McCracken's First Law of Contrarian Operating System Punditry--which I just made named, but have long believed--states that it's good news when an OS is delayed. What rational computer user, after all, would prefer to buy and use a product when even its own developer doesn't think it's ready for prime time?
I've often expressed that sentiment when Microsoft's Windows ship dates have slip-slided away, so it's only consistent to cut Apple the same slack. I'm a little startled by the company's announcement that it's delaying Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" until October to wrap up work on the iPhone. But I'm okay with the decision--and even though I'm looking forward to getting Leopard for my MacBook, I'll happily bide my time until Apple thinks the OS is fully baked.
From everything we know about Leopard so far--and it's possible, or even likely, that we don't know everything--it looks to be a pleasant but reasonably minor update, with one known knockout new feature, the Time Machine continuous-backup system. (Which, incidentally, I could have used last month--I had a hard-drive crash on my Mac and lost some vacation photos which I hadn't safely preserved anywhere else.)
To me, the big news about the Leopard delay isn't the delay itself. It's the fact that it feels like one more piece of evidence that the Mac, which was Apple's flagship product for a couple of decades, may be suffering from a lack of full corporate attention in the era of the iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV.
So far, it's been the quietest of years for the Mac platform. There have been plenty of rumors about cool new Macs, but no actual new systems (okay, one minor upgrade: the eight-core Mac Pro). The MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Mini lines, while all nifty in their own ways, are also pretty darn familiar; Apple's a company whose very DNA involves releasing noticeably new and different machines pretty frequently, and the time has surely come for a genuinely interesting new Mac or two. But you gotta wonder whether Apple will release 'em as Tiger machines, or wait until they can ship with Leopard.
There were also rumors about an upgrade to iLife that was supposed to show up at Macworld Expo in January; the iPhone did, but iLife didn't. And now Leopard won't be a reality until Fall.
Meanwhile, new iPods big and small have continued to appear; the Apple TV showed up; and the iPhone is apparently on schedule for its June debut. I was already sort of wondering whether Apple had taken its eye off the Mac ball, so to speak, to concentrate on other efforts; with the Leopard announcement, it's essentially admitted that it did so.
We may be in the midst of a Macintosh news drought, but it won't, of course, last forever. There will be new Macs, and an iLife upgrade, and presumably some noteworthy stuff that only Steve Jobs and his secretive minions know about just now. And it would be pretty darn surprising if Leopard is the only major Mac item that arrives in 2007.
Like I say, I'll cheerfully wait until products are truly done to get my hands on them...but that isn't stopping me from wondering what's on the way for Mac fans, and when it'll all show up....
Microsoft's partner program will kill the company.
They manufacture products for partners, not users. Case in point: squirting tunes with the Zune is really squirting advertisements: attractive to partners, not users. Microsoft tries to make it a selling point for users with "welcome to the social," but listening to music with headphones and socializing are mutually exclusive activities. The Zune was not designed to steal the iPod's users, but its suppliers--and here is the Microsoft killer--if users don't buy the product, the partners go away. Word 2007 orphans all expert users. It is for executives who want to make sumpin purdy without learning anything first.
MIcrosoft focuses on partners, not developers, not quality, not management, not end-users. As a result, their products look great until you use them.
When the users go away, the partners do, too. Then the cocktail party is over and the guests are gone.
One day we will wake up and discover that Microsoft died five years ago
Is Microsoft still alive?
The only news I hear about them is about viruses/trojans/craplets for their latest OS (I think it's called Vista) and how turdish their music player looks (I think it's called Zune or something like that). Oh, and I noticed that people call Microsoft's CEO "monkey boy" for some reason, so I guess they are still technically alive, just not dead and buried yet.
I love Mac Fanboys! Take your 2% market share and get a life. I'm not buying a bunch of overpriced, underwhelming hardware so I can join the 2% club. Sorry.
Vista's great. Have fun waiting for Leopard.
So interesting....Harry, you may not have blasted MS for delaying Vista, but most of the computer community really let them have it for not making their release date. But Apple misses, to concentrate on the iphone no less, and it's just fine. As usual, MS can do no right, and Apple can do no wrong.
Doctor Doom is very brash about stating incorrect facts... it's actually 8% and it has grown fast! Take your Gates plastic and IE7 and do some real research.
And how long did you wait for Vista? Oh... that's what I thought
RE: Mac Market-share: Actually, its roughly 6% in the US as of Q2's end. Worldwide it is about 2%.The company I work for makes Mac software, so we track this closely - without hype. At words this year, Apple said their installed base is 18 million users. To compare, Microsoft has about 20 million users on Vista in 2 months of sales. So please keep some sense of perspective is I love Mac I but we have a very long way to go.
This sucks for is as many of our customers waiting for Leopard and Adobe CS3 before investing in our product (and MacIntel hardware). iPhone is a total distraction for us ISV partners of Apple.Iguess they weren't kidding when they took the "Computer" out of their name. :(
via 15" PowerBook G4 . . .
PS: sorry for the typos, this G4's keyboard is dying... (ironically, my company's IT department was waiting for Leopard too before upgrading me to a MacBook Pro... )
I am a new founded Mac user and loving it! At this point i can't remember where my pc's are (so, to dig a hole in my back yard to bury them!) I rather have a well developed OS than one that is shot out the gate (pun intended), and not to mention the 6 patches every week! Apple is using the very flawed Windoze OS as an example to make sure it has all it's ducks in a row. Thxs Apple for caring!
apple may or may not be making the biggest mistake by betting the farm on the iphone. neglecting the faithful that have patiently been waiting for leopard, ilife07, iwork, ANYTHING!, is a stupid move. just a few days ago an apple vp stated that leopard was on track. well, he was lying, wasn't he? and who knows, maybe the october release will be pushed back again. everything is possible. i am beginning to think that the emporer has no clothes....
I'm planning to buy a new PC early next year. And I'd like to shift from Windows to Apple. I hope that vendors like DELL, HP, etc. will add Apple products in their line-up. Since it will be Vista vs. Leopard, this is great opportunity for Apple to grab a piece of the market because lots of customers are not satisfied with Vista. ....I'm one of them.
Time Machine itsn't the only other major addition. You can't forget Core Animation (you'll be seeing some really cool programs made with this), graphical 64-bit support, Spaces, updated Mail/Safari/iChat/Dashboard and many other smaller tweaks.
There is also the possibilty of a new file system ZFS, which would increase perfomance and use virtually no disk space when making those Time Machine backups. In the newest developer build, there is a unified theme that has a "placeholder" look; predicing a whole new UI? Tiger already blows Vista away, a couple months isn't going to hurt anyone if it means Apple can deliver an even more amazing OS. Windows uers put up with a 3 year delay, Mac users can put up with 4 months.