Apple delays Leopard release until October - Page 11

I think that's one standard that I think should change. No one likes to admit mistakes, but when a person denies mistakes that are almost plainly obvious to seemingly anyone else, then I think the credibility loss is worse. The problem is that credibility loss is often more insidious than an outcry from admitting a mistake, so the losses aren't noticed immediately.

We don't know when the labor pool was raided, but I do believe that should have been a time to consider hiring more developers, even if they weren't necessarily as experienced, but so that they can eventually get that experience so future development isn't hampered like that again.

I don't see iPhone going bust, so it would need constant development for the next revision, just like OS X. Both projects will always have more work that needs to be done.

I fully agree (and hope) that things will accelerate. I just hope they don't follow MS and add 20x programmers ( or even much much fewer) to address this 'problem'. From the SW engineers that used to work for me and went to MS this is (IMO) one of the principle reasons that MS had, and is having, the problems they are with getting SW out the door. Instead of understanding the projects and then executing (with risks and mistakes), they seem to throw bodies at the problems. This leads to the type of development that we saw in Longhorn/Vista. More and more features removed and multiple, significant delays. If apples approach is as indicated in their release then its much better. If they didn't think they had a problem with timing a year ago then its unlikely they would have know where to utilize the added bodies and then those bodies would have been more disruptive then helpful.

Sure. I'm not saying that throwing a lot more bodies at a problem is going to solve it.

But when a project is begun, a proper understanding of what is being done is important to getting that project done, on time, and successfully.

According to an article in Computerworld a couple of years ago, more than 50% of all in-house software projects fail.

Not, come out late. Not come out with poor quality, but fail. The reasons for this include the lack of recognition that all software projects will encounter problems that were not anticipated at the beginning, and the failure to prepare for that when the projects start. Another reason is failing to properly access the actual needs of the project team(s) from the beginning, and ending up understaffed during those times when a problem draws people away from their own tracks.

MS's problem was exactly the same problem Apple had with Copeland.

An attempt to write completely new code with much superior features that was also 100% compliant with older third party (and their own) products, and hardware.

Apple failed at that, and so did MS.

Apple had no other codebase to turn to, so they had to acquire one. MS had, I think it was Server 2003 to fall back on, and so they dropped the Longhorn code base they were working on, and developed Vista around the product instead.

The problem was that that product couldn't be integrated with several main features MS intended to use in the new code base, and so ended up being dropped to get Vista out the door.

Of course, there were other problems as well, but that was why it ended up being as late as it did.

In their case, it's likely that no addition amount of programming talent, at any level could have changed that result by very much.

The same thing was true with Copeland, but was somewhat different in that each of the programming teams was isolated from the others, so that while several of the modules worked well (they demoed some of them to my usergroup in NYC), they didn't work together. The system in Apple at the time was very competitive, each team was only concerned that its own work was good. There was no real software development control system in place. back then.

Honestly, I think it's probably a good idea, even though everyone wants something new and pretty. Believe me, I'm in the same boat, Leopard looks awesome and plus it's 64-bit Native.. that's going to take some time to make the OS process as well on a G4 or Core Duo than it does on a Core 2 Duo or G5. If you don't get it just right, the PPC users (like myself) are going to be like "WTF???"

The way I look at it, Tiger's rock solid for now, haven't had any issues, I'd rather Apple finish the product, get all the bugs out and give developers time to get their stuff together before the final release of the Leopard. It's smart business sense.

Look at the comparison... Microsoft. Vista sounded horrible when it experienced delay after delay, and based on my experience with it. Remember the Copland project (OS 8), when that fell through, it was time to move on. If you remember Apple didn't waste any time getting an update to 8.1 which fixed alot of issues, then quickly moved on to 8.5.

I think this is actually the smartest thing Apple has done for a while, the PowerPC debacle can be forgiven. Give them alot of credit, there are very talented people working for them. Do you think that Microsoft could pull off a complete Hardware switch over in less than a year? and make the transition as smooth?

FWIW, John Martellaro seems to agree with me here: http://www.macobserver.com/columns/h.../04/16.1.shtml

Martelloro's columns are always good reading. He is one of the few writers with whom you can agree with from a basis of knowing that he actually knows what he's talking about, rather than it just being an opinion piece.

I agree with he said. By the way, I never said that Apple should double the number of coders on their teams. But, clearly, they have insufficient personnel to accomplish all of their goals on a timely basis.

I have some people in Apple that I've known for many years, and they tell me that Apple moves personnel from project to project. As soon as there is slack in one area, people are moved to another, round and round. It may be cheaper that way, but it certainly isn't the way to run a company.

Has there ever been a year when Apple was involved in the development and release of so many different products, i.e., computer hardware and software , mobile communications, music/video players and home media entertainment players?

This is of course a rhetorical question. Without being privy to the meeting rooms at Apple, none of us knows the master blueprint for successful completion of this highly ambitious growth program. The arm-chair quarterbacking , goofy speculations and grousing posted on this forum are all articulated without knowing what's really happening at Apple. I trust Apple because they have a track record of enormous success in this decade. They are the Phoenix of the computer industry having risen from the ashes of their own near death circa 2000. I don't trust the collective ramblings , speculations and grumblings of posters on a free-for-all public forum.

I also don't trust John Martellaro based on the opinions expressed in his article "Hidden Dimensions - Leopard's Delay is a Leadership Failure". Some of his statements seem to be preposterous with an anti-Apple agenda and a jealous sour grapes undertone. For example:

"Then Apple got very lucky. They stumbled onto a product called the iPod that just happened to create a whole new market in which Apple could turn the tables on Microsoft. Market momentum didn't have to be overcome. Instead, good old fashioned business savvy by smart people was sufficient to trample Microsoft."

or.

"PC customers who may have been tempted to move to Leopard, touted as the salvation of the PC customer, will now start to get the idea that all modern OSes suffer from these symptoms.".

There are many more but these will suffice.

The whole article sounds like those of someone with a big axe to grind against Jobs. I don't think SJ is infallible nor do I worship the ground he walks on but his track record speaks for itself

But, I totally agree with what he says!

It is a leadership problem. These problems are always leadership problems.

If I had employees who didn't accomplish the jobs they were hired for, it was my fault for hiring them. If we needed more people in an area, and I wouldn't hire more, then it was my fault.

I've also been saying from the beginning that the iPod was a lucky break. Job's own statements back then were that they expected the iPod to be a modest addition to their product line. It took off more than they expected. They WERE smart to take advantage of it though.

He's also right about Leopards problems. Apple was known as being pristine about OS X releases. now they have lost that. does it matter much? Maybe not yet. But, if it gets delayed further, it will.

Apple has also admitted, though not in so many words, that they are having problems with the iPhone's software. Not good. Let's hope that releases on time.

If you read his columns going way back, you will see that he is not the person you are painting him to be.

The problem with this article is that's its a full on piece of opinion with little to no facts to back it up. Even when facts are quoted they are skewed to support the premiss. Example:


But this is NOT what was said by Apple


Here is says that its both engineering and qa resources that were required. Now if he has other information that contradicts this he needs to reference it and let us know where the information comes from.

This is a typical sky-is-falling bid for clicks. He may be right, we all can guess possible reasons, but doesn't put forth that he has any more information than the rest of us.

BTW failures are not always leadership failures. The is also calculated risk. You can't be right all the time. Can Apple learn from this problem, of course and hopefully they will, but a 4-month slip in this size project, for a product that is frankly not short-term critical to their business, is not a big deal, and has been said elsewhere in this thread, probably a good thing for continued long-term success.

Good analysis and well said physguy.

Mel.

I think we'll agree to strongly disagree on this one.

I've always ascribed to the saying "Luck is the residue of design".

You also didn't address one of the most blatantly ludicrous statements in the article,

" PC customers who may have been tempted to move to Leopard, touted as the salvation of the PC customer, will now start to get the idea that all modern OSes suffer from these symptoms."

What say you to the words in bold?

It's an interesting statement to be sure. But we can see all of the articles that seem to be saying something to that extent. Leopard is the solution to the virus, trojan horse etc. problem. Leopard is the solution to the training problem, Leopard is the solution to the less buggy solution. etc.

What he's saying is that if Apple screws this up, people will look upon this as nothing special after all.

It's a warning of what might happen.

Public perception is often said to be the truth, the only reality that matters. If the public believes that Apple is just as screwed up as MS, then it is.

He's a very strong Apple supporter. I think he's concerned.

Mel,

You just can not be serious with this reply. Do you really comprehend what you are saying? Who on this planet, besides you and John Martinello (personally I think he was just trolling bigtime when he used that phrase) view Leopard is the savior of the pc? Hell, why stop there. Leopard is the savior of the Middle East problem, and rhe global warming problem. BTW, have you ever heard of Tiger re the solution to the virus, trojan horse etc. problem, the solution to the training problem, the solution to the less buggy solution. etc. Puleeeeeeeeeeeeease.

Umm yeah. Go see the get a mac adds at Apple's website. They have adds abourt macs not getting viruses and not being as buggy, 'the locking up pc add'. Not directly attributede to tiger but not a stretch either.

You very subtlety misunderstand. Tiger is not the end of their woes. OS X is. Today. Not Tiger, not Leopard, not Panther. Just OS X. Delaying Leopards release is completely transparent to all that. All because Apple isn't generating codename recognition in the wide market. Codename recognition to that level is only in the very narrow niche of rumor followers, some journalists and some analysts.

Leopard isn't a from-scratch architecture rewrite that has any capability to suddenly open up thousands of new security holes in the OS. The OS X architecture and componentized update strategy completely precludes that kind of catastrophe.

Today you get a few I told you so's from sporadic directions comparing Vista/OS X release schedules. If OS X actually goes gold in October and doesn't drop half it's touted new features, there won't be any way to compare the two since Vista was about 5 years late and sans over half of it's main features compared to the original spec.

I don't disagree with what you're saying but Apple is marketing OSX (and that includes Tiger) as a virus free, spyware free, stable and don't freeze up alternative to windows. I'm only responding to that point with lfe2211.

I will say I agree with those who feel Apple may be setting users expections higher by talking about secret features and then delaying the release. Let's hope it meets everyones expections. I was just looking at getting back to the Mac platform when Tiger was released. What was that like? Seems like some have alluded that it didn't live up to the pre-release hype.

Backtomac,

You're confusing me. Did you agree with my post to Mel or not? I was saying to him that we already have an OS that is virus free etc.

I think you are overblowing the meaning a bit.

He's one who doesn't think that Vista has lived up to the hype. He thinks it's very second rate, as do, by the way, most reviewers of the OS. He also thinks that Tiger is much better.

In that vein, he thinks that Leopard is more than an incremental upgrade, that it spells a bit of a leap for Apple. His thoughts are that Leopard is everything that Vista is not, and for the sake of MS, it should have been.

You are taking that one sentence a bit more literally than I think he meant it. By putting these words, both his and mine, in bold, you are overemphasizing their importance.

He is not the only who has said basically that very same thing.

He believes that OS X is the only major OS out there that is really good right now, and that if Apple appears to be faltering, it isn't good for the entire industry.

As I said, public perception is reality. That's what happened to Apple in 1995, and it almost destroyed them. He's concerned that it could happen again.

Sit back, and take a deep breath before you reply. We're on the same side.

The Mac platform today is getting converts because of all of those "features". It is what Windows is not, and should have been. That's pretty clear.

While this delay is manageable, it may, I say may, indicate that there might be further delays. Whenever a company delays a product by almost 5 months, there is some problem. It also means that the problem is not a trivial one. If it were, it would be delayed by weeks, as the ATv was. This isn't the tying up of some loose ends. That doesn't require a delay from June to October.

While it isn't a problem now, if Apple delays for several more months, it could become one.

By the way Vista wasn't delayed 5 years, while it was long enough, it was a bit over 2 1/2 years.

And I wasn't saying that we didn't. What I was saying that the publicity surrounding Leopard is going to make these arguments that we have now, even more prominent, and that too many delays, assuming that there would be more, would be a publicity disaster.

This is Apple's biggest chance for several more years to move heavily on MS. If public perception is that Apple is as unreliable as MS, then that chance will have been lost.

I'm not saying that this one delay will do that, I don't believe it will, but if there are more delays, it could.

Well if you're saying that Apple don't tout OSX (Tiger) as a virus free, spyware free, and lock up resistant alternative to Windows then I disagree with you on that point.

But we don't know that there's any problem with Leopard at all. This entire delay could be, and IMO is more likely, an underestimate on the planning of the iPhone. This is Apples new area and the more likely area for them to make planning mistakes, underestimate risk, etc. as it involves technology areas that are new to Apple. I think the key milestone is now the on-time launch of the iPhone because if it doesn't launch on time the resources will not be freed up and THEN they have the real mess to deal with. If it does launch on time then they've likely managed through the misstep in the initial planning.

In November 2001 Microsoft said that Longhorn would be released late 2002/early 2003.

In November 2002 the said late 2004/early 2005.

In May 2003 they said 2005.

In October 2004 thay said May 22, 2006.

In July 2005 they said late 2006.

I thought I was plenty clear despite the blizzard of sarcasm directed at MG. Apple does tout its currnt version of OS X, Tiger, to have all of those features today. I have written about this very point ad nauseum in many posts.

Once everyone in MAc and Wintel land understands this fundamental concept, all else follows. The quality of OS X is designed into it, not patched onto it. All the dopey ramblings of trolling Mac Evangelist bloggers and Wintel apologists can not change this immutable fact.

I thought it was originally supposed to be shipping in late 2003. It didn't ship to consumers till this January so I make that at least 3 years late and almost 6 years between updates. And they only met that by jettisoning features and going back to Server2003's codebase.

So, Apple's entire update cycle for 10.4->10.5 is still less than just the delay on Vista and they've managed to squeeze in 9 service packs and a shift in architecture whilst also porting the OS to two new devices.

4-5 month delay - no problem. Kick back Apple developers, you've been delivering hard.

With all of the bugs Leopard has exhibited in the last few developer builds, there is a problem.

Making the assumption that your undocumented dates are correct, that gives, at most 4 years, not 5. I don't remember any official dates that early though. It's like the one we see floating around that Leopard was due in late 2006, early 2007. I thought that one was real as well, but no can document it.

The late 2004 date is the first one that I remember as being official, not just some offhand musing.

I've written about it as well. But, that's not the point here. The point is that Leopard is the first Mac version that the majority of the public will have heard of. It will be compared directly against Vista. Tiger is being compared only in an offhand way, since it;'s on the way out. That's the difference.

It's not what Tiger offers, it's what Leopard offers that will matter. And people will increasingly look to that release date.

Even though all of us here think that the delay is trivial, it's already being criticized in the PC press.

My point is that if the delay extends, there could be a perceptual problem. And that's what he's saying as well.

The first official release date I remember is the late 2004 one.

But, you know, it doesn't really matter. The public is fickle. Vista is out. It's here. People will forget about how long the delays was as it recedes into the past.

They will focus on what's happening now with Leopard.

Those dates were given at the 2005 WWDC Keynote. Steve gave a quick rundown of Tiger (which had just been released a month or so prior IIRC), then charted the OSX releases vs. Windows releases. He then announced than the next version of OSX was to be called Leopard, and that even though they weren't talking about it at that conference, they would in the future and that they "intend to release Leopard at the end of 2006 or early 2007, right around the time when Microsoft is expected to release Longhorn."

Then they dropped the Intel bomb

I refered to that as well. But then no one has actually found it.

That was unnecessary - don't require documentation when your own statement is undocumented. How about trusting each other?

But feel free to look up statements from MS and take a look at Winsupersite and their reports from WinHEC from those years.

Microsoft was supposed to release Blackcomb as the next Windows, but they delayed that and announced Longhorn as a stop gap version.

Longhorn was later made a client only version of Windows, and through the years they've been making so many changes to their strategy and product that it's very hard to keep up with them.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06...date/index.php

http://live.macobserver.com/article/..._keynote.shtml

When I say something that I can't find a link to I get yelled atif I'm lucky.

I remember lots of things I have no proof of, but people often demand it of me.

Officially announced release dates should be easy to find. Offhand remarks by Gates, Ballmer, and Jobs, often aren't.

I've been wrong before on these things, as have many others.

It's up to those presenting "facts" to present the evidence, or so I'm told. If it's just a general statement, then it's different, but something specific should be documentable. If we can't find it, that's fine, but some people will wonder.

Ok, that's good, I thought I saw it as well, but couldn't find it again.
So why complain in your previous post?

Now, all we need is for someone to find the MS 2003 announcement.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...dtogold_01.asp










And so on.

Why do you say this?????? Its certainly not true in the 'public' that I know, especially those that aren't already Mac users. 'My public' has no idea about Panther, Leopard, Tiger.... To my recollection ( and I freely admit holes in the recollection) Apple has never advertised a specific build beyond their own retail stores. Maybe at CompUSA but never in the more generic media.

OTH the comparisons I have seen between Vista and Tiger have not be very favorable to ... Vista... I personally don't think the 'switcher' campaign depends at all on Leopard (or Tiger) but on OS X and iLife.

Right now, for the people that I'm helping to switch, the delay of Leopard has sped up their buying decision as they want to move away from Window's now. They were only waiting to save the $129 (whatever it is ). Since that's moved off they'll buy now and upgrade later.

But is there? If we accept as true Apple's statement that resources were diverted to iPhone and this would cause a 4 month delay in Leopard then Leopard is now 5-6 months from its 'planned' release (delay caused by conscious decision to divert resources). If it's 5-6 months from its 'planned' release then are the number and progression of bugs really out of line. I don't get the developer releases so I don't have specifics but from what I read I couldn't conclude there are any problems beyond normal development and the delays introduced by the resource diversion.

And, of course, none of us will know the progress, content, and difficulty of the 'secret' features until June so that's also just guesses.

Agreed.

The last few versions of the build do seem to be a considerable distance from being a final product in terms of working towards the spring release.

Given the date is now put back, then on the face of it, then the state of the builds are more in line with the delayed release date.