Development of Mac OS X 10.5 is wrapping up faster than many at Apple even anticipated, and at present, a release can be expected as early as late March, sources say. Alongside the release of Version 10.5, code-named Leopard, will be new versions of Apple’s consumer software suites, iLife ’07 and iWork ’07, which saw their release date pushed back due to expanded feature sets in both the applications. In addition, sources confirm that iLife ’07 and iWork ’07 will both contain numerous features dependent on Mac OS X 10.5, but whether Apple has made the unlikely and drastic move of completely axing support for earlier operating systems is less certain.
Sadly, this will also mark the end of support for OSX 10.3, if Apple continues their history of supporting only the two most recent 0.1 OSX releases at any given time. I’m still on Panther (10.3), so I won’t be seeing any new bug fixes or security updates. (I don’t plan on updating my OSX version until getting a new Mac altogether, making the jump to intel.)
Regarding 10.5, iLife ’07, and iWork ’07, was there a public beta of these? iTunes 7 was released in a very buggy state (requiring iTunes 7.01 to be released within the first week, and it’s still buggy), partly because there was no public beta. The notion of development “wrapping up faster than many at Apple even anticipated” with no public beta is worrisome. I get the feeling that Apple believes its own press clippings that their developers are God’s gift to programming, and therefore require no public betas. Then agan, maybe they are just that good (though iTunes 7 shows otherwise).
Can I assume there was at least a private beta of some sort? I do know that Apple did do their usual developer’s preview so at least third party devs could report any bugs that they found. But I’m concerned about the level of testing that’s gone into these products.
Any word on the “super-secret features” that Jobs spoke of at the WWDC a few months ago? If they’re compelling enough I’ll go ahead and trade up to an Intel Mac; for now, I’ve been content with my 4-year old trusty PowerBook G4. It’s been very reliable, blowing away the two Dell notebooks I owned (both of which died) during the same time period. 😉 (But also more reliable than the Intel MacBooks my friends have purchased.
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Edited 2007-02-09 23:31
I tink the same, plus I have to say that 10.4 tiger is still a beta….
‘I tink the same, plus I have to say that 10.4 tiger is still a beta….’
I was thinking of modding you down, but then I just pitty you..
I don’ t have idea of what you are saying, really.
…no more so than, say Linux 2.6.0 or Windows Vista…
Remember, please, there’ll be bugs found in every piece of software, so if this is what you’re picking at, you might take time to elaborate on your exact experiences than bashing ‘Tiger’ in general as it’d add to your credibility.
i tink ur v l33t…
Maybe. The 10.3.9 update was to add binary compatibility with the fat bundles produced by XCode for Tiger.
Currently XCode lets you target 10.3.9-10.4.8 universally, (and back to 10.1 PPC only) and I think that this compatibility will still remain in Leopard; only that – just the same as Tiger – if you want to make use of the new APIs, the developers themselves will have to drop Panther.
I don’t think Apple is going to discontinue compatibility with Panther, they’ll let the developers do that.
The only public beta of Mac OS X -ever- was the…Public Beta, released September 13th, 2000, for $29.95…
Every single release following it have been results of developer testings, with Apple seeding its new builds to the Mac OS X developer community for testing, bug reports and general feedback… So there is nothing new under this sun…
Here’s hoping that we won’t have to wait until June for Leopard!
No kittens before WWDC. Leopard is the whole point of it this year.
I’d love to see Leopard released early but…
WWDC07 – June 11-15:
http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/
I’m thinking I will probably wait until Leopard has been out for 5 or 6 months before upgrading. Tiger is simply rock solid for me on both my Powermac G4 and my Intel Mini. I’ll probably wait for at least 10.5.2. While I agree that Leopard has some neat new features, upgrading right away is asking for trouble with any new OS IMHO (Linux and Windows included). As for Windows Vista, I have XP installed in Boot Camp and I boot it at most once a month, so I have no reason to waste money on Vista.
I would love to see Leopard as soon as March but I can’t imagine that happening with WWDC so close. What would they talk about there if not leopard.
I haven’t really seen anyting “major” that would make me want to move from Tiger. I am very happy with it as an OS.
I’m planning on buying a new Macbook once tax time comes around. Perhaps they’ll be shipping with Leopard by then.
The thing to look forward to is the retail versions for MacIntel. One looks forward enormously to the contortions they will be faced with as they
— try to make retail copies available, but stop them from being run on Dells
— or find and sell to the public a rationale for not making them available at retail.
It is always fun to watch intelligent people in the grip of an obsession with one particular business model trying to find their way through the real world. One suspects that EFI was only the first of many more and more baroque measures.
Edited 2007-02-10 09:25
Apple is not Microsoft.
A sold copy of OS X is a sold copy. If going to a hackintosh, that might be a loss of hardware revenue, but it’s still revenue, and it still expands the takeup of Mac software overall. Apple know that setting up a hackintosh is for experienced users only and therefore will never eat into their hardware sales quite like people think. Plus, people running hackintoshes may very likely upgrade to a real Mac when their hardware expires.
Mac OS X doesn’t have licence keys, doesn’t have activation, doesn’t have MGA (Mac Genuine Advantage). Apple do not treat their customers like theifs by default.
Kroc, they may take this line – selling at retail and making no efforts to stop it running on Dells – but consider the implications. It will be a month before recipes anyone can follow, including scripts, are posted all over the net.
Agreed with your implication, that sell it and don’t worry is the right thing to do, but do you really think they are prepared for that?
Edited 2007-02-10 11:04
I wouldn’t say a hackintosh is for advanced users anymore. This process is quite easy on compatible hardware and provides an almost perfect OS X experience.
Apples worst problem is they have a gab in their product line. They need a machine between the iMac and the Mac Pro. I’m not about to ditch my new large monitor and RAM upgrades to get an iMac, but I don’t need a 2 dual core system either!
So Apple needs to improve the hardware before worrying about the software, but I do understand the need for this from a marketing point of view due to the Vista release.
I agree with you Headrush. I am an owner of an iMac G5 now for 2 years and am saving for a replacement Mac. I regret in a way buying the iMac because it lacks upgradability and expandability internally. The space saved on the “desktop” profile is lost with having to add enclosures for a better DVD-burner and a two-drive firewire enclosure.
Apple should introduce such a system: expandable and upgradable, single CPU in a desktop case. The lack of one leaves a huge price gap in such a system between the MacPro and the iMac. They’ve paid too much attention IMO to the lower margin Mac mini, and alienated the rest of its clientele looking for the middle ground. So the hackintosh isn’t a bad idea.
I hope iWork 07 proves to be a huge improvement. Pages runs too slow on my system and doesn’t have a lot of features that Word does. It does make a nice low-cost alternative to Word. I’d like to see Pages have OpenOffice file compatability. Also looking forward to new features in 10.5…. TimeMachine especially.
Apple have yet to announce new hardware so we can hope. But remember the last time Apple introduced an in-between product? The G4 Cube. A marvelous piece of hardware, but way overpriced and beset with problems. If Apple introudce a midi tower, they’re going to have difficulty pricing it right.
Midi systems from other manufacturers are going to be around iMac prices. A Mac midi system is simply not going to be as cheap as a Dell when you factor in a better designed case, the Apple badge and Operating System, and the fact that some idiot can price all their parts seperately and proclaim cheapness that way.
If anything, an Apple midi system would only fan the flames of all the people who claim that Apple machines are overpriced when compared part for part. And with Intel chips, they shall cry “it’s just a PC”.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s in Apple’s interest to cater to a market that can’t appreciate what Apple offers. People will either stick with PCs, go for an iMac or skrimp up for a Mac Pro.
Apple are only one manufacturer of many in the computing space. They don’t _have to_ cater for everybody, like other companies try (and fail) *coughDELLcough*
Mac OS X doesn’t have licence keys, doesn’t have activation, doesn’t have MGA (Mac Genuine Advantage). Apple do not treat their customers like theifs by default.
You forgot “yet”. As long as the OS is bound to their hardware, your OS license key is effectively you Mac serial number.
But if they see an uptick in Mac Intel Leopard sales, or worse, Mac Intel Leopard becomes the BitTorrent of the Year, then it’s only a matter of time before they start enforcing their licenses through some registration mechanism.
Microsoft goes through all of those shenanigans simply because it works, and increases revenue, despite the horrid user experience it provides. If it actually cost them money, they’d rethink it, but apparently, it doesn’t. It moves up by some perecentage the amount of bought and paid for Windows licenses vs the pirated Windows licenses.
Now maybe it will backfire in Vista, but it obviously didn’t with XP, so maybe they’re actually on to something here.
A few points about the release of Leopard:
(1) Apple have form in this area; Tiger was released in April 2005, while WWDC was held in June 2005 (in fact, WWDC 2005 and WWDC 2007 are being held at nearly the same time; relatively speaking, WWDC 2005 was one week earlier than WWDC 2007 will be). Tiger was still the star attraction at that WWDC.
(2) Apple has repeatedly claimed a release in (northern hemisphere) Spring 2007. For this to be accurate, the release thus must occur between March 1st and May 31st, inclusive. So far, no official or unofficial information – from Apple, the rumour sites, or anywhere else – has indicated a slip, a possible slip, or even any doubt, about the Spring 2007 commitment.
I concede that it might be held until WWDC, but why presume so when the above gives every chance we’ll see it earlier?
Edited 2007-02-10 16:04
after slating ms about the vista not being on time, i doubt apple will release leopard in june. march / april seems about right to me.
Will Apple be brave enough to make a move and include iWorks’07 with Leopard the same way they did with iLife? I think that would be an easy to justify move, as long as iPod-iTunes gives them money enough to make this move now safely and at the same time revenues from new users and tiger updates will certantly pay the supposed lost revenue on iWorks.
Wow, people just seem to want everything for free.
Look, the point is that not only does OS X have great software, more and more of it moving toward universal binary support, but that it also has a great number of open source projects that port great software like Open Office (Neo Office) to OS X making it possible for people to actually get very high functional use out of a Mac while spending nothing, or perhaps the price of media, on software.
Pages is pretty good if you need it as an entry level page layout program, but if you can’t afford it, and iWork is not that expensive, you have free alternatives.
Apple never included iLife with Mac OS X but they included it with new machines.
Considering that they’re practically giving away full-featured applications for $79, they should be making some money from the application suite, so that they can somehow keep producing it.
Since iWork (no s) and iLife both cost $79 so far and $99 for the family pack (up to 5 computers in the same house), you’re already getting quite a bargain.
Apple still make their money on hardware, not software and most of the software prices are subsidised by the hardware. $129 is a lot of ask of users every year but considering what’s in the operating system, it’s not nearly as much as it would be sold by Microsoft.