Upgrde to leopard? Frequency of Apple Upgrades

johntkucz · Jun 8, 2008

Running 10.4. Love it. Love apple, always have always well, over 20 years. Okay, okay great. Should I buy the $109 10.5 upgrade? is the question It's definitely worth it. Quick View, Workspaces, and other nuance upgrades make it "worth it" alone, but the big question is 10.5 is been out for what 8 monhts? So when is apple releasing the next upgrade (10.6+)?

Is there a way to check the upcoming projected releases of apple software (that you purchase 10.x or downloadable 10.5.x)?

They had such a diagram for Ubuntu LInux for example, when I was temporarily tinkering around with that before I realized macs have all the features of linux/unix and but with more security, stability, software, sophistication, and everything (wow, alliteration).

Also what are projections about Mac OS like a couple years down the road?

Thanks! Onward mac-people.

cwa107 · Jun 8, 2008

johntkucz said:
Running 10.4. Love it. Love apple, always have always well, over 20 years. Okay, okay great. Should I buy the $109 10.5 upgrade? is the question It's definitely worth it. Quick View, Workspaces, and other nuance upgrades make it "worth it" alone, but the big question is 10.5 is been out for what 8 monhts? So when is apple releasing the next upgrade (10.6+)?

Apple has not yet announced 10.6

Is there a way to check the upcoming projected releases of apple software

Apple is infamous for being secretive about new product releases. Since Leopard was delayed significantly, I can't imagine they'll make the mistake of publicly announcing a release date again.

(that you purchase 10.x or downloadable 10.5.x)?

I don't understand what you mean. Apple has never made a version of OS X available via download.

They had such a diagram for Ubuntu LInux for example, when I was temporarily tinkering around with that before I realized macs have all the features of linux/unix and but with more security, stability, software, sophistication, and everything (wow, alliteration).

Apple and Canonical are extremely different companies. I doubt you'd ever see Apple publish such a diagram.

Also what are projections about Mac OS like a couple years down the road?

Thanks! Onward mac-people.

Your guess is as good as mine.

Juan Largo · Jun 9, 2008

johntkucz said:
Also what are projections about Mac OS like a couple years down the road?

Thanks! Onward mac-people.

LOL! If somebody posted information about that, Apple would sue them within 10 minutes!

baggss · Jun 9, 2008

Apple will be announcing the next upgrade today at the WWDC (Snow-Leopard). Assuming it is 10.6 and they stick to the 18 month cycle, expect it in early CY 09, otherwise it's a guess.

alaceo · Jun 10, 2008

Just going off what was said yesterday at the keynote and the press release, 10.6 should ship in "about a year" and when they released Leopard they said they were aiming for 1.5yr release cycles now between major OS releases.

Kash · Jun 10, 2008

Apple has always had 18 month (i.e. 1.5 years) release cycles. It was only with Leopard that it was pushed to 24 months, and that was due to the release of the iPhone. So with 10.6 Apple is just getting back to its regular release schedule.

MacDope · Jun 10, 2008

I have been holding off going from 10.4 to 10.5, thinking that Apple may come out with a 10.5.1 type upgrade to address any issues in 10.5 Is this a reasonable assumption or am I just used to Service Pack updates for a PC?

cwa107 · Jun 10, 2008

MacDope said:
I have been holding off going from 10.4 to 10.5, thinking that Apple may come out with a 10.5.1 type upgrade to address any issues in 10.5 Is this a reasonable assumption or am I just used to Service Pack updates for a PC?

Not only have they come out with 10.5.1, but also 10.5.2 and 10.5.3

Most of the major flaws have been smoothed over, you'll be fine upgrading now.

MacDope · Jun 10, 2008

Boy, am I out of the loop!

Many thanks, cwa.

johntkucz · Jun 14, 2008

cwa107 said:
Apple has not yet announced 10.6

Apple is infamous for being secretive about new product releases. Since Leopard was delayed significantly, I can't imagine they'll make the mistake of publicly announcing a release date again.

I don't understand what you mean. Apple has never made a version of OS X available via download.

Apple and Canonical are extremely different companies. I doubt you'd ever see Apple publish such a diagram.

Your guess is as good as mine.

Thanks Cwa...Ah, good ol' apple, keeping their OS upgrades "secretive" like willy wonka or something!

re Canonical (wow you really know your OSes). Okay, that's cool. I think apple would benefit from such a "development diagram", don't you? Anyways, I guess apple just has solid big releases (10.4, 10.5, etc.) which is awesome.

re Future of apple: My projection is they'll still transgressively push the techno-frontier to new advances intuitive growth, setting the pace and style standard for cutting edgo OSes....as usual!

johntkucz · Jun 14, 2008

Juan Largo said:
LOL! If somebody posted information about that, Apple would sue them within 10 minutes!

haha. Like the willy wonka effect. Secretive, quality "developments". That adds to Jobs's "reality distortion field" effect. Unveiling thigns like the iPhone out of the blue is his "magic".

johntkucz · Jun 14, 2008

baggss said:
Apple will be announcing the next upgrade today at the WWDC (Snow-Leopard). Assuming it is 10.6 and they stick to the 18 month cycle, expect it in early CY 09, otherwise it's a guess.

Okay, cool, that's helpful. I didn't realize that. New major upgrade is roughly every 18 months? When was 10.5 release again? Nov 2007?? So potential 10.6 is about 9-10 months away?

WWDC = worldwilde dev conference? They just had the 13th one of those, for the 14th, you project they'll release 10.6 possibly? I saw the iPhone SDK footage from 2008. that was great.

CY = ???

Thanks

johntkucz · Jun 14, 2008

alaceo said:
Just going off what was said yesterday at the keynote and the press release, 10.6 should ship in "about a year" and when they released Leopard they said they were aiming for 1.5yr release cycles now between major OS releases.

okay 10.2007 was 10.5, so 10.6 projection (assuming 1.5 yr schedule) = roughly March 2009? or roughly 8-9 months from now. That's worth the upgrade I think.

johntkucz · Jun 14, 2008

Kash said:
Apple has always had 18 month (i.e. 1.5 years) release cycles. It was only with Leopard that it was pushed to 24 months, and that was due to the release of the iPhone. So with 10.6 Apple is just getting back to its regular release schedule.

Thanks, that 1.5 yr. schedule thing is helpful for understanding apples' growth rate. So assuming there's not "jumps" and chronological .x upgrades (.5, .6, .7 ,etc.), 6 years from october 2007 would be 10.9??

cwa107 · Jun 14, 2008

johntkucz said:
Thanks Cwa...Ah, good ol' apple, keeping their OS upgrades "secretive" like willy wonka or something!

re Canonical (wow you really know your OSes). Okay, that's cool. I think apple would benefit from such a "development diagram", don't you? Anyways, I guess apple just has solid big releases (10.4, 10.5, etc.) which is awesome.

re Future of apple: My projection is they'll still transgressively push the techno-frontier to new advances intuitive growth, setting the pace and style standard for cutting edgo OSes....as usual!

Well, you're a little late in your response. Since I originally wrote this, Apple announced the next version of OS X, codenamed "Snow Leopard". It is to be released "in about a year" and will not include any major new features, instead allowing them to concentrate on making the system more efficient, optimized for multi-core processors and faster overall. It was also specifically mentioned that it would be geared toward Intel processors, so word on the street is that PPC processors will not be supported in 10.6.

As far as Apple releasing a "development diagram", I don't think it is needed, nor do I think it would be beneficial. Considering how closely Vista mimics much of the feature set of Tiger, it's clear that much of Microsoft's "innovation" is inspired by Apple. Given Apple's history, it would be foolish of them to open up their development plans for all to see.

johntkucz · Jun 14, 2008

cwa107 said:
Not only have they come out with 10.5.1, but also 10.5.2 and 10.5.3

Most of the major flaws have been smoothed over, you'll be fine upgrading now.

That's good advice for buying any upgrade (including hardware, like iphones). First-month release buyers may experience bugginess, but after the, like you said, small bug-fix upgrades have been implemented, the software/hardware is more likely to be smoothed over and clean (but most all of apple's stuff, compared to other software/hardware is extremely "clean" and stable, I think).