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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?'"

23 of 641 comments (clear)

  1. Hardly... by gilesjuk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Windows users will stick with XP, there's no evidence to say that they would give up on Windows and get a Mac. Firstly they would need to buy new hardware, the obvious choice is to go to Linux since you can keep your hardware.

    1. Re:Hardly... by electroniceric · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If people other than tinkerers and enthusiasts are going to change OS, they're going to do so either because they bought a new computer, or because there's something they want to do that they can't now or something that really made them unhappy. That process takes longer than a couple months.

      What's really changed with Vista is that people are not willing to be shepherded along from release to release by Microsoft. This is partly due to the Mac's resurgence and more due to a much broader understanding that there are choices. I'd love to attribute that understanding of choices to Linux and open source, but I think that's only had an much of an effect within the developer community. But users more broadly no longer see Microsoft as a miracle-worker for producing these computers that do all sorts of things, because they just expect computers to do the things they do. And many more of them have seen the forced upgrade phenomenon firsthand, and are waiting for a little more bang for their $400. That's reflected in the press with far more writers adopting critical tone towards Microsoft than ever before.

      All of the articles we've seen about Apple and missed opportunities (after all this TFA is just some dude at a small website pontificating for an evenings' entertainment) are generally people expressing their desire for David to knock off Goliath and have very little to do with any insights about the market or business opportunities for Apple or Microsoft. To the extent that Apple keeps producing computers that people like and are relevant to what people want to do with them, on terms that are favorable to Apple, their market opportunities are still enormous. And that's almost totally independent of market share - the desktop OS market is simply not an unexploited area in the way it was 15 years ago.

    2. Re:Hardly... by sarathmenon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It used to be 6%. Not that the increase isn't insignificant, but all those vista haters aren't moving there. I got a mac recently, but it was more to do with the fact that I've been trying to build something like the macmini for 2 years but haven't come close to getting a cabinet and motherboard of the form factor.

      I am guessing that most of the switchers are from the ipod/iphone users, who are curious about apple. Its a shame that their advertisement campaigns do not target this audience - I thought that someone smart would be working in that department.

      --
      Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."
    3. Re:Hardly... by sarathmenon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And that's more to do with human nature. People will rather live with a familiar piece of crap, rather than switch to something totally new that may (not) be better. I don't see any sudden shifts in computing, windows is going to be at the helm for a long time, atleast a decade or two more. No, there will not be a year of the linux desktop, there may be a year of the mac desktop.

      That said, awareness of apple as a good hardware vendor is increasing. In the end, a very less part of apple's bottom line will be affected by vista. Leopard's timing will not affect this much, in fact I think they made the wise move by releasing it near the holiday season.

      --
      Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."
    4. Re:Hardly... by kestasjk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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. What? What does that have to do with anything? Are you from Apple marketing or something? You think we don't know you can run any GTK app on Windows too?

      Getting back on topic: "Why didn't Apple release Leopard earlier to capitalize on Vista's poor reception? Apple should hire me so I can decide these things for them. Yes, they really missed an opportunity there, those silly managers at Apple.."

      Hmmm, I'm guessing the release coming now, and not months ago, had something to do with Leopard not being ready.
      You can say "If HURD 1.0 had been released right after Vista it might have got some extra users", but that doesn't mean the developers can just decide to finish and release HURD 1.0 whenever it plays well against another company's release date.
      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
    5. Re:Hardly... by laffer1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Consider that Microsoft had to convince people over several versions of windows to use it over DOS applications. At the same time, Apple and many other vendors lost ground. It is possible to have an OS switch, but it has to be fueled by cost and features.

      Apple's have features, but also cost more. I've argued they don't in the past, but with the intel hardware it's getting harder to make that claim. I do think apple makes good hardware, but comparing what I can build versus a mini or even looking at macbooks... it's harder to say apple is that much more. Even if you make a case for better hardware, most PC users don't know it's good. They don't even know the difference between a lowend e-machine and a highend dell.

      In order for linux or any other os to take share from windows, it has to overcome the hassle of learning a new system and losing all the software you've used for years. When me and the redhat ceo can't get windows out of our lives, it's hard to tell others to do so. Gaming is the problem with linux conversion.

      --
      MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
  2. A Little Early ... by thornomad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not sure how you can say they missed an opportunity until after some initial sales figures and responses come out. It took a while before the non-desire for Vista became apparent. It will take some time before people have a chance to respond (with their wallets) to Leopard.

  3. Right, they should have followed Microsoft's lead. by rthille · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The should have released it 'on time' regardless if that made it feature-poor and buggy.
    These comentators don't understand Apple customers. Apple customers value quality. You try to sell them crap and they will eat you alive.

    Apple's prime value is in the intangible goodwill of it's customers. Destroying that by releasing buggy crap wouldn't be a good idea.

    --
    Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
  4. Missed Opportunity? by Mr.+Flibble · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple had a choice, release the new OS X later, and the iPhone when they did, or, delay the iPhone.

    I think it should be obvious with the hype that still surrounds that device that Apple made the right choice. Yes, they could have gained some more marketshare, but probably not by much. After all, OS X is already here, just not the latest version.

    Apple is entering a market (handhelds) that is likely to be a much larger market than laptops/desktops over the next few years. The iPhone stands a good chance of becoming the market leader in a particular segment. OS X will still be (mostly) a niche player. I hope to see adoption of mac's increase - after all, I own one.

    But given the choice, I would opt for the iPhone over OS X just like they did.

    --
    Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
    1. Re:Missed Opportunity? by macurmudgeon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not like the current version of OS X, Tiger isn't already winning converts. After the pain of buying a new PC with Vista then going through the hassle of getting the reseller to supply a copy of XP and all the time spent installing the older OS, I'd honestly be a bit leery of a following that experience up by buying a Mac with a brand new version of OS X. If people are going to like the Mac experience they will like the current version just fine, if not they'll go back to XP. A new OS isn't going the change the differences in design philosophy between Apple and Microsoft.

      In Apple's place I would have delayed a new OS and concentrated on the iPhone too.

  5. Soon? by Ophion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    According to an article on OSWeekly.com, Apple missed a big opportunity by not releasing Leopard soon.

    Apple is releasing Leopard soon, unless six days now qualifies as a long wait. Perhaps the author of the summary meant "earlier."

  6. OSWeekly is wrong by brass1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The lesson from Vista is that releasing a broken and incomplete OS so you can fix it in the field is no longer acceptable. Ignoring your testers complaints on usability and performance issues will no longer get it done. I suspect that the disaster that was Vista's release is one of the things that caused Apple to reassess their Leopard release date.

    With that said, it's obvious that the Vista release cycle was a death march from the get go. There's little chance you can jettison that many major features during the development cycle and still end up with a quality release in the end. Killing cool features also kills developer morale and poor morale causes poor quality.

    1. Re:OSWeekly is wrong by HopeOS · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm a professional Windows software developer who has been there since Windows 3.0. Windows and Windows APIs are my bread and butter. And you sir, are living in a complete fantasy land.

      ...the people that 'actually' used Vista for a significant amount of time (i.e. the testers) don't see Vista as the horrible OS that others looking in that haven't used it extensively do.

      We beta tested this from alpha to release. It was clunky and busted all along, and it didn't even firm up until the end. Our company still, after dedicating all that effort, will not support running our product on Vista. Which is just as well, since none of our customers, all major financial institutions, are asking for it.

      Vista added a lot of architectural changes...

      The fact that Vista has revised how its internal subsystems interconnect has had zero impact on the user experience, and your assertation that Vista is faster than XP flies in the face of reality. It is so much slower that we have to reimage all our new computer purchases back to XP because none of our developers will stand to have one on their desk. It literally takes 50% longer to build our entire product tree on Vista than XP. It boggles the mind.

      The other big shove Vista has going for it is the migration for development to not only a new set of APIs, but a new concept of development that is as revolutionary as Drag and Drop event based programming made popular with Visual Basic back in 1993.

      I'll tell you straight out, no one's going to touch it. No developer in their right mind is going to code to an API that is not backwards compatible to XP. Not going to happen. And in our field of software, financial services, if it doesn't run on W2K, it doesn't ship. Forget shiny, we do not care about shiny. Amateur programmers play with that stuff. Professional programmers code with event horizons of five to ten years. We will not be beta-testing yet another crazy development model from Microsoft. Ask VB6 programmers how well their legacy code bases are doing today. Our company still has mission-critical code written to MFC for God's sake. Do you honestly expect that successful businesses are going to recode their entire product line every time the wind changes in Redmond? We're tired of this crap.

      Vista also added enough new features ... more than XP ...more than Leopard, which makes Leopard look like a catch up OS...

      Now here, you're just deluding yourself. Vista announced plenty of features and FAILED to deliver on damn near every single one. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of one single feature Vista introduced that was not already available in OSX by the time Vista shipped. WinFS? Didn't happen. Aero? Meet OSX Quartz. Successfully implemented and delivered on time. Full system indexing and searching on Vista is a dog. Ever tried Spotlight on OSX? You don't even it notice it's there. Look at the underlying designs for both and you can see why.

      Pick almost any Leopard feature and Vista has the feature, and architecturally there is no 'killer' feature of OS X that Vista cannot implement via 3rd part support.

      Which is just another way of saying, Vista has some features and doesn't have the others.

      On the other hand Vista has technologies that OS X, Linux, etc don't have yet and won't have for several years.

      Name one.

      Until OS X or Linux can handle and pre-emptively multi-task GPU operations...

      I think if you talk to the Core Video, Core Audio, Core Animation, and Core Whatever-the-heck developers at Apple, you'd find that you're talking out of your ass. As for Linux, who cares. If they cared about that kind of thing, they'd have implemented it.

      On Vista you can run several CAD/High End graphical applications under the Aero interface and not lose performance in any of the applicat

  7. The column itself says it wasn't a mistake by Eternal+Vigilance · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    This seems mostly a case of a poorly punctuated column headline. Given the author himself concludes Apple made the right choice in the face of limited resources, a more clear headline would have been "Leopard's Release Date a Serious Mistake?"

  8. Just the same ol' story... by DreadfulGrape · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...which has been re-written ad nauseum for the past six months.

    The average mac enthusiast doesn't give a rat's ass about strategic timing of OS releases. If OS 10.5 wasn't ready until now, that's certainly good enough for me.

    --
    sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
  9. This guy is clueless by phillymjs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One of the main reasons Vista has been so maligned is because it was ridiculously late and Microsoft was desperate to save face... so they started stripping out promised features and shipped it before it was truly ready. The bad reviews were legion. Word of mouth has spread. Even non-technical people have heard of Vista's bad reputation... I've lost count of the posts I've seen on here where someone mentions their surprise that their mom or whoever remarked something on the order of, "Vista? Isn't that the bad one?"

    By holding Leopard back until they were sure it was ready, Apple has laid the groundwork for an even bigger opportunity. There are a lot of people out there who flat out don't like or don't want Vista. Delayed or not, if Leopard gets good reviews in the media and the word of mouth is positive, that's going to give a nice boost to Mac sales.

    ~Philly

  10. Re:Author is clueless by Shadowmist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People that buy apple products aren't technical enough to know if leopard is better than any past build revision of FreeBSD that apple leeched. They buy apple because it looks cute and they can remain oblivious to technology. The author is a clueless monkey if he thinks people suddenly want to buy apple crap because it's build 10.3.1. That's a comment that makes sense only to someone who's entire OS life is spent underneath a command prompt. FreeBSD while an important part of X is only part of the foundation. It's everything else that's on top and underneath that makes the OS something other than a gearhead toy. And since when is making use of Open Source some sort of moral crime? Apple makes it's acknowledgements and last time I checked it's changes are open sourced back in the form of Darwin. Have you tried Darwin and made any real comparison? Or are you just some Linux Nazi who is lashing out with unsubstantive bile for the simple reason that it's not Linux. If so, you're no different than Mac Nazis, or Windows Nazis, or Amiga Zombies that still think there's a future for that last platform, you're acting from unreason.
  11. Apple née Computer by fermion · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I think with the delay of OS X, and the change in name, and the release of the iPhone SDK, Apple has chosen where future growth will lie. They will likely keep making computers, laptop for consumers and towers for pro content creation, but small high profit consumer devices are the future.

    If anything, Apple has decided that 5% of the computer market is all it will have, and little it does will displace the PC from corporate, the only way it can get much more than 10%. However, with good consumer toys, it can be the home electronics supplier for those with disposable incomes.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  12. Macs are not replacing Windows PCs by AHumbleOpinion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Macs are not replacing Windows PCs, they have become Windows PCs. Buyers no longer have to choose Mac OS X or Windows, they can have both. That is the catalyst that is driving the increased sales.

    There is little point in running Linux on the Mac. Mac OS X is a capable *nix box, most FOSS software is not Linux specific and targets Mac OS X as well. Plus Mac OS X has a superior user interface. If someone is running Parallels they are doing so to use Windows XP. Exceptions are rarities such as a developer who needs to do compatibility testing under Linux.

    1. Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs by itsdapead · · Score: 4, Insightful

      With a taskbar, I can at a glance see which programs are open as well as which WINDOWS in said programs are open,

      Running programs in the dock have an arrow under them (subtle but easy enough to see). Click-hold or right-click on one of them and you'll get a menu of open windows.

      However, I'd generally conceed the point: I like the Windows XP GUI a lot - most of the issues are "under the hood": security, everybody running as "root" (or having to confirm every action in Vista), registry decay, drive letters, the "shell" filing system not showing up as files, standards (non)compliance, ahh... where to stop...

      --
      In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
    2. Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs by mr_matticus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How is keeping the number of windows down a "good computing habit"? There's not a lot of point in a fast, high-RAM computer with a massively multitasking OS if you're not going to use it. Why not leave the applications open that you use often? (This is the reason the red button doesn't close out of certain kinds of applications.) It's not like it's hogging memory that I need, and while staring at a splash screen for a few seconds is fun, why should I?

      If I'm working with a few windows like you do and want easy access to them all, I'll minimize them to the Dock. If I'm working as I usually do, with 10+ windows, I use Expose. For the life of me, I don't know how the taskbar gives you a "view" of ANY window. It tells you what application it is, if you recognize the icon, and a few cryptic letters about it. In order to get any use out of it, you have to move your mouse down to the button and wait for a litle preview to pop up. Instead of doing that, I can tap a mouse button or a key and get an immediate, live view of ALL the windows I have open and can choose it based on sight, rather than memory of the filename.

  13. I'd say the timing is perfect. by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    First of all, it's impossible for Apple to time their releases to coincide with Microsoft's release, since MS was stuck in a cycle of delays that ran about six years. Secondly, Tiger is already more than a match for Vista, and finally, just by sheer luck, Leopard arrives on the scene as people are realizing just how utterly mediocre Vista really is.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  14. Apple didn't miss out on anything by Ragnarr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sounds like a fanboy was pissed he couldn't get Leopard back in July. Apple made the right decision by delaying the release of Leopard. Several people on boards I frequent were beta testers and were very vocal in letting everyone know that Leopard was not a "finished" product back then. They would've released something incomplete just like M$; not a good idea. I would say that the only thing Apple lost out on was orders for the new imac/macbooks since many of us were waiting until we were sure that we'd either get Leopard installed or qualify for the updater at a reduced price. I'm definitely happy I bought my new imac at the beginning of October. And yes, it really is that much better than Windows..