No Leopard until October

[fryke]

At least they've now jumped from brushed metal to unified look in the latest build. That's _something_, isn't it. I'm happy 'bout that.

[powermac]

I am not very upset, although was looking forward to some new features. In the back of my mind I figured Leopard would be delayed because of other adventures Apple is taking. Oh well, not much to complain about, Tiger still better than Vista

[salival]

Originally Posted by fryke

At least they've now jumped from brushed metal to unified look in the latest build. That's _something_, isn't it. I'm happy 'bout that.

That is cool. If you want the Unified look in Tiger try and use UNO.


sal

[bbloke]

Originally Posted by rubaiyat

Wow! And you all seem so surprised!

Probably because Apple itself had continued to state Leopard would ship in the Spring of 2007, even until recently. Putting it off until October is a fairly sizable delay.

Cached version of Apple's OS X page (cached because it has very recently been updated to say October 2007):

Originally Posted by Google Cache

This is G o o g l e's cache of http://www.apple.com/macosx/ as retrieved on 8 Apr 2007 08:06:29 GMT.

...

Get ready, get set, get Leopard
All these features and more are delivered to you in one universal, fully accessible, 64-bit operating system. Coming spring 2007.

Amazon's description, too, seemed to further state this.

Originally Posted by Amazon

Product Features

...

Scheduled to ship in spring 2007

And then there were articles that cited Apple, such as the one on MacNN, which denied delays to Leopard:

Originally Posted by MacNN, 26th March 2007

Apple has denied circulating rumors of delays in Mac OS X Leopard, its next-generation operating system. A report by Michael Gartenberg of JupiterResearch says that Apple has confirmed Leopard will ship in the "spring", contrary a rumor floated by the somewhat unreliable Asian Digitimes publication. Last week, it claimed that Apple was going to delay the release of Leopard--until possibly October--to allow Leopard to support Windows Vista via Boot Camp. "The rumor mill is wrong again," Gartenberg wrote in his blog. The company, however, in February flatly denied delays in shipment of its revolutionary Apple TV set-top until just a few days before launch, despite published reports to the contrary. The much-anticipated device, formally introduced in January at Macworld Expo, was delayed by just over three weeks and began arriving in customers hands last week.

By the way, I looked up Michael Gartenberg's blog to see what it actually said:

Is Leopard Delayed? Nope, not according to Apple

Michael Gartenberg | March 23, 2007, 03:07 PM

Reports coming in that Leopard's delayed until sometime in October. Just spoke with Apple who confirmed the reports are wrong and Leopard is still scheduled to ship in this spring as they previously announced. The rumor mill is wrong again.

Delays do happen, and Apple have delayed some product releases in the past. It's just that Apple had maintained, until very recently, that Leopard was still set to see the light of day this Spring.

[bbloke]

Originally Posted by fryke

At least they've now jumped from brushed metal to unified look in the latest build. That's _something_, isn't it. I'm happy 'bout that.

Oooh, that would be good news. I've not liked the trend towards a less consistent look, with regards to windows within the OS and within Apple's own applications. Of all the appearances, the brushed metal is my least favorite. It seems a little lacking in elegance to me.

[Rhisiart]

The delay may be in part a marketing ploy to wet people's appetites for what may well be a relatively unimpressive upgrade.

[chevy]

I'm still waiting for the new features. We need better applications integration (including AppleTV and iPod management, iWork, and all iApps), faster media encoding (similar to ffmpegx) when transfering from one app to the next, and the unified look is very welcome.

[bbloke]

Originally Posted by rhisiart

The delay may be in part a marketing ploy to wet people's appetites for what may well be a relatively unimpressive upgrade.

I do worry a little that Leopard will not be as impressive as hoped. I agreed with a lot of what mindbend wrote. Time Machine doesn't really impress me at this stage. As for Spaces, I'm quite happy using the "Hide" command or occasionally using Exposé. Improvements to Mail and Safari would be interesting to see.

It would be nice if the secret features turn out to really blow everyone away, but I'm not holding my breath. I'd love to be proven wrong but, at the moment, I expect Leopard to be another incremental improvement, rather than revolutionary.