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Apple's Missed Opportunity With Leopard Delay
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?'"
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.
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.
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/
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!
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."
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.
Instead, Leopard wasn't set to be released right near the time of Vista's release, and Apple wasn't going to hurry the process along more than they had to. In fact, we're all now waiting for Leopard's release in October, and this is largely due in part to the need for key members of the OS X team to finish up work on the iPhone so that it could hit store shelves on June 29th.
That's what Apple said, but people who were on the beta were saying that Leopard wasn't likely to be ready on time already, that it was way less stable and mature than Tiger and Panther had been at a similar point. And Apple has been known to dissemble, perhaps not outright fibbing but certainly exaggerating minor issues and not even mentioning major ones... so I still think this explanation should be taken with a pinch of salt.
"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?"
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.
His piece is titled: "Leopard's Release Date a Serious Mistake" But it closes with the line: "did Apple make a serious mistake by delaying Leopard's release until October? I don't think so." So what does it all mean? To me, it means that "OS Weakly" has nothing of substance to say.
horrific adjective see Windows Me
The author poses a hypothetical question that he knows will get the fanboys riled up: "Did make a mistake?". And the disputes his own question saying "No they didn't". This whole "article" is a troll and should be ignored.
...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...
If anything, Apple scored a coup with the delay, since the amount of pissed-off discouraged Vista users has hit a critical mass.
Lindsay Blanton
RadioReference.com
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
The reality distortion field is strong in this one....
But even stronger in the article. Come on... Joe Average hears about problems in Vista - he's going to look at the Mac, perhaps. Will he understand the differences between Tiger and Leopord - or Jaguar or Krazy Kitten (oops, that's the next Ubuntu release, sorry)?
And who is really not moving towards Vista? It's large corporate systems with millions of dollars invested in a stable XP and little desire to mess with that. That move will be slow but steady. But really slow - probably slower than the 98 to XP move. Witness all of the systems still on 2000.
I may be more of a poster child for a switcher - having used Windows in all flavors and sizes since 3.0. I finally got fed up with the cheapass hardware that laptop manufacturers have tossed out on the market and looked to find something that might, perhaps, get hardware support for more than a year. I've also used Unix since the 1980's and have two Linux boxes at home (well, Ubuntu anyway) - so I'm not adverse to learning another OS. It's still a royal pain to switch if you do anything more complicated than Letters / Browsing / Music.
(Start flames about Apple using cheapass hardware - they do - I just hope they use the SAME cheapass hardware so I can replace it down the line).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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
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.
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."
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
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..
Yeah, they shoulda released it around 1989, before Windows 3.0 shipped...
Think of all the misery they'd have saved everyone!
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
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)
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
then early. That alone one ups Vista.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
I agree completely, at least with the last part of your comment. Right now Apple has a product for every part of the market *except* the market that most home consumers are in. Consider that Dell sells a number of machines aimed at a home market that run for between $400 and $1000 for a complete system. Apple has absolutely nothing in that price rance except the Mac Mini, which is hardly a capable machine with its slow hard drive. Apple badly needs a small tour unit that can come to between $800 and $1000 with a monitor! Until then they are missing out on a huge market that thinks the iMac is too expensive for them, and the Mac Mini isn't enough computer. And actually the Mac Mini is really expensive too, for what it is. No keybard, no mouse, no monitor, all for about $500-$600. I'm the first to say that when you compare laptops, or even iMacs to business workstations, Apple is the same price or cheaper. But not so for the home market, one dominated by cheap whitebox PCs and Dells. I'm not going to suggest that Apple sell OS X for non-Apple harware. Just that Apple needs to start addressing the needs of this market in terms of hardware. I know of half a dozen close friends and relatives who would have bought Apple had Apple actually had something available.
Longtime fans of Windows...
The amazing thing is that such a creature still exists in the wild.
...are not like you and me. They'll never try out an OS just to "check it out" like we might when there's a new distro that's supposedly better. The very last thing that Apple wants are Windows users that are finally convinced to switch, then find out that this sucks and has almost as many issues as Windows, only to move back. Not only have you probably lost them for the next 5-10 years, you'll probably get a lot of anti-marketing "Yeah, I tried a Mac a few years ago, it was all overhyped so don't believe them" that'll mean others won't bother at all.
IT geeks haven't got as much marketing power as we think. Oh, I can go on about the advantages of Linux all day but most of them people will think "sure, for him it might work". Vanity works much better, like "Hey Bill could do it, and I'm at *least* as good with computers as him". Same goes the other way around, if you hear someone "like you" giving something a bad review, you'll pay attention. That's just the way it works in all markets, and makes plain old sense. If you want to do print work, you don't read a webdesigner's review of GIMP you read a print worker's review. And with that perspective it makes perfect sense for Apple to wait until it's ready.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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.
OSWeekly sounds as if Leopard is the first OS Apple is about to release. Tiger is for most practical purposes just as good OS as Leopard. Leopard is a gradual improvement.
Plus it only is starting to become obvious in the recent 2-3 months how many problems Vista (still) has. The announcement of XP SP3, the oddly early Vista SP1 in Q1 2008, the extended OEM XP support period, the Vista-to-XP downgrade new policy.
And Leopard is here right for the holidays. I'd say, timing is as good as it could be. Perfect-storm-like good.
OSWeekly is just trolling for visits, and we're suckers for it.
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.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I started out as a pre-judged Vista hater. When I got my new laptop (XPS 1330) I decided to give it a go anyway rather than just downgrading to XP. I'm glad - it's actually quite nice, and IMO a real step up from XP unless you have incompatible apps.
Vista's honestly not that bad. Quite nice in some areas. I've had no serious app compat issues - but then I only really use OSS apps, and those tend to be well behaved anyway since they're usually portable, and tend to be quickly updated for new platforms.
I find the UI a small but significant improvement, and I'm already in love with the indexing service's integration with the rest of the OS. Yes, mac users, I know about spotlight - I admin macs at work.
I'd also say that fears about battery life _on_ _new_ _hardware_ with the latest generation of mobile GPUs are somewhat overblown. I don't see a huge difference between Aero on and off - much as I see relatively little difference (1/2 an hour out of this laptops 4 1/2 at most) from activating Compiz on Ubuntu. I'm not even sure there's any effect at all, since whatever difference there is is well within the measurement inaccuracy of any battery testing.
It's not some huge leap forward - it's more like what Apple does between two Mac OS X releases (including the breakage of apps with rather hacky innards that people yell about - try admining a DTP lab with Adobe and Quark products and tell me how much you love Mac OS X updates). What it is, though, is a _lot_ of small and medium improvements rolled up into what I'd call an overall much better OS.
I'd feel pretty ripped off if I'd paid to upgrade from XP - but as a new OS it's quite nice. I don't find the UAC stuff annoying (though it was a HORROR in prereleases apparently) though I do think it's a waste of time that'll just get people clicking the dialogs without even thinking.
As it is, I find Vista much more usable than XP already. It took me a few hours to get used to some of the differences (and I still hate the control panel UI in "new mode" - though I'm sure it's OK for non-technical users) but it's now quite nice to use. I tend to switch between it and Ubuntu on my new laptop, depending on task.
The Mac mini is capable enough for Granny or Aunt Ethel or Junior and Missy, which is the market that it is largely pitched to. It's intended as a "second computer" for the kids or as a first computer for "seasoned citizens."
As it turns out, the MacBook is the Mac most people are buying. It is a competitive laptop to all but the bargain-basement craptops that Dell, Lenovo and HP sell. Get beyond the loss-leader "hacked by Chinese" craptops and you will find that MacBook is pretty damn competitive with the competition's lappies.
And also, Mac OS X Tiger tends to run better on less RAM than Vista. So people go to, say, Fried Electronics, mess with a midrange lappie or desktop hobbled by Vista, then go check out the MacBook and feel the difference. If the track record is any indication, Leopard will be faster than Tiger on new and 1-2 year old hardware. It might suck on G4s but that's the outside realm of the machines that can run Leopard.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
>>Apple's market share is over 8% now. Those customers are coming from somewhere.
Exactly! But there's more to the number than the statistics would indicate.
In the past three years most of my family switched to a Mac. I switched (desktop and laptop), my college-aged daughter bought a mac, I switched my parents and inlaws, and two of my colleagues switched off their PCs and are now using Macs for everyday work. So that's seven Macs in my immediate circle of family and friends. But only two of them were new machines, the rest were used G4s. The statistics in this review are only counting sales of new computers, so these switchers are "invisible."
However, that brings up a question I've had for some time. It's quite common to hear about people switching from PCs to Macs. What about the other direction?What percentage of people switch from Macs to PCs. I would wager that figure is extremely low.
(And yes, Parallels desktop is awesome!)
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.
This will not happen until MS's monopoly market share is seriously weakened or broken completely. Look, MS has monopoly influence for desktop OS's. Trying to compete with them means expending more resources than they do, for the same amount of gain. It's just bad business. Every company that has tried has failed. MS's monopoly allows them to introduce artificial problems with their competitor's products. It is simply a losing proposition.
Apple has taken the classic route of dealing with the monopoly by bypassing it with a complete, vertical supply chain. By bundling OS X (their real innovative product) with their hardware, they put themselves in competition with Dell, Gateway, Lenovo, and Toshiba, none of whom have a monopoly that can be leveraged against them. While MS can arbitrarily break compatibility with OS X, Dell has no such ability. Sure they can make up nonstandard connectors for hardware, but unless they can get Gateway, Lenovo, and Toshiba on board as well it won't hurt Apple as much as Dell.
Apple would be stupid to un-bundle OS X and their hardware at this point. Slowly eating away small bit of market share and hoping others will do the same is their only viable business model. Maybe if they ever get to 30% share or thereabouts the situation will change. I know everyone wishes Apple would do this because they want to be able to buy the OS separately, but the likely cost is Apple going out of business or canceling their OS entirely. If you truly want to buy OS X for generic x86, the best bet is to hope the courts will actually break up MS's monopoly at which point the market will force Apple to unbundle to remain competitive. Otherwise, be prepared or a very long wait for this, if it ever happens.
First, Apple doesn't need to release Leopard to stay ahead of Microsoft or one-up them. OS X 10.2 was already better than Vista, and was better than Windows XP for that matter.
Second, until Apple starts selling OS X for generic x86 hardware, they're not competing directly with microsoft; they're selling a competing platform. That OS X now runs on Intel isn't relevant; it's still locked down to run only on approved, official Apple-branded Intel hardware. They're not competing with Microsoft for a share of the desktop/notebook *OS* market; they're competing with Dell, HP, Asus, eMachines, etc. for the desktop/notebook *platform* market.
Apple sells complete solutions, not operating systems. The day Apple decides to go toe-to-toe against Microsoft and releases an OS X that you can install on any OEM or homebuilt x86 box, then we'll see how they compete against Microsoft. My guess is, provided they have the driver support, they'll beat Microsoft silly, no contest. The driver support is, however, a major issue, and a non-trivial one.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I'm a long time Linux user but at work we have to run Windows Apps and VMWare wouldn't cut it on the hardware we have.
My boss bought a Mac for his house, and the other day asked me if I'd be interested in getting one for work as my regularly scheduled upgrade. It will end up costing the company an extra thousand dollars since we'll have to pay the full price for software that we could have gotten practically free with MS PCs, but we're getting two Macs, one for my use (probably in the developer category, in other words, I'll probably break it a couple times) and one for regular use and we'll be paying for VMWare Fusion, Windows XP and Outlook on top of the already fairly high price of getting the two machines. It adds up to costing more than an extra machine, but we're going to try it. We're getting to try it because Vista has been a pain on the half dozen machines we've put it on and the higher ups are starting to realize something is wrong when most of the major software partners we rely on don't support Vista yet.
So, with Linux still seen as too complex for the masses, we're looking for alternatives and Mac fits the bill. If we can test it sufficiently and get it proven to be usable, the possibility of having Macs in a corporate environment open up. It's far from a done deal, but it is possible where it wasn't just two years ago.
I respectfully disagree with the parent, laffer1; it is not games but corporate adoption that will decide whether Vista is the first step in losing the stranglehold that Windows has had on the OS market. People will become familiar with what they have to use at work and will buy the same thing. Macs are finally becoming competitive in features and pricing and once they are adopted in the corporate world, the home user market can follow. If you ask me, Microsoft got their advertising right by targeting the environment that controls the user experience while Mac has been aiming at the home user when that same user will use whatever they are familiar with from work and school. I wish that I could say Linux is ready, and it would do as well or better for me, but it isn't ready for the average worker. Mac, just maybe, might be.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.