Why Apple Delayed Leopard for the iPhone

Ernest DeFarge writes "Apple recently announced that they've pulled several key programmers from the OS X 10.5 "Leopard" and assigned them to the iPhone in order to get it done on time. In doing so, they delayed Leopard for 4 months. Does that mean that the iPhone is more important to Apple than Mac OS? Or is it just capitalizing on the current state of Apple's fanbase?"

Comments

Unfair comparison

[catxk]

I guess brand new massively hyped iPhone is more important to Apple than the difference between OS X 10.4 and 10.5 during the limited time period of the summer of 2007.

Re:Unfair comparison

[AKAImBatman]

Pretty much. This isn't "Apple Vista" we're talking about here. 10.4 is a good OS and there's no rush to upgrade. I think we'll all survive waiting for 10.5 if it means that the iPhone (something which is completely unavailable to the market) gets here faster.

From a business perspective, Apple doesn't want their major announcements overlapping. So delaying the OS by a few months means that they can provide a steady stream of announcements.

Re:Unfair comparison

[ClaraBow]

I think it means that it is more important to get a new product out the door on time and working properly than to deliver an upgrade to an already mature and polished product.

Re:Unfair comparison

[Divebus]

Since Vista has proven to be absolutely no competition to even the current OS X, what's the rush for Leopard? Get the iPhone right and they'll have a HUGE winner on their hands. A million people have already queried AT&T about the iPhone through the notification list at Cingular, so who's your daddy?

Re:Unfair comparison

[limecat4eva]

The problem with people like you is that you judge success and failure by how fucking popular they are among the market. You have your charts and your spreadsheets full of demographic numbers. This is why you will always be a follower, never a leader. Good grief. If the world were composed only of you and your ilk, life would be very fucking bleak indeed.

Why is it so hard for you linear thinkers to imagine that there exist different ways to value one's work?

Re:Unfair comparison

[HAKdragon]

Pretty much. This isn't "Apple Vista" we're talking about here. 10.4 is a good OS and there's no rush to upgrade.

There doesn't seem to be much of a rush to upgrade to Vista either.

Re:Unfair comparison

[Divebus]

What do you mean? There are probably at least 10 times as many new computers sold with Vista, as with OS X

That's down from 20 times a few years ago. Two-thirds of the people in my office drop kicked their PCs and bought Macs in the last couple of years. That's a trend I'm watching first hand. Those who still want/need a new PC are trying to figure out where to get one with XP. They don't even WANT Vista but that's what's shipping now, like it or not. I've shown a few PC users XP under Parallels and they all had that "aha" moment. More switchers, albeit AC/DC.

Re:Unfair comparison

[SuperMog2002]

Because the release of Vista hasn't really made a dent in Mac sales. Sure, Vista's sold many more copies than Mac OS X has, which everyone should have expected given the market four months ago (i.e. MS dominates and almost all new computers ship with Windows). The key is that, year over year, Apple's sales are still increasing, even though last year they didn't have to compete with Vista and this year they do. Sure, when the iPod first came out 5 years ago, maybe MP3 players were all that was keeping Apple alive. However, today Mac sales are self sustaining and rising.

In my mind, there was never much of a doubt that Vista would do well. Microsoft just had too much momentum for it to flop. What's up the air right now, especially if it takes 5 years to come out, is Windows 7. MS's momentum is decreasing, and if they don't reverse the trend, then they eventually won't have enough to get another free pass like Vista. The fact that Vista didn't slow Mac sales is bad for them. Very bad.

Re:Unfair comparison

[bgfay]

http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

Paul Graham's article "Microsoft is Dead" may be applicable here. For me, I'm no longer worried about buying another Windows machine (yes, I'm on XP right now) because I no longer use apps that are tied to Windows. In fact, as things go, I use fewer and fewer apps that aren't web based. I just don't need them any more. Beyond that, most of the apps I use have free alternatives and I use them.

The one proprietary application I still use is iTunes with my iPod. So a Mac machine might work for me next time around. I want one because they are so well designed, unlike this HP piece of junk whose battery doesn't make it an hour, and because friends and family have all had very good experiences.

Then again, I might just throw the whole lot out and buy something cheap and put Ubuntu on it.

Whatever the case, there's more to the equation than Bill Gates's relative worth.

Re:Unfair comparison

[2nd Post!]

Think about it.

There are 18 times as many PCs as Macs
Sales of Vista rank only 10 times as much as sales of OS X

Re:Unfair comparison

[313373_bot]

The comparison is somewhat apt, in my opinion:

10.4 is a good OS and there's no rush to upgrade

XP is a good (enough) OS and there's no rush to upgrade

I believe MS failed its costumers by delaying Vista not because of the delay itself (it would be acceptable if they did ship all the new technology that was promised, not just the eye candy), but because the lateness seems due to incompetence and the inclusion of all sort of technology worthless to the end-user (read anti-consumer drm.)

Now let's look at Apple: if 10.5 does ship with new features that really benefit the end-user, all is well and they are forgiven. But if it is late because of the iPhone, and the iPhone turns out not to be a truly revolutionary product for the consumer, then they are no better than MS.

Re:Unfair comparison

[juiceCake]

Pretty much. This isn't "Apple Vista" we're talking about here.

Quite right. Copland/Rhapsody was Apple's Vista.

Re:Unfair comparison

[hedwards]

The rush for Leopard is based primarily upon the fact that it will make Apple far more money than the iPhone can ever hope to bring in.

I know I will probably get modded down for saying this, but I have kharma to burn. Steve Jobs is not god and he seriously botched the announcement of the iPhone in several different and innovative ways.

1) He announced a new product well in advance of actually shipping it.
2) Apple is entering a market place that is extremely competitive with a product which is a multiple of the cost of the competition. Which isn't even technologically competitive.
3) Nearly all of the technology is focused on being cute and pretty. The phone as announced lacks a good number of the features that the majority of phone users use. Contrast that to the iPod.
4) With the price tag the way it is and Apple not already being a major player in the Cellphone market, the likelihood of them actually selling enough phones to make this more than an extravagant affront to their shareholders is practically nill.

Contrast that to Leopard which is pretty much guaranteed to make Apple a significant amount of money. Seems to me like this has so far been pretty much a mistake. Even MS has had the sense to just try and get their OS into the phones. Maybe if they get a significant number of phones with the OS on it they will try to do a phone, but not likely.

Re:Unfair comparison

[A Friendly Troll]

Two-thirds of the people in my office drop kicked their PCs and bought Macs in the last couple of years. That's a trend I'm watching first hand.

I take it you're living in the USA, right? While I don't in any way want to oppose your opinion, as I do believe that the trend you're watching is very much real, you have to think outside the box a little.

I live in a small and rather undeveloped country (but it's getting better); last week was the first time I have ever (!) seen a Mac. It was an iMac running Windows; the guy, an English person, bought it solely for the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor). Also, none of the people I know own any Apple products whatsoever. I've never seen somebody with an iPod -- hell, I've never *seen* an iPod. Not even a Shuffle.

What you are observing is probably very specific to your country. I might be wrong, but I will reserve my doubts about Apple products gaining popularity in the world in general. There is still a vast European and Asian market. It's likely that Apple is doing well in some western-European countries, but that's _still_ a small market when the whole world is taken into account.

That said, what *I* am seeing where I live is a trend of switching to Linux, and judging by a whole lot of reports from all around the world, *that* is the real revolution that is happening. I am still on XP, but there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that my next OS is going to be Linux-based, no matter what it takes.

Re:Unfair comparison

[Jesus_666]

As for Germany, the GP's observation applies. Apple is luring in people from both the Windows and Linux camps (I should know, having gone from a Linux/Mac configuration to being a pure Mac user - even though the Linux machine's hardware going haywire is a major factor in that). While people are starting to become aware of Linux, Apple's mindshare is much bigger and thus Apple receives more switchers.

People know that Apple is cool. People know that Apple creates sleek Hardware and the ones that have taken a closer look also know that their software is much more polished than anything Microsoft has delivered ever since 1995 (grated, ever since 1995 Windows has the ongoing image of being unpolished, even among those who don't know any alternatives). Linux still has the "for geeks" image, but Apple is really starting to get attention.

Re:Unfair comparison

[slycrel]

I've got to disagree here, as much as I hate to do so.

It's the same idea as the mac really -- it will be more expensive for a "quality" product. Even if you have only 1-2% of the market, if your markup is correct and your demographics are right, that's all you need to make boatloads of cash.

Their current machines will continue to work just fine with MacOS 10.4 and 4 months of delay won't matter much as long as they continue to be aggressive with their hardware upgrades.

I was sure looking forward to the new xcode tools here soon though. :/

Re:Unfair comparison

[moosesocks]

Nah. Xenix would be a more apt comparison to Copland/Rhapsody. (Although you could also equate Xenix back to A/UX -- another one of Apple's aborted OS ideas).

The problem with Vista is that it was so hideously behind schedule that the all features that made it worth upgrading were torn out to get the thing actually shipped. MS needed to make the deadline, because XP's teetering dangerously close to its end-of-life. (Official EOL is next January, with mainstream support continuing until 2009), and Win2k had already reached its EOL. Unfortunately, in the end, MS managed to produce a product less desirable than Win2k (which was a legitimately good operating system that MS really should have continued to support).

Apple's business model does not depend heavily upon shipping OS updates with any specific frequency, although they do do it considerably more often than Microsoft does. Thus, they can deliver updates "as needed". Instead of ripping out features to meet an arbitrary deadline, Apple can actually complete the features or retool the OS so they don't release something that's incomplete (Vista) or completely unusable (Windows Me!). And I don't think I need to remind any IT Pros of the horrors of Me!

What can wait?

[Scrameustache]

Cell phone buyers, or releasing the preview to Microsoft's next OS features?

...and you know the end product never lives up to the previews ;-)

Re:What can wait?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

I don't know about you, but Windows Vista certainly lived up to my expectations. It might even have surpassed them by a little.

BTW, don't take this to mean I'd ever be willing to come within 5km of a computer running it though.

Rumor has it

[falcon5768]

That Apple wasnt delaying to for the iPhone more than they are delaying it for some secret additions to the codebase and the testing involved for it that we will get a hint of come WWDC.

They're playing the hype

[oskard]

I don't know what Leopard is. I know what an iPhone is. You know why?

Because the iPhone is on the news, tv, radio; everyone is talking about it. It is absolutely more important than OSX at the moment. The iPhone could potentially be Apple's new iPod.

Re:They're playing the hype

[LarsG]

..or the new Newton. Time will tell.

iPhone, OS X, what's the difference?

[limecat4eva]

Let's not forget that many OS features on which the iPhone depends are practically guaranteed to make an appearance on the desktop version of OS X, whether that happens in Leopard or the next version after. Things like resolution independence, multitouch, smooth scrolling, Core Animation.

On a related note, I can't wait until OS X and apps begin expecting high-res displays and multitouch input, making the marriage of OS to hardware ever more obvious even to the squarest of squares. Finally that ought to silence the clueless pundits who still try to peg Apple as either a hardware or a software company.

Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean that the iPhone is more important to Apple than Mac OS?

Did nobody else notice that when Jobs announced the iPhone, he also renamed the company to take the word "Computer" out of it?

That sounds kind of, well, I dunno, strategic to me.

A bit too much drama

[kzg]

Its been delayed only 4 months, I don't know what all the drama is for. In fact, this extra development time is going to be very beneficial, because they are going to release a full beta at WWDC for developers.

Re:iPhone?

[anti-human 1]

I dunno, I think its made by Cisco though...

I Think Their Excuse is Lame

[Black-Man]

Pulling QA and Software Engineers off the Leopard project onto iPhone?? I don't care if its the "same" OS, i.e. iPhone using the mobile version of OSX. Adding developers and QA towards the end of a project lifecycle usually means disaster. I'm curious to see if they pull it off.

Re:I Think Their Excuse is Lame

[ZachPruckowski]

How do you know it happened just now. It could have happened 3 months ago, and they're just telling us now. For all we know, those programmers could have been reassigned last year (in like Oct) and are now heading back to Leopard (which is why we now have a time estimate on release)

Re:So Ignorant.

[Mr Chund Man]

I'm not trolling, but i'd genuinely be interested in a brief summary or some references for this statement.

Indeed...

[someone300]

What's up with these binary comparisons? Just because OS X 10.5 was delayed a few months for the iPhone doesn't mean anything to do with OS X being unimportant. The iPhone runs OS X; it must be important.

Most users are happy with 10.4 and 10.5 is more of a luxury than a necessity. All this means is that 10.4 is sufficient that the general Apple buyer isn't screaming for OS improvements, but that the market may indeed be screaming for a decent mobile phone, like they were screaming for a decent MP3 player around when the iPod gained in popularity.

Anyway, a lot of the funds and improvements from the potential success from the iPhone will probably be funneled back into OS X and the Mac hardware. Haven't some of the improvements in 10.5, like Core Animation, been brought about due to the iPhone already?

Re:Indeed...

[Scudsucker]

Taco? Is that you? How much space do you have left on that Nomad these days?

don't be so gullible

[nanosquid]

You can't conclude from a press release what the real reason for the delay is. Leopard may be delayed because of the iPhone, or it may be delayed because it's still buggy, or maybe Apple is still trying to file some last minute patents, or maybe it's something completely different.

Quite obvious...

[Kjella]

..it's a matter of which one they can't afford to fail with. I saw a *lot* of mainstream press on the AppleTV, simply because it was Apple. The reviews weren't that great though, and they really can't afford the iPhone to be a flop - they'll go from being the iPod king to so-so producer of stylish consumer electronics. That is far more important to them than missing an OS upgrade (how long was Vista delayed again? Debian etch? It's not like Apple is the bad apple here.

It's no longer the "Apple Computer Company" is it.

[HerculesMO]

It's the iTunes company.

AppleTV, iPod, iPhone, Airport, etc.... all complements to iTunes.

Re:Release early, release often

[owlnation]

I think Apple has no need to aim lower. 10.4 is already better than Vista. There's no pressure on them to rush anything.

Apple makes more money on hardware sales than it does with software. Thus, it makes sense that the iPhone is a priority (if that is actually the case). Apple got a big hardware sales boost with switching to Intel. However many Mac users, such as myself, haven't upgraded to Intel machines because of the delay with Adobe CS3.

Leopard is icing on the cake, and I'm sure it's going to be great, but CS3 is going to sell many more new Macs than Leopard.

Re:Occam's razor

[rbanffy]

Unixes, in general, are very flexible OSs.

If a Motorola phone can run Linux, most certainly an iPhone can run Darwin.

Even if it doesn't - and Apple goes a different route with the kernel - they still have the BSD layer and most of their userland stuff remains relatively portable as soon as you port the *Kit stuff.

As for the eye candy, it's easy to do decent 2D acceleration even on a low-power device.

I say they are still looking good on the iPhone front.

They've BEEN doing that!

[phillymjs]

Have you been in a cave on the dark side of the moon since 2000?

During the last five years, Apple released major versions of OS X about every 1-1.5 years while all Microsoft had was XP. Third party developers were actually complaining because of the rapid pace of change of OS X. Before Tiger was released, Apple announced they would be slowing down the pace of their OS X releases.

I'm disappointed that I have to wait longer than expected for Leopard, but I'd rather they ship it when it's ready-- besides, it's not like they had to scrap it midstream and start over, and then chop all the compelling features to make an already embarassingly late ship date.

  It does make sense to focus on the iPhone right now, because the mobile phone market is much larger than the personal computer market. If Apple gets a nice foothold in it, it will mean more money for them to pour into expanding their presence in the computer market.

~Philly

Re:They've BEEN doing that!

[Scudsucker]

Following the same logic

You aren't following the same logic, you are comparing Apples to oranges. 2000, XP and Vista are marketing names. 2000 was Windows NT 5.0, XP was Windows NT 5.1. Windows service packs are point releases.

Sorry, I'd say it's more than Apple's point releases.

Sure, there might be more changes in a service pack than one of Apple's point releases, but Apple has a lot more of them. And each 10.x release has *far* more features than moving from Win95 to Win98 or 2000 to XP.

Re:They've BEEN doing that!

[Smurf]

You are not getting it. "Mac OS X" is just a marketing name, just as "Microsoft Windows" or "Microsoft Windows Vista" is. When looking for a final name for Rhapsody, Apple realized that in order to avoid alienating the (classic) Mac OS users it was a good idea to give a similar name to the new operating system (just like Windows NT vs old Windows). And since the next mayor version was 10, they decided to call the new OS "Mac OS X", with the X in Roman to differentiate it.

Well, Jobs and his cronies found out that they really liked the big X, and quite frankly XI isn't that appealing, so they decided to name subsequent major versions as 10.2, 10.3, etc. Some day that will wear off, but meanwhile marketing-wise it's working. Minor (point) versions, the equivalent of a less-juicy but more-frequent Windows Service Pack, are named 10.x.y.

The best way to get your mind untangled is to look at Darwin, the underlying OS. It started with a major screw-up with the version numbers, but then Apple recognized that:
1) Darwin/Mac OS X is more a descendant of NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP than of MacOS.
2) Puma (10.1) was more like a huge service pack for Cheetah (10.0). That's not true for the subsequent cats.

Thus, they revised the numbering so that Darwin would fit in the NeXTSTEP lineage. The Darwin versions and the corresponding Mac OS X versions can be found here. Now you see that Jaguar, Panther and Tiger are all major versions.

(For another famous mash-up of version numbers, look at SunOS vs Solaris and the jump of Solaris 2.6 to Solaris 7.)

So, assuming that we can make a similar argument for Windows NT 5.1 (aka "XP"), since the year 2000 Microsoft has released:
Windows 2000 and 2000 Server (NT 5.0)
(Windows ME doesn't count, since it was not an NT).
Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (NT 5.1 & 5.2)
Windows Vista (NT 6.0) (Longhorn Server may be released this year, or more likely next).

And Apple has released:
Cheetah + Server (I'm not counting Puma, which was anyway a free upgrade) (Darwin (screwedup-number)-5.x)
Jaguar + Server (Darwin 6.x)
Panther + Server (Darwin 7.x)
Tiger + Server (Darwin 8.x)
Leopard (+ Server) on October. (Darwin 9.x)

If you want to count all the service packs, MS made around 12 major+minor releases, Apple almost 40. But that's not very significant, since Microsoft packs more into each service pack than Apple does, and that's OK. Only major releases matter.

Re:Not to be trite, but...

[admactanium]

That would have easily passed any decent spell checker. What you're probably thinking of is a grammar chacker, none of which are or have ever been very good.

which is why i said "beyond the obligatory spell checker" implying that simply running a spellchecker is not the same thing as proofing an article.

Re:This piece doesn't make much sense....

[tverbeek]

You're spot on. As a college tech geek, I'm greatly annoyed that Leopard won't be out this summer; I was really looking forward to some of the new features for the Fall semester (release-quality Boot Camp would be a god-send), as well as hoping to get it pre-installed (not an after-market upgrade) on hundreds of new computers being purchased by our students in July/August. An iPhone isn't even on my Xmas wish list, and I resent it a bit for stealing resources from Leopard. However, I agree that Apple's decision to put Leopard on the back burner to enable them to calmly place a bug-free iPhone into the sweaty hands of its target customers on time, makes perfect sense from a business standpoint.

Microsoft's MBU: The Mac's Fifth Column

[Anonymous Coward]

Your anecdote is a perfect example of why I think the Mac community has been compromised by using Office X, and other products from Microsoft's Mac Business Unit. As I have mentioned here before, I do not trust PC-type people. They do not think like us. They are not like us. They are as close to "alien life forms" as we can get without having to leave this planet.

Seriously, they do not share our values. They hate that we have good taste. They like to keep their windows maximized and their ligatures uncombined. They think gray is a color. Hell, most of them are perfect little squares in perfectly square holes and if you go to PC strongholds like Staten Island you'll see most of the media they consume is produced by Mac users, as the Windows demographic is incapable of creativity in music, the arts, interior design, etc.

They are backwards. They live in the 1980s. They've contributed nothing meaningful to humanity for decades and decades. While we different thinkers are out writing AppleScripts, making HyperCard stacks, mixing in Logic Pro, editing collaboratively in SubEthaEdit, proofing rainbow banners in Illustrator, creating wealth through a variety of postmodern/postindustrial models and winning Nobels and Pulitzers and Grammys and Tonys and Oscars and Pritzkers along the way, the PC users are sitting on their asses downloading the fruits of our labor (how else do you explain so many being able to reference Futurama, bash the New Yorker, etc.?) The only thing they have in their favor is old, fat, white-bread bankrolls accumulated on slavery and imperialism and, personally, I wish their inherited wealth would run dry. Sure, we'd have a hell of a headache funding our next indie production, but so would the whole world, and when faced with adversity the ingenuity of Mac users truly comes to the fore.

Anyway, back on point. Why don't I trust the Mac Business Unit?

Because to have PC-type people writing software to help us finance our projects, communicate with our studios, write our manifestoes and organize our political protests, is a disaster waiting to happen.

Whereas we may allow products from other dull, dogma-bound companies into our /Applications folder, none of them pledge allegiance to a corporate master churning out horrifying simulacra of Mac users' innovations. On top of that, given that they are run by Windows users, how easy would it be for one of them to allow a "friend" to dummy up a Trojan, have another "friend" port it to the Mac, and then allow another "friend" to unleash a remote controlled hell on our private Bonjour-configured LANs? After all, they are "blood", right?

Which leads me to how some in our own community—i.e., YOU —are encouraging PC-type people to switch to the Mac.

If you go back and do some checking of stories, you will see that in most cases where lifelong Windows users suddenly buy Macs, or people who are Linux to the core suddenly pirate Intel OS X from the internet, it is almost all done in cahoots with another recent switcheur (read: poseur) on the "inside" or one that "knows" someone on the inside.

So if we have these so-called "switchers" from Linux and Windows in the Mac community, facilitating crass, classless ass-pickery on our platform by encouraging more PC-type people to switch, just how far a stretch is it to say the PC users in charge of the MBU won't do the same when it comes to our applications? HMMMMM?!?!?!

Captivated market

[Gary W. Longsine]

Given the Apple emphasis on support for open standards (such as a standards-compliant web browser and email client) and the UNIX base of Mac OS X, I'd say Apple users are relatively much less locked in than Windows users.

Apple users are certainly no more locked in than users of any other platform. The average useful life of a general purpose personal computer has been two to four years, depending largely on individual use case. If you don't like being locked in to Windows, buy a Mac the next time you need a new system. Same works in reverse.

Re:Captivated market

[ClosedSource]

I don't see how the Unix base has anything to do with it. Which Unix systems can run typical OS X apps?

Re:Captivated market

[Gr8Apes]

I don't see how the Unix base has anything to do with it. Which Unix systems can run typical OS X apps? You can run *nix apps on OSX. No one claimed that OSX specific apps could be run elsewhere. That'd be like complaining about windows apps not running on *nix.

Re:Captivated market

[ozamosi]

Oh, but people do (you've never heard the "I want my pirated Photoshop and my games to run on Linux!"-crowd?), and many apps do run just fine.

Re:Captive market

[Anonymous Coward]

"Service Packs" for OS X are free. Minor revisions are not; however the same can be said about Windows (2000 is NT 5, XP is NT 5.1).

Re:This piece doesn't make much sense....

[linguae]

Well, this announcement illustrates the difference between Apple fans and Mac fans. Apple fans like the decision because they feel that the iPhone would be a great product. The Apple fans are the ones saying that the delay of the OS is fine; OS X 10.4 is good enough for them. Apple fans like the idea of Apple becoming a consumer electronics company. Mac fans, on the other hand, don't really care about the iPhone. They feel that this decision is a slap in the face to Apple's loyal Mac customers, who want to prioritize a new phone over their long-standing product with millions of users. They'd rather see better Macs and improvements to OS X than to see a phone. Mac fans are worried that the Mac would be marginalized as Apple chases profits from MP3 players, phones, media center boxes, and other consumer electronics.

I fall in the Mac fan category. Personally, I'm starting to get worried about Apple's change from Apple Computer, Inc. to just Apple, Inc. At MacWorld 2007, not a single Mac product was announced. The only hardware update that we've received in five months was the updated Mac Pros that came out recently. Now OS X is delayed to work on a phone. I, and many other Mac users who have switched away from Linux, BSD, and other Unices, are not interested in Apple because of their phones, media centers, or MP3 players. We're interested in Apple because of their easy to use Unix with commercial software support and easy to use GUI applications. I hope the Mac doesn't become marginalized, but I already feel that it has by Apple's actions this year.

I'll just have to wait and see. But for now, although I like my MacBook, I'll be very careful to not be locked-in. Just as I switched to the Mac last summer from Windows XP and FreeBSD, I will switch back if I discover that Apple doesn't care about us.

Watch out for the iphone

[loftling]

My personal theory is that Apple is hiding a big iphone feature. They announced it in January because they had to for FCC filings, they showed us a bunch of the features to get people excited, but there's going to be something more that justifies the price and their entry into the market.

Re:Captive market

[gEvil (beta)]

Either way, everybody using a Mac has to buy it and will buy it.

Yeah, I know they've FORCED me to buy the upgrades several times now. Damn I wish I still had freewill...

Re:Captive market

[DogDude]

Sure you can, if you want to throw money down the toilet. The only reason for paying the premium for an Apple box is an OS. If you don't want OSX, you'd have to be an idiot to buy an Apple, quite honestly. That's like buying a Porsche, and putting a Toyota 4 cylinder engine in it.

Re:Occam's razor

[TheRaven64]

OS X version -1 was OPENSTEP 4.2. It ran on a 33MHz Motorola 68040 with 12MB of RAM, and drove a 1120x832 display with 4K colours. My current mobile has much higher specs than this (with the exception of screen size, which is smaller, and thus easier), is over a year old, and was cheap when I got it. Running OS X on an iPhone will not be a problem.

Re:Captive market

[Gr8Apes]

Interesting that most Apple software continues to work for years. I don't recall anyone having to upgrade to 10.4 or 10.3. You might have wanted to, since the OS got leaner and faster and offered some serious new benies, quite unlike, say, the XP -> Vista "upgrade".

However, unlike Mac upgrades, the Vista/Office upgrade is designed to force an upgrade cycle, by that wonderful "incompatible" format structure. What do you get for your upgrade dollar? A more unstable system with a new UI to learn and ever adoring love from everyone you exchange files with who now have to upgrade to read them.

Lastly, about lock in: You've never run an apple. You're anything but locked in. Apple is hardware with some software provided. It's damn good hardware, and if you really want, you can even run MS software on it, along with various other flavors of *nix, and even OS/2 if you're really into convoluted configurations.

Re:Ohhh for [whatever's] sake ...

[Ash-Fox]

Unlike certain fanboys of another-not-to-be-named-OS who waited through intermediate releases (XP, XPsp2) for over 5 years - wait, what? 7?), I think I can handle 3 months.

Heh, well, I'm going to count how many "intermediate releases" Windows OS releases I've had since 2000.

Win2k SP1, WinXP, Win2k SP2, WinXP sp1, Win2k SP3, Win2k3, WinXP SP2, Win2k3 sp1, Win2k SP3, win2k3 sp2, WinVista etc.

Every year, I've definitely played with new 'intermediate' Windows OS versions.

Who is being held captive?

[Infonaut]

You can not install the update and deal with new apps not working with your Mac, or you can install Windows or Linux on your Mac, wasting the premium you paid for the box.

You're making the usual Apples v. Oranges mistake. Just as nobody would compare a $500 Windows machine with a $2,000 Windows machine, it is foolish to compare bargain basement PCs with Macs. If you want to compare quality hardware with quality hardware, compare $2,000 machines. You spend $2,000 each on three different laptops. Here are the three scenarios:

On your Mac, if you can not install the update and deal with new apps not working with your Mac, you CAN install Windows or you CAN install Linux on your Mac.

On your Windows machine, Microsoft comes out with an upgrade. You cannot install the update and deal with new apps not working with your Windows computer. You CAN install Linux on your machine. You CANNOT install Macintosh on your machine.

On your Linux machine, the latest and greatest Linux distro arrives. You cannot install the update and deal with new apps working sluggishly or not working at all on your computer because of processor speed, graphics card limitations, or limited disk space. You CAN install Windows on your machine. You CANNOT install Macintosh on your machine.

So the Macintosh hardware gives you three OS choices. The other two only give you two OS choices each. I fail to see how the Apple hardware locks you in more than PC hardware.

Re:Who is being held captive?

[NJ Hewitt]

OSx86 project

Re:Who is being held captive?

[macmastery]

True, but all currently-shipping Macs are Intel Macs.

Re:Apple's Current Priorities

[2nd Post!]

Does it not occur to you that both the AppleTV and the iPhone are computers?

Albeit smaller, more usable, and more affordable than the traditional Mac?

Re:Captive market

[MrNormS]

Linux users are 100% locked into what? Most Linux software is open-source and will compile on other *nix operating systems. A smaller percentage of that software has a win32 or Mac version or fork. The proprietary software for Linux (Flash, hardware drivers, I almost said Java, etc.) was Windows or Mac software originally. Much Linux software can be compiled for other architectures too... so I'm not even locked into using an x86... I could switch to an PowerPC if I wanted, and could find a decent PPC-based laptop. Put all that together and I could by a PowerPC-based machine, put FreeBSD on it and STILL keep using almost all the software I use. Obviously this isn't true for every Linux user, but I think I just smashed your 100% idea. Find a Windows or Mac user that can tout that and call me.

Re:Captive market

[that this is not und]

No, it's like buying a Buick and not bringing it every weekend to the carwash.

All the 'Apple' automobile analogies are ridiculous. The only way that I can agree with them is that arrogant effete assholes *do* buy BMWs.

Re:Not locked in, locked OUT

[LKM]

What you're complaining about is being locked out, not being locked in. How does your problem affect Mac users?

Re:Not locked in, locked OUT

[bberens]

There's not a lack of choices for the consumer. I can run any of a number of Fedora Core, Ubuntu, Solaris x86, FreeBSD, Windows XP, Windows 2000, DOS, Debian, and dozens upon dozens of other operating systems on my machine. The fact that I can't run one in particular doesn't indicate to me that I have a lack of choices. It means one provider of operating systems chooses not to target me as a potential customer. It happens all the time.

Re:Not locked in, locked OUT

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't Apple's customer. Apple is a HARDWARE company that sells integrated solutions.

Get over it. You want OS X, buy a Mac. Otherwise stick with Windows, *Nix, or write your own OS.

If Apple tried the business model of selling people like you copies of OS X, they would go out of business. Their hardware sales subsidize software development. No hardware revenue, no development expense. If they priced it to actually recover the "hardwareless" cost, you wouldn't be willing to pay and lots of your unwashed buddies would simply pirate OS X.

Let me repeat for emphasis- YOU ARE NOT APPLE'S CUSTOMER. Buy a Mac, then you can bitch about wanting something different. Hell, write a letter to Steve Jobs complaining that Apple doesn't make the right box for your needs. At least then you've done something constructive about your problem.

Re:Apple's Current Priorities

[that this is not und]

Sure. And the control panel on my Microwave oven is a computer, too. So is my mouse (it has a processor in it).

System Restore isn't equivalent to Time Machine

[Gary W. Longsine]

Time Machine solves a different problem than Windows System Restore. Time Machine is a backup system designed to make it so easy for ordinary users to back up and restore data that they actually do it. It can back up over the network or to a secondary hard disk (FireWire, USB, internal, Airport Disk). It allows restore of individual files.

Time Machine
Leopard Technology Series for Developers
Time Machine

Although System Restore on Windows is a useful concept on Windows, it's not designed as a backup system for user data.

Windows System Recover
What is restored and what isn't?
System Restore FAQ: What files are monitored by System Restore?

Finally, System Restore solves a problem that to a large degree doesn't exist on Mac OS X (which has less of a tendency to randomly degrade into an un-usable or non-startable state due to regular activity like software installation and removal) and even if a system is rendered non-bootable, the Mac OS X installer allows easy restore of the system without losing user data.

relevancy

[Gary W. Longsine]

No, it would also be relevant if UNIX applications could run on Mac OS X, or if Mac OS X applications interoperated seamlessly with UNIX servers, both of which are true. Thus my comment.

Re:Not locked in, locked OUT

[Mattintosh]

This is not an example of "giving the customer what they want".

No, it's an example of you're not the customer. You haven't purchased a computer from them, so you're not a customer. Period. Whine and gripe about it all you want, but if you want Mac OS X, you must become Apple's customer, and that pretty much requires a hardware purchase.

Try thinking of it like this: Apple sells computers. Mac OS X is a pack-in (and really, it's optional, you can install Linux or Windows if you want). You don't get the "free" copy of Mac OS X and a fully supported installation without buying hardware. You could just buy the boxed version of Mac OS X (well, once 10.5 is out, anyway) and install it on your existing hardware, but it's unsupported. And don't bother with the tired "it's not allowed by the EULA" argument, since that hasn't ever stopped anyone before and it probably isn't even legally enforceable, much less enforceable in a practical sense.

So don't use Apple computers. It is, as you stated, your choice. But know that by not using them, you aren't a customer, and aren't entitled to be treated like one.

Re:Not locked in, locked OUT

[enrgeeman]

his problem affects mac users in that they have to read that shit.

ignore the hype

[FFFish]

There's a single OS X development team. OS X is running on Mac, AppleTV, iPhone, and god knows what other products Apple has in the development stream. The team is going to focus on numerous facets of the OS; currently, they're focused more on the iPhone drivers & UI et al. All of which is going to pay off for us Mac users.

My bet is that the big OS X secret is going to have something to do with new ways of interacting with the computer, using technologies developed expressly for the iPhone initially. All Apple products are high-touch/interactive; the iPhone is *especially* so. The computer and TV platforms can only benefit by that.

These are very exciting times in the OS world. We are *finally* beginning to get an OS that really lives up to everything an OS should be: stable, secure, great UI, intuitive, pleasant.

Re:ignore the hype

[gig]

My bet for top secret feature is new Macs with Leopard and multi-touch screens to go with their new zoomable interfaces.

If you have ever seen Apple Logic it is crying out for a touch screen. Acres of on screen knobs, sliders, buttons, switches. It is not the same UI as 1984. A multi-touch Mac would be very hip with DJ's and it is something that other PC makers can't match because Windows development is going nowhere.

> These are very exciting times in the OS world. We are *finally* beginning to get an OS that really lives up to everything
> an OS should be: stable, secure, great UI, intuitive, pleasant.

And ships working and tested inside hardware instead of on a $400 optical disc.

Wrong Assumption

[ChrisA90278]

All the talk about Apple delaying Leopard because of the iPhone assume The Apple statement was telling the truth. My bet is that the real reason for the delay is bugs in Leopard that are taking longer than expected to kill. Notice that all of the developer releases of Leopard have a long list of known issues. Apple needs time to work these off and of course any big company loads people between departments. But Apple can't say publically "Leopard is broken and it will take us until October to fix it/" That simply sounds bad.

Re:Captive market

[Firehed]

I've also got a 15" MBP. And honestly, the thing I like the least about it is the hardware.

Magnetic power cord: this should have been standard on all laptops a decade ago (my understanding is that that things like many cooking appliances have this). Preferably a unified connector, but that would be too much to hope for. So, a point for that.

Webcam: like you said, many laptops have it. It was fun for about a day with Photo Booth, but I haven't really used it since. Maybe if more people had one I would, but my upload bandwidth tends to be too low for video chats plenty of time, and in any case, I'm perfectly content with audio or just text.

Widescreen: well, it's 1440x900 (not 960), but it is nice. The backlight bleed is abysmal on it though, and mine seems to have dust under the screen now. How it happened escapes me, but I don't seem to remember it being there before AppleCare dealt with it. And by some laptop standards, that's fairly low-res. I know I've heard of 17" screens at 1920x1200 (same as my 24" Dell screen, and Apple's own 23"), and I could swear some 15" screens are there too. It being just right for 2x upscaling of DVDs is nice, though.

x1600: for what I (and most people) do, it just shortens battery life and adds more heat. As if it wasn't hot enough already. Macs aren't exactly famed for their game selection, and I've yet to find any real evidence of any other apps I use benefiting from a standalone GPU. I could be wrong, but subjective testing hasn't shown me any improvement over the GMA950 in MacBooks and my thinkpad.

SMS on hard drive: pretty common now. I know the thinkpad I'm typing on right now has one.

So, yeah, about my thinkpad. It's running OSx86. It's a bit quirky, but it keeps me away from Windows, so I'm happy enough. I've lost audio, WiFi, and the battery indicator, but it otherwise works surprisingly well. It runs Aperture fine, as well as Parallels for those rare occasions, iTunes (just for syncing my iPod, since I've got no sound), and Disco has no problems with its funny smoke thing.

And, you know what? By and large, I prefer it to the MBP. It gets better battery life. It runs MUCH cooler (I've got it on bare skin right now and it's barely warm; I'd actually be concerned about my skin melting if I were doing this with my MBP). When the fan comes on, less frequently, it's typically quieter. It has a right mouse button, which works a lot more consistently than the two-finger tap on the trackpad. It has home/end/delete/pgup/pgdn keys on the keyboard, that don't require a function key to use (and Fn+PgUp illuminates an LED for night typing, though it's not as cool as the backlit keyboard). But, I'd say the most important thing is the physical enclosure: it's more durable (it won't dent), and doesn't have a SQUARE edge where your wrists rest!

So, let's talk price. It looks like this thing, a Thinkpad T60 with 1GB RAM, DVD/CDRW, and a 60GB hard drive retails for about $1100. Same as an entry-level MacBook, which comes with a borderline-useless 512MB of RAM. From using my brother's MacBook for a short while, the battery life is comparable and the MB has a nicer screen, but the vanilla MBs also have that stupid sharp wrist rest, no keyboard illumination of any form, and requires an extra adapter to use an external display (the T60, and most other laptops out there, have a standard VGA port not requiring you to spend more money). While I seem to remember the heat being considerably more bearable, the MacBook was still quite a bit hotter than this thinkpad. For the record, both my Thinkpad and my MBP use a Core Duo 1.86GHz chip, and the MB has a 2.0GHz C2D.

I'll give you the two-finger scrolling. It doesn't work with OSx86, at least. But in Windows, I can set up hot zones on the touchpad that serve the same purpose, plus hot corner tapping to launch apps or use as back/forward. Doesn't compare to Quicksilver by a longshot, but I'd love to see the hot corners for page or tab navigation.

Apple hard

Re:Not locked in, locked OUT

[gig]

> I've got a great new Core 2 duo machine, and I've spent a lot of time and money creating a quiet cooling system
> for it because I use the computer for music production.

> I'd like Apple to sell me a version of OSX that I could run on this new machine, too, but they've decided that I can't use
> their OS unless I pay a premium for their hardware (which is basically either the same or inferior to what I've got).

You spent a lot of time and money creating a quiet and cool machine for music production, yet you are not willing to pay Apple any kind of premium to make you a quiet and cool machine for music production? Apple has specifically made "quiet" a feature since the 1980's. They put time and effort into that whereas others don't and then you have to.

In addition to making your machine quiet and cool, Apple will also include a complete multichannel digital audio subsystem with plug-in format and 32-bit 192 kHz support, it is a whole digital mixer in there. It takes me about 20 minutes to install MOTU drivers on a Mac and hook up through USB and FireWire and in no time I'm running Logic Pro and Ableton Live side-by-side and it all just works. It would be worth paying a premium for, but you don't because it is all the same Intel hardware. The software is essentially free.

> This is not an example of "giving the customer what they want".

In this you are 100% correct because you are not one of their customers. You bought a Windows PC.

> Free markets are supposed to be about choices. It's the lack of choices that has kept me from switching to Vista. After careful
> consideration, and despite the fact that I admire much about OSX, I choose not to use Macs because I don't want to be limited
> in such a way.

You bought a Windows PC with version 5.1 of the OS ... Vista is version 6.0. You don't have a choice not to use it. You have to change to another computing platform to avoid Vista.

Complaining that you would rather run the PS3 operating system or the Mac operating system or the iPod operating system on your Windows computer is pointless.

Earlier you blamed Apple for "deciding" that in order to use their OS you have to buy their PC. It is you who decided to buy a commodity PC. It is you who is to blame for the fact that your operating system choices are limited to commodity operating systems. Apple is not the only company to build specific OS for specific hardware, in fact, this is the typical method. The only company that does it the OTHER way is PART of Microsoft. It is not even all of Microsoft, because with XBox and Zune they are using the typical method same as Apple and Sony.

> I'm less certain of the long-term viability of the Macintosh platform now than I've been at any time since 1998.

Apple is selling more Macs now than ever. You buy a really good computer and it comes with tons of world-class software, and if you have other uses for it you can run Windows or Unix on it or do as you please. It's hard to argue with that compared to other name brands.

However if you are doing music and you're not using a Mac I truly think you are a mad man. CoreAudio is worth buying a Mac just to use it. It takes me 20 minutes to turn a stock Mac into a digital audio workstation using a couple of MOTU boxes and a handful of software installers and then it just works. It is easy to swap a Mac out for a new one and get more CPU because the IT overhead is almost zero, even in a music studio.

I think it's a cover.

[galimore]

I've been keeping track of Apple's development cycle for the past few years, and I don't think the iPhone has anything to do with the delay. ;) In fact, I have been saying for some time that I didn't think the quality of Leopard was on target for a spring release... well before the iPhone announcement. While I suppose it's possible that the iPhone was somewhat of a drain on the core OS developers, I think this all ties into Steve's "Top Secret Features" announcement... the suspicious lack of any Leopard discussions during MacWorld San Francisco is interesting... but not necessarily surprising... If Apple really does have a rabbit up its sleeve, they may have wanted to wait until Vista was sufficiently saturated before unveiling it.

Keep in mind that Apple claims the iPhone is delayed until June because of the need for FCC approval... so which story are we supposed to believe? ;)

Also, if you actually break down the time that Leopard has had for development... it's *much* longer than previous releases, and that doesn't have anything to do with the Intel work because Apple's been keeping things in sync for 5 years...

I'm skeptical of the announcement... Either Apple's dates have slipped, or they've got something big. It surprised me that Jobs stood up and said there were "Top Secret" features coming, so I hope he makes good on that promise... I expect the unexpected at WWDC in June.