Briefly: Apple offers developers new Leopard build
Apple Inc. this week began offering its developer community a new pre-release build of its upcoming Leopard operating system, sources tell AppleInsider.
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard build 9A499 is believed to be the first widespread seeding of the software since June. At that time, Apple treated attendees at its annual developers conference to an exclusive preview of build 9A466, later broadening distribution of that same build to its vast Apple Developer Connection community.
According to people familiar with this week's near 7-gigabyte seeding, the new build is noticeably snappier than the one it replaces. Those same people, however, continue to report that software is rife with bugs, making it somewhat unstable.
"I'm recommending to other developers that they stick with the earlier 9A466 build," one said. "[The latest build] is very buggy."
For its part, Apple has already delayed Leopard once -- pushing it out to "October" from an introduction originally planned for June. The company attributed the delay to iPhone, saying it needed to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from its Mac OS X team in order to make good on a promise to launch the handset by the end of June.
As part of its developers conference six weeks ago, Apple previewed what it called a "near feature complete" version of Leopard, introducing previously "top secret" features such as a new 3D application dock and file "stacks."
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard build 9A499 is believed to be the first widespread seeding of the software since June. At that time, Apple treated attendees at its annual developers conference to an exclusive preview of build 9A466, later broadening distribution of that same build to its vast Apple Developer Connection community.
According to people familiar with this week's near 7-gigabyte seeding, the new build is noticeably snappier than the one it replaces. Those same people, however, continue to report that software is rife with bugs, making it somewhat unstable.
"I'm recommending to other developers that they stick with the earlier 9A466 build," one said. "[The latest build] is very buggy."
For its part, Apple has already delayed Leopard once -- pushing it out to "October" from an introduction originally planned for June. The company attributed the delay to iPhone, saying it needed to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from its Mac OS X team in order to make good on a promise to launch the handset by the end of June.
As part of its developers conference six weeks ago, Apple previewed what it called a "near feature complete" version of Leopard, introducing previously "top secret" features such as a new 3D application dock and file "stacks."
Comments
David W.
www.davidwogan.us
and maybe we will see another Leopard launch delay?
no. the first release will be pretty buggy, the world will feedback and X.5.1 will be december-January. of course, i'm probably wrong.
and maybe we will see another Leopard launch delay?
Maybe, but there is nothing in this report to indicate that. A speed increase means that the core team has made some changes, and that tends to expose/create problems higher up in the stack (the bugs). If this release were the final one to make core changes (other than bug-fixes) that would indicate that they are on track. We have no way of knowing at this point.
Maybe, but there is nothing in this report to indicate that. A speed increase means that the core team has made some changes, and that tends to expose/create problems higher up in the stack (the bugs). If this release were the final one to make core changes (other than bug-fixes) that would indicate that they are on track. We have no way of knowing at this point.
umm, then why release it? why not wait a week or two and let the other developers fix their crap? this release sounds like a Microsoft build philosophy to me.
"I'm recommending to other developers that they stick with the earlier 9A466 build," one said. "[The latest build] is very buggy."
If you're a developer I would think you'd want to be on the latest build to test your work against. If your crap doesn't work you try to figure out why and then contact Apple from there.
If recent history shows anything is that Apple will release Leopard at the end of October (Apple is now in the habit of shipping major pre-announced products at the last minute. Witness the iPhone and AppleTV). This gives them another 2.5 months to work on Leopard (allowing 2 weeks to press DVDs and manuals and ship to distribution).
Leopard will ship on time and like any other release, it will still have some issues which Apple will fix in their usual manner.
Will Apple abandon Leopard?
Yes, they are dumping it and going straight to Chester Cheetah.
no. the first release will be pretty buggy, the world will feedback and X.5.1 will be december-January. of course, i'm probably wrong.
I think that's reasonable though, and I think follows a pattern that Apple has had before.
is rife with bugs, making it somewhat unstable.
"I'm recommending to other developers that they stick with the earlier 9A466 build," one said. "[The latest build] is very buggy."
This is worrying for an OS that has already been delayed by several months. Yes they got the iPhone out the door, but at what price? Does this mean a buggy 10.5.0 or another delay? Presumably iLife is just sitting around waiting, and what about the new iMac? It seems that Apple have got themselves into a bit of a pickle here, they need to have a bit of a rethink and make sure that from here on they do not over-extend themselves and spread their resources too thinly. They can't keep hammering their engineers into the ground, and as we know, building up that human resource is a long process.
Its either that, or they have major issues. Is it me or is Leopard probably the lamest update (feature-wise) since OS 8.6 to OS 9. Tons of features! (But none you will actually use)!
Apple is teh DOOMED!!!
Sell all your stock now!!!
Its either that, or they have major issues. Is it me or is Leopard probably the lamest update (feature-wise) since OS 8.6 to OS 9. Tons of features! (But none you will actually use)!
I think it's bigger than Tiger. "200 features", but I went through the list and I don't think I've ever needed more than five of them. I think better screen rotation and ease of swapping mouse button order are the two features that I actually use. If I get Leopard, I am sure I'll use ZFS and Time Machine. Maybe the stack feature. I'm not sure if the iTunes-ized Finder is an improvement.
According to people familiar with this week's near 7-gigabyte seeding, the new build is noticeably snappier than the one it replaces.
Awesome, I was actually pretty happy with the speed in 9a466 but if it's even faster then Leopard is going to be great. Still, when you do get to try leopard, you suddenly see what we've had to put up with for nearly 7 years and it's quite disheartening that it took them this long to get the performance and snappiness Windows users have always had (on a clean installation I mean). It has cost users a great deal of time, money and frustration having to go through numerous hardware and system upgrades.
Those same people, however, continue to report that software is rife with bugs, making it somewhat unstable.
"I'm recommending to other developers that they stick with the earlier 9A466 build," one said. "[The latest build] is very buggy."
Definitely not for people who want to download it and spill secrets.
If it is really buggy then it's quite disappointing because we're getting pretty close to the expected ship date. That's not the final build date, which will have to be sooner. If the ship date is the end of October, I suspect two more builds to come, a stable beta and the final build. Let's hope that even though there may be a lot of bugs that they are minor ones.
The 3D Dock was a "top secret feature?" Really? Spaces I can see, but the new Dock? Really?
Of course, nobody saw that coming. I actually think they tried to do something as stupid as possible just so nobody would guess.
Apple switch to Intel? never
Apple make a phone? never
Apple make a transparent menu bar and a 3D dock? They'd have to have their heads up their...
Let's guess what zany scheme they'll come up with next. Top Secret doesn't mean useful, just that nobody knows about it.
and maybe we will see another Leopard launch delay?
Although normally I would say that nothing in the report indicates that in a clear way, this time I think that one more delay is a possibility. The iPhone has been proved a resources sink. There is of course the option to meet the deadline at any cost, the worst being releasing Leopard full of bugs to be fixed in a 3-6 months time horizon.