Briefly: Apple says Leopard won't be delayed

[AppleInsider]

Carve out another notch in the loss column for Taiwanese-based DigiTimes, which on Friday reported that Apple's next-generation Leopard operating system would be delayed till October.

Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg later spoke to Apple regarding the matter and was told the report is incorrect.

"Just spoke with Apple who confirmed the reports are wrong and Leopard is still scheduled to ship in this spring as they previously announced," the analyst wrote on his blog site.

"The rumor mill is wrong again."

DigiTimes had said that Apple would push Leopard's release out till October in order to bolster dual boot support for rival Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista operating system.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[stompy]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Carve out another notch in the loss column for Taiwanese DigiTimes,

AppleInsider todo list:
1. Install Digitimes content filter.

[ryderpat06]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Carve out another notch in the loss column for Taiwanese DigiTimes, which on Friday reported that Apple's next-generation Leopard operating system would be delayed till October.

Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg later spoke to Apple regarding the matter and was told the report is incorrect.

"Just spoke with Apple who confirmed the reports are wrong and Leopard is still scheduled to ship in this spring as they previously announced," the analyst wrote on his blog site.

"The rumor mill is wrong again."

DigiTimes had said that Apple would push Leopard's release out till October in order to bolster dual boot support for rival Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista operating system.

If the story..is true....then..it will coming with Mac Pro Onto core..?????

[Caribou Killa]

Originally Posted by ryderpat06

If the story..is true....then..it will coming with Mac Pro Onto core..?????

you should try retyping this one...

[danielctull]

The original story obviously meant that Leopard would come out with an Octo-core-Mac-Pro, not come out in Octo---ber!

[eggstone]

Remember there were rumors about the delaying of appleTV or the airport express (I forget which one), and later, apple jumped out claiming no delay... and later, the product did delay.

Well, you can never trust apple's statement about those thing, the information could be interpreted as apple will try its best to meet the late spring deadline, but whether they could do it remains unclear.

[bdkennedy1]

The same Apple that said Apple TV wasn't going to be delayed until the day it was supposed to ship and then delayed it 3 weeks?

[mstone]

I'm not familiar with the Leopard builds so far but I do hope they find enough time to fix my two complaints. Both of which have been around since forever!

1. When you make a zip archive, it includes extra hidden files and folders which is embarassing when you have to send them to your Windows or Linux associates.

2. When you are logged onto a Windows or Linux network and you are waiting for a file to show up but it doesn't for a few minutes even though it is really there. Where is the "Refresh File List" selection?

m

Oh and 3. can we just get rid of the crazy Apple line returns and use unicode CR LF like the other popular OSs do, it would solve a lot of incompatibility issues for me at least.

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by bdkennedy1

The same Apple that said Apple TV wasn't going to be delayed until the day it was supposed to ship and then delayed it 3 weeks?

But it did come in the first quarter as Steve first said. And again, I would hope that our troops in Iraq could only be just delayed 3 weeks before coming home.

[IQ78]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

"The rumor mill is wrong again."

The rumor mill is always right and the rumor mill is always wrong.

So many rumors are always floating around, most are bound to be wrong and one is bound to be right at all times for all subjects.

[abrooks]

Originally Posted by mstone

I'm not familiar with the Leopard builds so far but I do hope they find enough time to fix my two complaints. Both of which have been around since forever!

1. When you make a zip archive, it includes extra hidden files and folders which is embarassing when you have to send them to your Windows or Linux associates.

2. When you are logged onto a Windows or Linux network and you are waiting for a file to show up but it doesn't for a few minutes even though it is really there. Where is the "Refresh File List" selection?

Still prevalent in Leopard builds.

[palex9]

dont think that this can be construed as an official statement. and anyway, anything can be sped up or delayed at any time, so who cares. my only beef is that apple can't find time to give us loyal users an 'official' update once in a while. is this really asking for too much?

----------
the count
http://thecountsworld.blogspot.com/


PS: more hypothetical stupid digitimes rumors

- jobs seen with gates holding hands
- vista totally unhackable says top russian hacker
- commodore 64 used to create cold fusion

[xolox]

Does it really matter if it takes a few more weeks or months? I know there is the competiton with M$, etc., but probably makes no difference in the end? Sales are good from what I'm hearing, and the current Tiger is outstading.

If Mac sales start to drop (with buyers waiting on anticipation of an update), then you will see Leopard released in its current form. If not, expect some potential delays to finalize the product, which could be a good thing that brings more features and stability too. Maybe I am wrong on all of this.

I wonder how people would have reacted back in the mid 1900's if there was a product delay before an impending release of a updated typewriter with new features such as "better correction methods".

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by mstone

I'm not familiar with the Leopard builds so far but I do hope they find enough time to fix my two complaints. Both of which have been around since forever!

1. When you make a zip archive, it includes extra hidden files and folders which is embarassing when you have to send them to your Windows or Linux associates.

What's even more embarrassing is when you zip up those files, send them to a Mac associate, and they don't work. Those hidden files are necessary for basic operation in some cases, and are there solely because Windows and Linux filesystems (generally) do not handle multi-fork files. While there are multi-fork filesystems out there for both, their use is spotty, and you can't rely on them to be at the other end. .zip is a lowest-common-denominator solution, so more advanced features have workarounds. Now, if Windows and Linux would universally adopt filesystems with multi-fork capabilities, it wouldn't be necessary. They may laugh at you, but the joke's on them.

It would be possible to create non-MacOS X oriented .zip files, but you'd have to tell the computer that was the case so it could strip them out. Here are some solutions: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=288072 and also http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...ip%2B.DS_Store

2. When you are logged onto a Windows or Linux network and you are waiting for a file to show up but it doesn't for a few minutes even though it is really there. Where is the "Refresh File List" selection?

Apple's general position has been that, if you put a manual button in for the user, then the developer's will never try and fix the problem on the back end. "Oh, just let the user do it." It's better in the long run to have a working dynamic system on the back end. File a bug report with Apple, let them know that this is just plain broken.

Try clicking in the view where you expect the file to show up, that will often force it to notice a new file.

Oh and 3. can we just get rid of the crazy Apple line returns and use unicode CR LF like the other popular OSs do, it would solve a lot of incompatibility issues for me at least.

The only OS to use CR *and* LF is Windows. Unix systems use LF. All of them. It isn't an Apple crazy anything, it is the *correct* EOL, by definition, in the original ASCII layout. They actually got it right this time, Macs used to use CR. MacOS X flipped it to LF. Windows remains the incorrect one.

What incompatibility issues are you seeing? I haven't had an issue with this in a long, long time.

[TBaggins]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

"Just spoke with Apple who confirmed the reports are wrong and Leopard is still scheduled to ship in this spring as they previously announced," the analyst wrote on his blog site.

"The rumor mill is wrong again."

DigiTimes had said that Apple would push Leopard's release out till October in order to bolster dual boot support for rival Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista operating system.

Yeah. I think it was pretty obvious to anyone reasonable that Leopard was still going to ship in the spring (likely June, along with the iPhone) and that Vista support, if not in the initial release, would be added later as needed. Apple would be nuts to delay Leopard significantly over anything except major bugs and/or major security issues.

Still, not all 'rumors' are wrong. ThinkSecret has a pretty good track record of busting accurate info a week or few days before official Apple announcements. It's the stuff like this that's several months out that tends to be wrong.

.

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by palex9

…my only beef is that apple can't find time to give us loyal users an 'official' update once in a while. is this really asking for too much?

Didn't the VP confirm the date a couple of weeks ago.

Anyhow, consider the possible consequences:

1. How do you identify 'loyal users' Certainly there are many who claim to be, but unfortunately there are many who partake in these forums that would't be on my list.
2. How would you address your responsibilities to your shareholders? The SEC and certain shareholder groups would jump all over you if you were selective, missed a confirmed delivery date, introduced early or late…or anything else that could effect share prices.
3. Marketing is like planning a war. Why give the enemy a legs up on what, when and how you are going to do things?
4. To what advantage is it to you to know the exact date and time anyway? Are you planning your holidays or a wedding around it.?
5. How is it that Microsoft is 4-5 years late, but Apple gets as much flack when it comes in 3 weeks late?
6. Apple has stated a number of times that Leopard is planned for introduction in the Spring of 2007. As such, they are not late if it doesn't come out before the summer solstice. In fact, it could be said that it wouldn't late if it did indeed it didn't come until July or beyond. Afterall, 'planning for introduction" doesn't necessarily mean the same as 'date of introduction'.
8. Haven't you been late for school or work, handing in an assignment, picking up a date, getting home for dinner, making a payment…? And didn't it irk you a bit when you get a continuous barrage of, "At least you could have called and told me." So have you, or was it too much to ask for?

[Frank777]

As a longtime Mac proponent, it's hard not to think that Apple is just messing around with its userbase with Leopard.

We're at the end of MARCH, for a software ship date of "Spring 2007".

Surely all those "secret" features are confirmed for release by now. It's too late for Redmond to photocopy them for Vista. So why hasn't Apple held a Media event to announce Leopard?

Look, I don't care even if Leopard ships in November. Apple should take the time and get it right.

But that's no reason to leave your userbase hanging because you want to keep everything secret and suspenseful until the very end. Apple's not "beleaguered" anymore.

In such a breakthrough year, with the Intel transition over and new CS3 debut, is it really too much to ask that those of us managing corporate budgeting at Mac-based shops be given a bit of a roadmap?

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by Frank777

In such a breakthrough year, with the Intel transition over and new CS3 debut, is it really too much to ask that those of us managing corporate budgeting at Mac-based shops be given a bit of a roadmap?

It is only the first week of Spring.

[Kickaha]

Ayup. Spring is March 21-June 21 in the Northern Hemisphere. More relevantly, the Spring financial quarter is Apr-June.

Frank777, March isn't the end of spring, it's the start.

[yama]

Originally Posted by mstone

1. When you make a zip archive, it includes extra hidden files and folders which is embarassing when you have to send them to your Windows or Linux associates.

DropStuff (part of the Stuffit suite of apps) gives you a preference to "Preserve Macintosh content" when you zip a file. Un-checking this option will remove all of the extra Mac specific files (.DS_Stores, _MACOSX folders and so on).

However, as Kickaha points out you can easily end up screwing up your files doing this because you are forcibly removing data from them.

[TheBum]

Originally Posted by stompy

AppleInsider todo list:
1. Install Digitimes content filter.

I agree. One thing that can be said about Digitimes: they're at least consistent...consistently wrong. Someone else that needs filtering-out is Shawn Wu (an "analyst"), who's correct about as often as Digitimes.

[Booga]

Originally Posted by Kickaha

What's even more embarrassing is when you zip up those files, send them to a Mac associate, and they don't work. Those hidden files are necessary for basic operation in some cases, and are there solely because Windows and Linux filesystems (generally) do not handle multi-fork files.

By inserting the word "solely" you seem to assert that multi-fork file systems are a good idea. They've been the bane of Mac users existence since the beginning and we'd all have been better off if Apple had just used multiple individual files. Fortunately using extra forks is now officially not recommended by Apple. Apple should just name these files .EMBARRASSING_LEGACY_MAC_SUPPORT.

Originally Posted by Kickaha

Apple's general position has been that, if you put a manual button in for the user, then the developer's will never try and fix the problem on the back end.

So you're going to hinder the use for every Mac user just to teach a few developers a lesson? This makes no sense. It's just a plain old omission... there is no good reason for it. MacOS X still has omitted, necessary features.

Originally Posted by Kickaha

The only OS to use CR *and* LF is Windows. Unix systems use LF. All of them. It isn't an Apple crazy anything, it is the *correct* EOL, by definition, in the original ASCII layout. They actually got it right this time, Macs used to use CR. MacOS X flipped it to LF. Windows remains the incorrect one.

This is a pretty annoying problem, but as you say, with the advent of XML file formats everywhere it's increasingly not an issue. Because of this, I wouldn't care if MacOS did switch to use the line endings that 95% of the industry (ie. "just Windows") uses.

[sezme]

What I never understood about this rumour was why October was specified. Vista is out, and beta releases have been available for quite some time (years even). If Vista support delayed Leopard (highly unlikely but anyway) why would it have delayed the release until October? Anyway, cheers to Apple for shooting this one down. Like everyone else, I'm getting antsy, but I think some of the Big Things Apple has planned in the next little while will make the waiting all worthwhile.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Kickaha

The only OS to use CR *and* LF is Windows. Unix systems use LF. All of them. It isn't an Apple crazy anything, it is the *correct* EOL, by definition, in the original ASCII layout.

I can't find anything to confirm whether there is a correct way according to a national or international standard.

What incompatibility issues are you seeing? I haven't had an issue with this in a long, long time.

At most, text files are a pain to convert. I still get the text, but it's sometimes a mess unless I add another step.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

I can't find anything to confirm whether there is a correct way according to a national or international standard.

Originally, LF was for physical shifts in lines, CR was for 'soft-returns', where the user intended a linebreak to be, but there may not be one in 'reality'. It was an early attempt at a separation of semantics and layout. Unix went with LF as the "No, really, this is a break and return" since it makes more sense if that's really what you mean. The original Macintosh went with CR, since it was more GUI-user oriented, and wanted to abstract out the line breaks a level. Windows went with CRLF for... well, I'm sure they had a good reason at the time.

At most, text files are a pain to convert. I still get the text, but it's sometimes a mess unless I add another step.

Like I said, I haven't seen this in literally a few years, and that's with tossing files over to Windows and Unix folks on a regular basis. Wacky. Where are you seeing this?

[Booga]

Originally Posted by Kickaha

Windows went with CRLF for... well, I'm sure they had a good reason at the time.

Logically, on a physical printer, a LF character would rotate the paper roller one line, and CR would return the print head (carriage) to the beginning of the line. Thus, if you want the print head at the beginning of the next line, you send a \CR\LF. UNIX and Mac took shortcuts here, probably to save a little disk space or something But Windows is the "correct" usage of LF and CR as far as printers are concerned.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by Booga

By inserting the word "solely" you seem to assert that multi-fork file systems are a good idea. They've been the bane of Mac users existence since the beginning and we'd all have been better off if Apple had just used multiple individual files. Fortunately using extra forks is now officially not recommended by Apple. Apple should just name these files .EMBARRASSING_LEGACY_MAC_SUPPORT.

Sorry, but I vehemently disagree with you on this, and if you look at the direction the industry is going, so does most of it. Multi-forked filesystems are becoming the norm, just very slowly. They offer some very large benefits over non-forked filesystems. The only place they have ever caused problems is when migrating files to non-forked systems. I'm sorry, but that's like saying that GUI apps in general are bad because they can't run on a Z19 text terminal.

So you're going to hinder the use for every Mac user just to teach a few developers a lesson? This makes no sense. It's just a plain old omission... there is no good reason for it. MacOS X still has omitted, necessary features.

No, that's not it. First of all, I'm not defending the position, only outlining it. So please don't aim that at me. Secondly, it's not an omission at all, *if* the system works correctly. *If* the system always saw the file as soon as it showed up, then the manual approach would be completely unnecessary, right? The manual approach is only required when a) the automatic approach isn't even coded in, or b) it is coded in incorrectly. If it's broken, then fix it, don't punt the job to the user with a manual override. Doing so just means you've given up on making it work right. Like I said, file a bug report. That's how Apple decides how to allocate programming resources. Every report filed is a vote to get that feature fixed.

This is a pretty annoying problem, but as you say, with the advent of XML file formats everywhere it's increasingly not an issue. Because of this, I wouldn't care if MacOS did switch to use the line endings that 95% of the industry (ie. "just Windows") uses.

Windows is 95% of the PC market, by some counts. They are *not* 95% of the industry, by any means. Not even close. Add in embedded systems, mainframes, server clusters, and so on, and they're down around half, at best. As someone who deals with pretty much the whole range, I'd hate to see CRLF adopted just because *some* portion of the market, and possibly not even a plurality, got it wrong and can't get in line with everyone else.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by Booga

Logically, on a physical printer, a LF character would rotate the paper roller one line, and CR would return the print head (carriage) to the beginning of the line. Thus, if you want the print head at the beginning of the next line, you send a \CR\LF. UNIX and Mac took shortcuts here, probably to save a little disk space or something But Windows is the "correct" usage of LF and CR as far as printers are concerned.

You're right, I forgot about printers. Did Stretch operate that way?

When dealing with text files though, in the absence of printing, LF was the accepted practice, as I recall. I know it was certainly that way on every legacy system I used, although I can't say I remember which way it was on the line printer terminal. (Those were a bear - no screen, just paper output.)

[jamezog]

Originally Posted by TheBum

I agree. One thing that can be said about Digitimes: they're at least consistent...consistently wrong. Someone else that needs filtering-out is Shawn Wu (an "analyst"), who's correct about as often as Digitimes.

I don't think you can say that Shawn's accuracy is as good as Digitimes. His predictions aren't normally wrong - just obvious. He usually just reiterates what many of us in the AI forums already know. That could still be a reason to filter him out of AI articles, but I'd rather leave that to Kasper's judgment.

------------------

A message to DigiTimes on behalf of us all: TOLD YOU SO.

[aresee]

Originally Posted by Booga

Logically, on a physical printer, a LF character would rotate the paper roller one line, and CR would return the print head (carriage) to the beginning of the line. Thus, if you want the print head at the beginning of the next line, you send a \CR\LF. UNIX and Mac took shortcuts here, probably to save a little disk space or something But Windows is the "correct" usage of LF and CR as far as printers are concerned.

Actually it goes back to the old teletype machines. These were separate functions in the teletype machines. A LF character advanced the paper one line. (Allowing for the insertion of white space and gaps between news stories and messages.) A CR moved the type head to the beginning of the line. And there was even a BELL character to get the operators attention. AP had a special bell code that they used to identify FLASH news stories, like Kennedy's assassination.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Kickaha

Like I said, I haven't seen this in literally a few years, and that's with tossing files over to Windows and Unix folks on a regular basis. Wacky. Where are you seeing this?

I think it was with text clippings between Notepad and Textedit.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

I think it was with text clippings between Notepad and Textedit.

Hmm. I keep my encoding on Automatic, and it seems to work alright, but I'll confess I don't recall knowingly swapping files with Notepad. (Wow, that sounds salacious.)

Honestly, I do most of my raw text work in TextMate, which handles it all beautifully. Never had a problem there. Well, that and vi, where I can swap the line endings easily at the command line, so... huh.

[palegolas]

Dual boot for Vista is not a problem. To push Leopard's release date back 5 months in order to get dual boot to work just seemed like a silly report to start with. Of course it'll work for anyone who's interested. No, a 5-6 month delay would mean Apple decided to incorporate technology still under consideration. But that could be introduced as a later update. If the original report holds any truth at all it could hint at something else coming this october, like touch screens + additional OS X user interface or something other OS X related.

[Booga]

Originally Posted by Kickaha

Sorry, but I vehemently disagree with you on this, and if you look at the direction the industry is going, so does most of it. Multi-forked filesystems are becoming the norm, just very slowly. They offer some very large benefits over non-forked filesystems. The only place they have ever caused problems is when migrating files to non-forked systems. I'm sorry, but that's like saying that GUI apps in general are bad because they can't run on a Z19 text terminal.

I see what direction the industry is going. Microsoft added multiple forks when they introduced NTFS in the early 90's, but was smart enough not to depend on them. Novell, Netware, UFS, ZFS, and others all support it, so there's really no OS that doesn't. And even Apple recommends against using resource forks as of MacOS 8.6 and all versions of MacOS X (see the "Carbon Porting Guide".)

But this conversation has gotten a little off-track. Since almost no one uses resource forks anymore, most of the time the .DS_Store file doesn't contain resources. It contains window size information, Finder preferences, and similar Mac-specific information.

Originally Posted by Kickaha

No, that's not it. First of all, I'm not defending the position, only outlining it. So please don't aim that at me. Secondly, it's not an omission at all, *if* the system works correctly. *If* the system always saw the file as soon as it showed up, then the manual approach would be completely unnecessary, right? The manual approach is only required when a) the automatic approach isn't even coded in, or b) it is coded in incorrectly. If it's broken, then fix it, don't punt the job to the user with a manual override. Doing so just means you've given up on making it work right. Like I said, file a bug report. That's how Apple decides how to allocate programming resources. Every report filed is a vote to get that feature fixed.

"given up on making it work right" for your definition of "right". There will always be systems out there that don't implement remote callbacks for change notification on directories, and polling takes up resources. These systems really do need a manual way to refresh a directory, and I'm sure Apple knows that. They've probably just prioritized this feature way down.

Originally Posted by Kickaha

Windows is 95% of the PC market, by some counts. They are *not* 95% of the industry, by any means. Not even close. Add in embedded systems, mainframes, server clusters, and so on, and they're down around half, at best. As someone who deals with pretty much the whole range, I'd hate to see CRLF adopted just because *some* portion of the market, and possibly not even a plurality, got it wrong and can't get in line with everyone else.

Microsoft is the #1 vendor of desktop, embedded, and server operating systems, with over 50% market share in the first two and continuing to gain market share in the second two. And as someone who agrees with me that the difference in line ending doesn't really affect them much, my mind boggles at your vehemence with which you argue against standardizing the industry on the most common practice. Honestly, I doubt anyone would notice.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by jamezog

I don't think you can say that Shawn's accuracy is as good as Digitimes. His predictions aren't normally wrong - just obvious. He usually just reiterates what many of us in the AI forums already know. That could still be a reason to filter him out of AI articles, but I'd rather leave that to Kasper's judgment.

The name is Shaw Wu. I can understand the mistake, but it's still a mistake.

I don't think Shaw has made as spectacular blunders as DigiTimes has. I think it would be interesting if someone can keep a rumor scoreboard of some sort, but that's a lot of work, and that's work that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

[Frank777]

Originally Posted by Kickaha

Ayup. Spring is March 21-June 21 in the Northern Hemisphere. More relevantly, the Spring financial quarter is Apr-June.

Frank777, March isn't the end of spring, it's the start.

Yes, but my point is that the features of the OS must be locked down by now. Jobs was the one who stood up and told everybody at MacWorld to be ready for it this spring.

What's the harm in previewing the OS so that we can start to plan for our new equipment purchases?

I'd like to see the recommended specs, whether we're moving to a new Filesystem and Finder, and if there are any other special equipment needs to make good use of Leopard (like how Time Machine requires an external drive, etc.)

With the CS3 announcement on Tuesday, many Vista users will have a green light to upgrade immediately while Mac users are caught in a no man's land of wondering whether a 24 inch iMac is okay, or if a Mac Pro is worth the extra money.

Is the 3GB limit something to be concerned about over the long term? I have no idea.

[bdj21ya]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

The name is Shaw Wu. I can understand the mistake, but it's still a mistake.

I don't think Shaw has made as spectacular blunders as DigiTimes has. I think it would be interesting if someone can keep a rumor scoreboard of some sort, but that's a lot of work, and that's work that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Macrumors.com keeps a scoreboard for several analysts in their guides section.

[bdj21ya]

Originally Posted by Abster2core

But it did come in the first quarter as Steve first said. And again, I would hope that our troops in Iraq could only be just delayed 3 weeks before coming home.

Delayed 3 weeks? How can they be delayed? I have yet to hear any kind of release date for that product. Imagine if Steve were handling the release of Leopard this way. "We must and we will continue [coding Leopard] until the job is finished. We owe this to the many brave [software engineers] who have given their lives in the cause of [Leopard]. Giving a firm release date would only embolden [Microsoft]."

[melgross]

Originally Posted by xolox

I wonder how people would have reacted back in the mid 1900's if there was a product delay before an impending release of a updated typewriter with new features such as "better correction methods".

Ooh, has that come out yet?

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by Booga

"given up on making it work right" for your definition of "right".

For the definition that Apple uses, yes. Again, don't make this personal. I'm just outlining the position that Apple is using, not adopting it as my own. I'd appreciate it if you'd see and respect the distinction.

There will always be systems out there that don't implement remote callbacks for change notification on directories, and polling takes up resources. These systems really do need a manual way to refresh a directory, and I'm sure Apple knows that. They've probably just prioritized this feature way down.

Yes, just as there will always be systems out there that don't implement multi-forked systems. But what are the remote filesharing systems that the Finder implements clients for? AFP (Apple's), SMB, NFS... and for most people it's AFP and SMB. It doesn't have to be *ALL* systems out there to implement the necessary features, only that the ones Apple supplies clients for do. So here's the 64k$ question - how many of those selected protocols don't offer a way of pushing down file changes to the Finder client? If the answer is 'none', then it should be expected that this would be quite doable without a manual refresh.

Microsoft is the #1 vendor of desktop, embedded, and server operating systems, with over 50% market share in the first two and continuing to gain market share in the second two.

Er, which set of two does embedded fit into? I count three, so... Seriously, while they may be the largest single-source vendor of embedded (which I'm not convinced of - I think Symbian is pretty damned large there), and server OSs, I don't believe they're even close to the largest OS in those markets. When you combine all the Unix/Linux variants sold by various vendors, together they more than equal the MS offerings. I mean seriously - think of all the embedded systems out there in consumer electronics, cars, medical devices, you name it. It's a *massive* space, and Windows is running at all in what slices of it? Phones, and... ? (Yes, I know that there's an Embedded Windows product, I honestly don't know what it runs on these days.)

And as someone who agrees with me that the difference in line ending doesn't really affect them much, my mind boggles at your vehemence with which you argue against standardizing the industry on the most common practice. Honestly, I doubt anyone would notice.

You haven't convinced me that it's the most common, by any means. I mean, you do realize that the programming language still with the largest use (as measured in shipping LOC) is COBOL, right? The PC market is, when you come down to it, just a piece of the whole, and not even a particularly massive one.

Since our positions hinge solely on which line ending has the most common use, and we can't agree on that, (and I don't think either of us going to uncover compelling evidence to that end) let's just agree to disagree, alright?