Leopard is delayed; who cares

John A 0 Tallied Votes 348 Views Share

Somewhat surprisingly, Apple has admitted that they can no longer stick to the Leopard schedule that had previously planned this spring of 2007 as the release for the new operating system being brewed by the developers of Apple, and so you should expect it 4 months later, says Apple.

Reasons given for this is basically that Apple doesn't have enough resources -- and is being forced to shift its Leopard developer team to the iPhone to help get that finished on time. In a statement, Apple said that "life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones."

Makes sense. They obviously don't have enough resources to keep both projects working simultaneously. But that's about it. Many articles are saying things such as "Apple's in deep water because they can't manage multiple projects." Well, if Apple doesn't have enough developers to get projects done on time, guess what they'll do: hire more people. It's the thing that every company does when they need to expand.

And personally I couldn't care less about the delay of Leopard, it's Apple that's frying themselves from all the bad comments that they let loose about Vista in their last demo of Leopard. If they are forced to have similar delays to their operating system, that's up to them. But we've already seen the demos, the OS has already been leaked out on bittorrent, Leopard isn't that special.

iPhone is in a more unique way, which is perhaps more important for Apple to concentrate on keeping on-target. But aside from that, meh. Whatever works.

Dani AI

Generated

Short, verifiable timeline and what actually happened (brief): Apple publicly confirmed the Leopard slip in April 2007 after deciding to reassign experienced Mac OS engineering and QA to finish the iPhone; the company still previewed a near‑final Leopard at WWDC in June, the iPhone went on sale June 29, 2007, and Leopard shipped later that year on October 26, 2007. See Apple’s WWDC statement and the contemporaneous coverage of the April announcement. (Apple WWDC release — June 11, 2007, report on the April announcement). (apple.com)

On ’s “hire more people” point: hiring isn’t an instant fix for a shipping deadline. For tightly coupled system work (kernel, platform services, QA), bringing new people up to speed can take months; contemporaneous reporting noted Apple chose to reallocate existing, experienced staff to hit the iPhone timeline rather than risk slipping that product. That tradeoff is common when a company has one high‑priority launch with hard external commitments. (wired.com)

On ’s spacing/marketing point and the leak: spacing big launches is a plausible business benefit — Apple did stage a developer preview at WWDC and then separate public launches (iPhone in June, Leopard in October). The WWDC beta was also widely leaked to BitTorrent around the conference, which changed the public conversation about readiness and piracy versus official availability. ([TechCrunch on the WWDC beta leak]). (apple.com)

On the ads and practical advice for readers finding this thread years later: Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads were actively positioning Macs against Windows (including jabs at Vista) as part of normal marketing. If the real concern is whether the Leopard delay mattered to users today — Leopard (10.5) is now a legacy OS — practical options are to keep any Leopard‑dependent workflow on preserved hardware or in a controlled VM, or to look for vendor updates that support modern macOS releases. For historical reference see coverage of the campaign and the product timelines. (macrumors.com)

Infarction 503 Posting Virtuoso

There's also the possibility that they want to space out the releases of the iPhone and Leopard for various business reasons. Two I can think of would be to: a) let consumers build their wallets back up after the iPhone, and b) to be able to have two large product launches spread out rather than a huge one combining the two (a case where the sum of the the parts is less than the combined total of each part individually).

cutepinkbunnies 4 Junior Poster

I agree with the author about the anti-Vista advertising.

The Apple commercials yes may be humorous, but are misleading and slanderous. Just think, an operating system reducing itself to using advertising tactics like that of politicians.

Squires 81 Junior Poster

Agreed bunnies. When I see an advertisement, Id like them to give reasons why I should buy their product. When I watch a mac commercial, it doesn't tell me why I should by a mac, instead it tells me why I should not buy a Windows PC.

'Stein 150 Lapsed Skeptic Team Colleague

Agreed. However, I still feel that they are effective for the common American population.

I mean, since when has the American public cared about facts? :icon_wink:

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