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Apple's Missed Opportunity With Leopard Delay

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the timing-is-everything dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article on OSWeekly.com, Apple missed a big opportunity by not releasing Leopard soon. They could've taken advantage of Vista's losing streak and one upped Microsoft, the author suggests. 'It's not uncommon for Windows users and technology consumers in general to say that Microsoft missed out on making the most of Vista both before and after its launch. Longtime fans of Windows have changed their tone due to Vista's inadequacies, and regular users are in many cases stuck with trying to figure out why they still can't get certain things to work within the operating system. Granted, it's not a completely horrific OS, but is that even a compliment worth accepting?'"

9 of 641 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hardly... by alfredo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apple's market share is over 8% now. Those customers are coming from somewhere.

    With Parallels you can run Linux on the Mac, and if you don't want to do that but still want Nix software, you can do it. I'm using GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape, Xephem, and other titles I was used to in the Nix world. I've even ran Gnome on top of OSX.

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    photosMy Photostream
  2. Will Leopard run on my PC? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I only have to ditch my PC and get a MAC when my XP/2003 is working just fine. I doubt it.

    The problem with Vista is it offers no compelling features for Windows users. XP/2003 run reliably and offer the widest range of applications. The ONLY thing MS has with Vista is exclusive DX10 games. And there are no compelling upgrade reasons even for most gamers.

  3. Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs by c_forq · · Score: 4, Informative

    Google "Darwin ports".

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    Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
  4. RTFA by Compulawyer · · Score: 3, Informative
    The article actually makes the opposite conclusion than the title of this post on /.


    Quoth the article:

    "With all things considered, did Apple make a serious mistake by delaying Leopard's release until October? I don't think so." (emphasis added)

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    Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.

  5. Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs by sarathmenon · · Score: 3, Informative

    Also fink. Its got apt-get and dpkg as its standard binary format, so its time the GP switched to a mac :)

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    Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."
  6. Lappie power systems are the weak link, period. by MsGeek · · Score: 3, Informative

    To be fair, Apple has been snakebit a number of times by lappie power supply/battery issues. Let's see, there was the PowerBook 5300 a la flambe incident, the PB G3 power supply that tended to have sparking issues, the full-of-lose "UFO" PB/iBook power supply that tends to die after a while thanks to power cord shorting issues, the expanding LiPoly batteries in the later iBooks, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, and now the Mag Safe adapter issue.

    However, they are not alone. How many lappies were recalled over Sony LiIon/LiPoly cell issues? How many other lappie manufacturers have recalled their power supplies? How about that ThinkPad 600-series charging circuit that kills batteries?

    I fully expect to have an in-warranty replacement of the MagSafe power supply. This is the reason why nobody should buy an Apple lappie without AppleCare. I would give the same advice to anyone who buys anyone's lappie. Go for the extended warranty, go for the manufacturer's extended warranty if it is offered but the store's extended warranty if the manufacturer doesn't offer one. This is one time when it's smart to do so.

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    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
  7. Re:Apple annoys people by gnasher719 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The hardware is flaky but pretty, and very expensive. Not in my experience, except for the "pretty".

    The CEO and company seem neurotic. Not in my experience. I have never heard that Steve Jobs has been throwing any chairs around, or threatened to cut off someone's air supply, or similar.

    Most of the users are self-indulgent, arty, smug, pretentious types. In my experience (and I know quite a few of them) that is utter bullshit.

    The average person wants nothing to do with this. Don't take your average pimpled PC sales person or IT man with a hate for end users as "average person".

    The real question is, if Apple got all of these people to start running a desktop UNIX, what can Linux do to follow that lead? The usual answer is: Don't follow the lead. Change the rules. No idea how Linux should go about this vs. Apple, but then there are ten times more Windows users, and they are ten times more unhappy with their OS than Mac users, so maybe Linux should concentrate on beating Windows.
  8. Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs by Rob_Warwick · · Score: 4, Informative
    How long is it going to take for Windows or OSX to get multiple desktops?

    About a week. Apple is calling it 'Spaces' in Leopard.

  9. Re:Hardly... by Almahtar · · Score: 4, Informative
    I doubt my experience is that uncommon: I've met one "clueless consumer" type that liked Vista. Every other person I've talked to either said

    I heard Vista was crap, can I get my computer with XP instead? or

    Vista is junk - my new computer runs slower than my old one with XP on it or

    Vista is hard to use - I can't find any of the stuff I know how to do on XP Until Dell started offering machines with XP on them, friends and family members of mine that always bought from Gateway or Dell or whoever would ask me (as their "geek advisor") where they could buy a computer without Vista.

    I'm not looking for this kind of feedback nor soliciting it. They bring it up on their own.