers an up-to-date program that allows you to get the newest major version of Mac OS X if it was released 1-2 months after you bought your Mac. Apple did that with Jaguar and Puma, and I see no reason why they won't continue that with Panther. So there's no real reason to put off buying a new Mac, either.
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