DigiTimes: Apple may delay Leopard release till October

Apple Inc. may postpone the launch of its next-generation Leopard operating system in order to bolster dual boot support for rival Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista operating system, DigiTimes reported on its website on Friday.

The Taiwanese trade publication cited "industry sources" in saying the launch delay is not due to software design problems with Leopard but instead is attributed to Apple's plan to have its new OS support Windows Vista through an integrated version of Boot Camp.

"Boot Camp is an Apple software application that currently assists in the installation of Windows XP on computers using Apple's latest OS," the publication said. "The company hopes with support for Vista, Mac computers using the new OS can grab more market share, according to the sources."

DigiTimes, whose accuracy in predicting Apple's future directions is mediocre at best, cited its sources in saying that if Leopard supports only Windows XP, then the chances of the new OS attracting Windows users to buy an Apple computer decreases.

For its part, Apple has maintained that it is on track to ship Leopard "this Spring." However, recent developer releases have raised suspicion over whether the Cupertino-based company will be able to meet that self-imposed deadline, as a number of critical issues reportedly remain in the software.

Apple has also stated that it holds some "top secret" Leopard features at bay, which haven't been exposed to widespread testing. It's widely believed that the company would first have to introduce those secret functionalities in developer builds before calling development of Leopard a wrap.

AppleInsider reiterates that DigiTimes' coverage of Apple has been historically inaccurate and therefore its reports should be taken with a grain of salt. Of note, however, the publication's recent predictions that Apple would use LED-backlit displays in its next-generation MacBook Pro line is believed to be accurate.

I thought Apple said that BootCamp will become a stand-alone product when it finally emerges from beta. Perhaps someone heard that BootCamp will be delayed until October and assumed it meant the entire OS would be put on hold as well.

Then again, given the less-than-promising reports of the quality of recent Leopard builds, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was delayed until the summer or later.

A delay until October just for Vista seems rather suspicious to me. That Leopard could be delayed for several other reasons, this I can believe.

At this point a definite postponing of Leopard seems more and more likely. I don't remember in previous OS X releases so many delay hints 2-3 months before the supposed launch of the major OS update. Someone to refresh my memory?

First to exclaim FUD!

such BS.

Yep - doesn't make sense at all!

I also call BS. I don't run Vista myself, but I thought Vista support was already a part of Boot Camp beta. If not, I don't see Apple putting off Leopard just for that reason. Instead, I think they would just say that Vista support is coming and update Boot Camp when it is ready. I, for one, would be a little pissy at Apple if they delayed Leopard for Vista users. Screw Vista users.

I think it will be deayed but for other reasons. It just ain't gonna be ready.

Could we have the two threads merged please?

Apple MIGHT do some kind of virtualized "Boot" Camp someday, at a strategic moment--two OS's running at ONCE (if that's what "integrated" means) is very nice--but they sure as heck wouldn't delay their own OS for it. They'd add it later.

Knowing how rumors get mis-repeated, maybe the truth is that this is one of the secret Leopard features, and that this FEATURE will be delayed until the fall. Not the whole OS. Leopard isn't ready now and won't be ready next month I'd say, but October? No.

Or there could well be no basis at all for this report.

Vista is not currently supported by Boot Camp, some have gotten it to work, but drivers are still not quite there. It works ok in Parallels I guess, but since there are few AutoDesk Apps that even run in Vista, I haven't tried any of it.

The only part that surprises me on that is the fact that they are going to have to run a lot of patches to support the iPhone on the current OS, just to get by until Leopard. I'm not really too upset by it, the current OS has been fine for me, can't really ask for much more in my opinion.

That makes absolutely no sense. It would mean Apple would spur Vista sales. Steve doesn't gives a rat's arse about Vista sales. If there is a delay, it will be for other reasons. And remember, Spring just started, so Apple has more than 80 days to deliver.

For the last time, Developer Builds are not Beta Builds.

And I thought Boot Camp already supported Vista.... ? Either way Apple won't delay their products just to make it compatible with Microsoft's latest and greatest <strike>downgrade</strike> product.

There is a reason DigiTimes makes mediocre predictions at best.

Sebastian

the has to be one of the most stupid rumors ever! sure, apple will delay launching a great product to be more compatible with a terrible one? vista is a bunch of cr**, and more and more reviews are stating that fact.

if this turns out to be true, i will switch over to ubuntu linux and sell my macs.


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

As if Apple would delay their next gen OS just so Windows Vista would work with boot camp. Pointless "news" again from digitimes...

This was one of two FUD pieces to come out today.

In pre-market trading it had aapl down more than a buck, but it seems investors are starting to pick FUD out and discard it far better as of late because the stock recovered.

I am not sure if anyone has seen the cramer video- he explains how he'd mess with aapl by releasing bad news to dumb sources who love to regurgitate it .

http://youtube.com/watch?v=B7VUBPwIhHs

Anyways- apple opens it's stock up to this kind of stuff due to their secretive approach to their products.

That's why I hope the stock doesn't split- nothing worse than making a stock cheaper to open it up to more manipulation.

Fake. WWDC is in June, and the Leopard sessions are planned in.

This makes no sense at all. Apple can sell far more Macs when they start shipping with Leopard so there's no reason to delay the whole new OS just because of an issue with Boot Camp and Vista. A simple system update can be issued later once the BC/Vista bugs are worked out. It isn't as if there's a great surge of interest in Vista anyway.

I think Apple will have Leopard ready to roar by WWDC at the very latest, though I'd be happier with mid-May.

Their once was a man from Nantucket...........

This is rubbish. WWDC.

then they better come out with a mac that uses lower cost ram then FB-DIMMS as there will need a lot of RAM at least 1-2 gb just for vista.

The adobe preview of (Creative Suite) CS3 is next week; so we might see some hints of Leopard or even new hardware then. So far Adobe has only said their new products will not require Leopard, but that they run faster on Intel Macs than on PPCs.

How about fixing the grammar in the FIRST sentence. I didn't even bother reading the post because of that.

What garbage. Absolute garbage.

I'm sure Leopard's release date will stretch "spring" to its very limit, but Digitimes' stated reason for the delay makes no effing sense.

Updating Boot Camp to work with Vista is not *that* difficult, and by no stretch of imagination would it create a delay of several months for a major OS release like this one. There's even already a couple of hacks out there that will allow you to do it.

Apple never said Leopard would be ready by April. They said "Spring", which is anytime between two days ago and June 20th. If they release it prior to June 20th, there's no delay.

Why even bother wasting the bandwith posting these nonsense stories from Digi? Post the link and route the stories to them....AppleInsider can't be desperate enough to use these headlines to garner more hits?
Why would any sane company delay an OS product launch on the premis that a small feature won't work well with a crappy product (at best) from Microsoft? What next, delay the next iMac product launch because MS Office Universal Binary is not ready either?
Most if not all sane users of MS OSs are not migrating to Vista in huge numbers anyways. They (Apple) will release 10.5 on schedule or after with "valid" reasons, not because they want to capitalize on the Vista boot. Come on....even the morons at Digi would realize this if they read their story more than once.

This would be by far the stupidest reason to delay OS X. Total BS IMO.

This would be THE MOST F---ED UP reason to delay Leopard! WTF!? Either this is total 100% BS, or Apple is STUPID!

Emmmm... All Xeon class workstations use FB-DIMMS. Way to be somewhat OOC and misinformed. It's part of the Mobo specs.

Those RAM prices are dropping pretty fast as it is. 2gig for $300 is current best price. Which is very low for Workstation class rams.

You like saying that, don't you? Do you know what betas are? Just because Apple doesn't call them betas, doesn't mean that they are not.

It works like this: OS X is in a continual state of development. Moving to major new versions, with several major new features and significant "under the hood" changes unsurprisingly brings with it lots of bugs, some of them serious. So you can't just realease that to the public. The OS is continually worked on, and the OS recompiled often. Each new recompile is given a number that is sequentially higher than the previous build.

The numbering system is made up of three parts: a number, a letter, and then another number. Each part works as follows:

The first number: represents major milestones. Panther was 7, Tiger is 8 and Leopard is 9.

The letter: major new versions (i.e. an increment of the first number) start at "A" and this is incremented when significant, but not major changes are made - e.g. they always increment from one 10.x.x to 10.x.x+1 movement (e.g. 10.4.1 was build 8B15, and 10.4.2 was 8C46), and sometimes increment in-between those releases never to see the light of day. This happened with the 10.4.8 to 10.4.9 move - PPC 10.4.8 was build 8L127, PPC 10.4.9 is build 8P135 - M, N and O were all internal.

The second number: represents the number of times that version has been built. No functional changes are made between these builds, it's all about squashing bugs. Any functional changes will result in the letter being incremented. e.g. build 8L started at 8L1, and had that had no problems, would have been released. However, various bits of code had to be corrected, then the OS rebuilt, then everything tested. With 8L, this process happened 126 times to result in 8L127, which was released to the public. Some intermediate builds between 8L1 and 8L127 were released to developers.

Now, what is the point of me saying all this? It is that, whether you like it or not, and whether Apple calls them such or not, any build numbered above a previous release, and below the next release, is a beta. Changes are made from the last release, and these are tested. Most are tested internal to Apple, some are also released to developers to test. Apple uses feedback from internal testing and from developers to determine whether the latest build is ready for release or not. If it is not, corrections (as opposed to functional changes) are made to the code to correct bugs, and a new build with higher "third number" results.

This is definitely what happens when there is a single development train. The question is what about those "top secret features"? Those are presumably being worked on separately, but one has to expect that the foundation of builds with "top secret features" are the builds also being released to developers. i.e., all the problems that we see in developer builds also exist in builds with "top secret features". Presumably, the "top secret features" builds have additional bugs associated with said features.

I'm doubtful that a split somehow opens up a stock to more manipulation. Sure it costs less, but there are more shares to absorb effects. I would guess it's just a wash.

Some features and applications that Apple has released without ANY public testing, even by developers:

• GarageBand
• iPhoto
• iTunes
• Pages
• Backup
• Keynote
• iMovie
• Aperture
• iWeb
• Photo Booth

The list goes on. Many of these are major applications that never saw the light of day until their 1.0 was unveiled.

Why does everyone assume that Apple has to run Leopard's secret features past developers before revealing them?

History proves just the opposite. When Apple has something really juicy to reveal, they keep it hidden until they release it. And then they release a 1.0.1 and so on to address anything that the public discovers after the release.

They don't. Or at least, I don't. What I was pointing out is that builds that are released to developers are betas.

I don't understand why some folks on rumor sites are hung up on the term "integrated", as used in the report. It simply means Boot Camp will ship as a part of the (Intel version of the) OS, rather than being a beta you have to download. Apple's been using that term for a year now..

I've been running Vista on Boot Camp since last summer. This report has no credibility.

Can anyone point to any rumour story ever, about anything from Digitimes that has turned out to be correct?

Of course it does. A cheaper stock is more accessible to the little guy investors- the ones most prone to FUD.

A wash? Nay, my friend. The amount of outstanding shares in any given company do little to absorb market impacts.

Wasn't it stated by Apple that BootCamp would not be intergrated into Leopard....I think this rumor is a little far fetched.