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Apple's Leopard delayed to October, iPhone blamed

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Engadget article

Sad news, kids: Apple is pushing back its Mac OS X Leopard release date from WWDC in June (now they tell us!) to October. Apple is blaming it all on the iPhone, saying that "iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price -- we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS(R) X team." Apple will still be showing up at WWDC with a beta version to hand out to developers, since apparently the OS will be feature-complete by then, just not bug-free. We suppose we should be grateful to Apple for being cautious and avoiding the various and often severe quality assurance issues that has plagued it recently, but this whole passing the buck thing is little lame. "Life often presents tradeoffs," says Apple, "and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones." Thanks for that little nugget of wisdom, now get back to work!

Bummer, I was planning on saving up for a new Mac Pro at the end of the year so that Leopard's initial release bugs could have 6 months to be worked out.
 
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What??? Ehhh...I don't know what to say?? So what about iLife and iWork?? Are they just going to be iLife/Work 08?? Might as well be. This is bogus!

This is officially off Apple's website:

Apple Statement
iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard's features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones. [Apr 12, 2007]
 
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This goes to show you, don't wait for software. If you need a Mac now, buy it now!

Watch how brilliantly Apple's PR team makes this look good, rather than bad. Vista was delayed and everyone was furious, but with Apple it will make everyone happy somehow...
 
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This goes to show you, don't wait for software. If you need a Mac now, buy it now!

True, so those of you that were waiting for leopard....just go out and by what you need. Well, atleast this gives me time to upgrade my ram, buy applecare...etc.

Edit: This makes me wonder if Apple's priority is still with macs or discovering other markets(iPhone)... I don't blame them for wanting to make more money somewhere else but don't forget about my Macky ;)
 
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bollocks!

i had my finances all arranged to afford a mbp in june with leopard....

now i have to wait even longer!

....joking...im just gonna go ahead and buy when i can in june!

:)
 
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Argh, I was planning to upgrade my PowerBook for a shiny new MacBook Pro with Leopard this September for Uni.

I wonder if they'll update the MBP range? Or new fullsize iPods?

Hopefully they'll have a good Back To School offer and maybe discounted upgrade to Leopard when it's out?
 
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This disappoints me greatly.
 
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well, leopard will be worth the wait.
 
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Is Tiger that bad?! ;)
 
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Argh, I was planning to upgrade my PowerBook for a shiny new MacBook Pro with Leopard this September for Uni.

I wonder if they'll update the MBP range? Or new fullsize iPods?

Hopefully they'll have a good Back To School offer and maybe discounted upgrade to Leopard when it's out?

surely you can wait that extra month?

if you really cant, i think some kind of leopard discount is likely...this is apple we are talking about

chill people, chill
 
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...

Edit: This makes me wonder if Apple's priority is still with macs or discovering other markets(iPhone)... I don't blame them for wanting to make more money somewhere else but don't forget about my Macky ;)

That was the first thought that jumped to my mind as I was reading this shocking news.

Apple Computer Inc has a new focus - no scratch that ;) - Apple Inc has a new focus.

The game; release the iPhone - don't have any other major Apple products at that time - customers can spend all their money on the iPhone.

Release Leopard (very likely with new hardware across the product range) just after the students go back to university/college - people with money to burn can buy the new hardware - but, perhaps more importantly - a brand new OS - very likely brand new hardware (on at least some of the range) - just in time for Christmas. Ka-Ching (<- supposed to be the sound of a cash register :) )
 
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That was the first thought that jumped to my mind as I was reading this shocking news.

Apple Computer Inc has a new focus - no scratch that ;) - Apple Inc has a new focus.

The game; release the iPhone - don't have any other major Apple products at that time - customers can spend all their money on the iPhone.

Release Leopard (very likely with new hardware across the product range) just after the students go back to university/college - people with money to burn can buy the new hardware - but, perhaps more importantly - a brand new OS - very likely brand new hardware (on at least some of the range) - just in time for Christmas. Ka-Ching (<- supposed to be the sound of a cash register :) )


You've got that all wrong.

Students and/or their parents do not spend money on new computers in October. They spend it in July and August. Do you think a family is going to wait up to 3 months into the school year to buy a new Mac? No, that is typically NOT how it works.

October only puts this product in position for Christmas.

If Apple just wants to be a consumer product company, go for it. Just spin off the computer portion to someone that will actually care about it. Someone like Google for instance.
 
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It's going to be a long summer...lol ;)
 
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surfwax hit it on the head. Apple never missed an opportunity to point out the delays with Vista, but delaying OS X due to a new and unrelated product is ok?

No, 10.4 isn't "bad," but Apple certainly doesn't want us to be complacent and disinterested in Leopard. They tell us it's better, they show us features we want, then they delay it for a phone.

If MS misses its chance for a little PR revenge, they're idiots.
 
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You've got that all wrong.

Students and/or their parents do not spend money on new computers in October. They spend it in July and August. Do you think a family is going to wait up to 3 months into the school year to buy a new Mac? No, that is typically NOT how it works.

Ok, in the UK term starts at the very end of September for most Collages and Universities - My university term did not start until well into October - either way - in the UK again - pretty much all students will take out the student loan, the first payment of which can be expected any time between September and December - this means that an awful lot of students have a big cheque burning a hole in their bank accounts at this time of the year - yes you are supposed to manage it - but most either don't out of choice - or are simply not capable of managing money.

I incorrectly assumed the US terms started at a similar time of the year.
 
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Ok, in the UK term starts at the very end of September for most Collages and Universities - My university term did not start until well into October - either way - in the UK again - pretty much all students will take out the student loan, the first payment of which can be expected any time between September and December - this means that an awful lot of students have a big cheque burning a hole in their bank accounts at this time of the year - yes you are supposed to manage it - but most either don't out of choice - or are simply not capable of managing money.

I incorrectly assumed the US terms started at a similar time of the year.

Well ok then ;)

That clears it up.

Still that could be a big hit in the education sales for the US and Japanese markets.
 
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More news:

Leopard codename changed to "Longhorn."
 
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surfwax hit it on the head. Apple never missed an opportunity to point out the delays with Vista, but delaying OS X due to a new and unrelated product is ok?

No, 10.4 isn't "bad," but Apple certainly doesn't want us to be complacent and disinterested in Leopard. They tell us it's better, they show us features we want, then they delay it for a phone.

If MS misses its chance for a little PR revenge, they're idiots.

I'm sure MS won't say a thing. Why would they? If they say something about Apple then people hear about Apple. And Vista isn't a big selling point right now (though I use it and think it's better than XP)....Dell just had to re-instate XP as a choice on it's computers due to customer demand. MS would be best served by letting it lie and not giving Apple any free publicity.

I think the earlier posts are right though, they've set this up so that the purchases for school will miss the new OS and get people to spend $129.00 ($79 w/ student discount IIRC) to upgrade after a few months. It also keeps all of the hype about the iPhone and doesn't get it diluted by the new OS. A win/win for Apple if not their customers.

But really, counting on a set date for software will just about always lead to disappointment, and vendors that set hard dates and end up rushing their products tend to come out with buggy beta quality releases that take a while to get patched into what they should have been to begin with.

So I'm of somewhat mixed feelings. I'd like to be able to play with leopard now, but if they need to delay it to have a quality release, then they should. But I think that their choice to delay had as much to due with the marketing of the iPhone as it did with anything else. And since I'm not going to buy an iPhone in the conceivable future, I'd rather they delayed that until the Christmas season (which would be a better release time for it anyways, IMHO) and came out with Leopard in June.
 

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