First there was the March 24 release date rumor. I think we can safely assume that’s not happening, given
(a) we’ve not heard a lick more about Leopard, including its “top secret” features, let alone had a demo, and
(b) nobody in his right mind formally announces a widely-anticipated product like Leopard on a Saturday, when the news is slow and the stock market closed.
The new rumor is that Apple will release Leopard alongside Adobe CS3’s unveiling, which makes a little more sense given the recent news that CS3 will run considerably faster on Leopard than Tiger. This would give Leopard a GA (general availability) date of mid- to late-April.
But where’s the beef? Where’s the rest of the hype? Where’s the closure to the featureset rumors from a marketing standpoint? Where’s Jobs officially kicking off Leopard season?
As I said before, Leopard won’t just quietly slip into the market.
I stand by my mid-May/early-June prediction, although I’d love to see a (well-tested and market-ready) release earlier.
12 responses so far ↓
gwhiz // March 21, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Jeff, as an ADC Select member… all I can say without jeopardizing my NDA is I hope what we’ve seen is not about to be released ‘as is’ on the 24th. I think that would be a monumental mistake.
Now, as said before by you and many more, Leopard’s secrets have yet to be revealed. Who knows what’s around the corner: Illuminous? Torrent? ZFS? Who the heck knows!?
So, for that alone it’s gotta be June. Too much testing, bug reporting, mastering and shipping to do to still hit WWDC07 for the GM release.
Jeff Ventura // March 21, 2007 at 10:23 pm
gwhiz: good insight.
I work in the software business, and I know full well these things don’t happen quickly. I can’t imagine the testing and final QA batteries that have to be undertaken for a full-blown OS.
I still think — nay, know — Jobs is going to get in front of us again and show us the *rest* of Leopard.
You’re not the first person to suggest that Leopard simply isn’t anywhere near ready in its current state.
Personally, I’m very interested to find out what we don’t know about Leopard yet — that will be the detail that fleshes out the release.
Mike // March 21, 2007 at 11:19 pm
I feel that Leopard will be released at WWDC07 for a number of reasons:
a) Apple has mentioned that Leopard would be released in the Spring, hinting at late spring. WWDC is usually in July, but this year Apple moved it up to June, just before the last day of spring (June 21).
b) It does not make sense for Apple to release Leopard ahead of WWDC, and then have a whole conference regarding Leopard after it was released already. There would be nothing for Jobs to speak about at the Keynote. In the info about WWDC on Apple’s website it is very clear that the main focus of WWDC07 is Leopard.
c) Many sites mention that Leopard will be released ahead of WWDC so developers can start using it and then ask questions at WWDC. But, developers can get the Leopard ADK already in order to test and start building their software with.
I am hoping however that I am wrong, and that Leopard will be released earlier than WWDC, but the above mentioned reasons just seem to make sense and therefore point to Leopard being released at WWDC.
Loweded Wookie // March 22, 2007 at 12:48 am
Isn’t your spring the months of March, April, May? I say your spring because here in the southern hemisphere we are in autumn.
That means that the latest it could come out for a Spring release would be May.
I also question the use of seeds as a measure of release worthiness. A seed will always be behind the current release and probably would be a couple of versions behind. Giving that Apple is very secretive I’d hardly think that the seed release would be so close to everything that Leopard would hold. Apparently there’s still unreleased feature sets so it stands to reason.
fifthdecade // March 22, 2007 at 1:27 am
No, Spring and Autumn begin on the Equinoxes, ie when night and day have the exact same length (it comes from the Latin, Equi and Nox - Equal and Night).
This happens to fall on 21st March and 21st September and with three months per season Northern hemisphere springs last from 21st March until the 21st of June.
I just hope Apple are sensible and don’t do a Vista - not the delay bit, the released too early bit is what I mean here.
mjtomlin // March 22, 2007 at 2:23 am
“I just hope Apple are sensible and don’t do a Vista - not the delay bit, the released too early bit is what I mean here”
They already did this, it was 10.0 six years ago. And then to some extent 10.1. I actually think OS X didn’t hit it’s stride until 10.2, some 18 months after the release of 10.0
Andy Piper // March 22, 2007 at 7:11 am
Heck, I’ve only just bought a Mac for the first time, and I’m already getting all caught up in the rumourmill and hype. I have to say that Spaces is going to be a great addition. Agreed with the other posters that it shouldn’t come too soon, but I do wish they’d get on and let us know when to expect it.
I note that Amazon have the Missing Manual for Leopard due in May, but I guess that’s no concrete indication.
Jeff Ventura // March 22, 2007 at 7:28 am
I suspect we’ll hear an announcement about Leopard sometime within the next two or three weeks — which will then close the open loops we have in terms of full featureset — and the Leopard hype season will truly begin.
digitallite // March 22, 2007 at 9:51 am
Probably no one at Apple would admit it but they are in pressure cooker mode right now. Stock options, iphones, retail marketing, cutting edge OS stuff and new hardware all on the front burner. Apple must deal with increasing layers of complexity and some things cannot be solved by a quick trip to the Genius Bar.
It would be a mistake to release early unless it’s pretty stable, why risk the bad press. I could even see a limited release at WWDC while they continue to squash the remaining bugs. Apple isn’t perfect but they try to be, tough job. In all fairness, the 1.0 release from Apple is pretty much using the Guy Kawasaki mantra, “ship then test”. If they roll out Leopard before June I’ll be surprised.
Brian Purkiss // March 22, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Agreed. Where is it?
All the talk about Leopard is dying down - that’s not good to get all the talk.
So where is it? Where are our jucy hints!
I want to know more about it!
*sigh* What is Jobs doing?
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