Strangely enough, the clearest heads on the internet following Apple’s announcement that it is delaying Leopard until October belonged to the investors. Apple took a very mild, almost negligible hit yesterday, which means that the news was kept in perspective, at least from the street’s standpoint.
Most everyone else, with a few exceptions, had some level of hyperventilating or speculating about what this means for Apple as a company.
It doesn’t mean anything. If there is a code in the text, it’s that we see here is the emergence of a brand-new form of OSX (and remember, OSX is the key to Apple’s future, not the iPod, not the standalone Mac, not Apple TV) which is something Apple realized long ago that it can’t do half-assed.
Microsoft half-assed its smartphone OS for quite some time, and a as a result it became almost universally hated. To this day, if you ask me, it’s improved but still very much half-assed. In fact, it more or less downright sucks, even two or three generations in.
Operating systems for mobile convergence devices are not easy.
Apple focused so intently on the iPhone because it knows that (a) a blunder with this device would be completely devastating to its future plans, and (b) this is truly the mass-market introduction of OSX. From the perspective of large economies, from the iPhone all other things OSX will flow.
The iPhone has potential to radiate the iPod’s “halo effect” a thousand times over.
Apple was candid, and I give them credit for that. They could have bullshitted everyone with some marketecture reasoning (”We’re adding even more top secret features into Leopard!”), but instead it plaintively told us that key development and QA resources we’re moved off the OS team and onto the iPhone team. They’re both OSX at their core, so the move makes sense. From where I sit, as a user and someone who understands how large-scale software development projects work, it says nothing about Apple’s (in)ability to develop more than one remarkable product at a time.
So now the silence is broken and the Mac universe can back to doing whatever it does when it’s not twittering wildly trying to decipher Apple’s intentions.
Leopard isn’t Spring 2007. It’s October.
The iPhone is still tracking to late June.
There are other things that used to be talked about before Leopard’s silence gave everyone license (yours truly included) to speculate about what was going on.
There are hardware updates. Rumors of a new iMac enclosure. The ultraportable MacBook Pro rumor. iPod WiFi. Mac mini updates. New Cinema Displays with built-in iSights, including the possibility of a 50″ model.
Most importantly, with the other shoe now having been dropped, Apple can focus in earnest on Leopard. The salmon can now swim to where they’ve been trying to go on the first place. You’ll start to hear and see more about Leopard unknown features and final designs.
Apple had been unable to give Leopard the focus it needs because they were busy making sure the iPhone, a first-generation and upstart device for a brand-new market, would succeed. Remember, Apple just can’t walk into the mobile phone market and succeed, right?
Now, the focus is slowly coming back to OSX. There’s absolutely no reason to be upset at Apple’s decision. None whatsoever.
It’s impossibly rare that the infantile groupthink and reactionary psychology that dominates investors was actually among the most measured, but it was.
It’s easy to forget that Apple is a company, not a magical entity distributing mana to its legions of adulatory faithful. A company has to make business decisions that might fly in the face of what the fanbase wants or expects, but it’s those very decisions that put Apple in such a high place to begin with.
10 responses so far ↓
brock // April 14, 2007 at 12:24 pm
On the mark.
I’ve gotta believe as well that Leopard will only benefit from all the cool stuff they are putting in the iPhone. It seems like a logical, natural and very innovative progression.
I can certainly wait.
overthinker // April 14, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I think people are understandably bemused about why Apple, as a major, successful corporation, can’t ensure it has the resources to launch the products it says it will launch. I don’t see people questioning the decision itself — no one (outside of Redmond) wants Apple to release a buggy OS — but rather they are questioning the choices that led up to this decision.
Nevertheless, it’s possible the delay is the downside to what is, overall, a good strategy: having a small, focused core group of OS engineers who can take bigger risks and work more efficiently than they would be able to in a sprawling, complicated project like, say, Windows Vista. The trouble is you can’t ask them to do too much at once.
Doug Adams // April 14, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Couldn’t agree more. My thoughts exactly.
John // April 14, 2007 at 5:28 pm
If they had decoupled iLife and iWork from Leopard and released those apps earlier this year then I think there would be less commotion. Leopard is an unknown quantity so it is hard to be too upset about not getting it for a while. Many people are currently using iLife and iWork and would have been very happy to avail themselves of new features in those apps.
Lee // April 14, 2007 at 8:14 pm
I had my wife talked into switching to a Mac in late June. I really did. Then came this big nasty OS delay story. :sigh:
So .. since June is down the tubes now, I had to talk fast. Yes I did. Therefore, I marched her right on over to our happy local Apple store today and when all was said and done … it sure enough is looking like there’s going to be a glistening new Mac Pro at our house in two weeks.
Ha!
Jeff Ventura // April 14, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Lee: good move. If you want or need a Mac now, there’s no reason not to get one. Getting a free copy of Leopard would be icing on the cake, but let’s be real: Tiger is a very mature OS and there’s zero wrong with it.
Sometimes we get lost in our desire for the latest and greatest.
Good call on getting the Mac Pro.
Алексей Носаченко // April 16, 2007 at 8:00 am
To my mind such Apple’s step is obvious and strategic. All the thing nowadays focused intently on mobile technologies. That will be good for Apple to present the best mobile phone on the market. As for Leopart, the target group is not so fickle.
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