My theory on the Leopard delays

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
OK, after evaluating all of the ‘evidence’ that we have, I have come to my own conclusions about why Leopard has been delayed. It’s only a few months—so what?



I strongly believe that the ‘Top Secret’ features that Steve told us about will be internally tested until WWDC—I don’t think this is the reason for the delay, and I think that any clues of these features will appear on forthcoming builds. We now know that it’s not delayed because of Vista Boot Camp support. We’ll get a public beta of Leopard at WWDC.



I think that localisation could well be the reason behind the delays—look at the clues. We know that Arabic is coming in Leopard, and very possibly Russian (iTunes 7 and QuickTime both have a Russian localisation). Surely this is a process that takes months? Who knows how many more languages they may be including? I know the Greeks have been longing for a localisation for ages. The lack of one is odd, because the iPod’s interface is available in Greek.



I may be totally missing the point, but don’t you think that this could be a valid reason behind the delays? Appealing to more markets?



What are your thoughts?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    tednditedndi Posts: 1,921member
    Or, they really needed to get the iphone out on time and had to pull engineers off of Leopard development.



    But, yes, I do believe that there will be a Dev. release of Leopard in June.
  • Reply 2 of 17
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TednDi View Post


    Or, they really needed to get the iphone out on time and had to pull engineers off of Leopard development.



    But, yes, I do believe that there will be a Dev. release of Leopard in June.



    I don?t think that that?s the actual reason. Although I do admit its possible considering Apple said so. LOL.
  • Reply 3 of 17
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Odd, I think it's not only possible, but probable.



    The iPhone is the first highly hyped use of OS X outside of MacOS X. Yes, the AppleTV runs it, but that's basically just a stripped down Mac - the iPhone is *radically* different as a platform, from hardware through balancing a quite different set of engineering tradeoffs. This isn't a quick slap-and-dash port to another computer, this is a port to very different environment. Can it be done? Sure. No reason why not. Is it easy? Hells no.



    Apple has zero wiggle room for error on this rollout of the iPhone - it's the latest must-have gadget, and it's not even out yet, for god's sake. If they blow even the smallest detail, they're going to face a publicity backlash not seen by them since the days of "Eat up Martha" and "Egg freckles".



    Getting the foundation, the OS and support libraries, rock solid is critical. There can be no missteps here. Since it *is* the same OS as what ships as MacOS X, it makes perfect sense to pull the established experts off of MacOS X's version of OS X and put them on iPhoneOS X for the time being.



    Now, how that ends up delaying Leopard that much is beyond me, unless there are some *serious* upgrades under the hood that we haven't heard about. I suspect they figured that, since they had to delay anyway, they'd give themselves a little more breathing room than absolutely necessary, just in case.



    You have an interesting observation about the localization issues, but I don't see those being worthy of a four-month delay.
  • Reply 4 of 17
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post


    Odd, I think it's not only possible, but probable.



    The iPhone is the first highly hyped use of OS X outside of MacOS X. Yes, the AppleTV runs it, but that's basically just a stripped down Mac - the iPhone is *radically* different as a platform, from hardware through balancing a quite different set of engineering tradeoffs. This isn't a quick slap-and-dash port to another computer, this is a port to very different environment. Can it be done? Sure. No reason why not. Is it easy? Hells no.



    Apple has zero wiggle room for error on this rollout of the iPhone - it's the latest must-have gadget, and it's not even out yet, for god's sake. If they blow even the smallest detail, they're going to face a publicity backlash not seen by them since the days of "Eat up Martha" and "Egg freckles".



    Getting the foundation, the OS and support libraries, rock solid is critical. There can be no missteps here. Since it *is* the same OS as what ships as MacOS X, it makes perfect sense to pull the established experts off of MacOS X's version of OS X and put them on iPhoneOS X for the time being.



    Now, how that ends up delaying Leopard that much is beyond me, unless there are some *serious* upgrades under the hood that we haven't heard about. I suspect they figured that, since they had to delay anyway, they'd give themselves a little more breathing room than absolutely necessary, just in case.



    You have an interesting observation about the localization issues, but I don't see those being worthy of a four-month delay.





    Not to defend him, but just pointing something out -- you yourself said, "Now, how that ends up delaying Leopard that much is beyond me, unless there are some *serious* upgrades under the hood that we haven't heard about.". And then you continued, "I suspect they figured that, since they had to delay anyway, they'd give themselves a little more breathing room than absolutely necessary, just in case."



    So, in your own words, they could not need a four month delay, but just in case.



    But honestly, I think it has to do with some secret feature (I am sure there is something we don't know...in fact, wouldn't it be funny if they come up with something similar to WinFS....they probably wont, but that would be funny), the iPhone...and thats it. But thats what I think.
  • Reply 5 of 17
    nofeernofeer Posts: 2,427member
    we've had lots of "whats the secret" threads, what feature is sooo secret and requires iphone to come out first

    VOIP and 3rd gen support maybe from the os. if iphone has wifi maybe it can connect via your mac sort of like skype does now with a thumb drive.

    it has to be something that connects the two.....i say voip support
  • Reply 6 of 17
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Well Apple has said Developers will get a feature complete OS X Leopard Beta at WWDC so we'll know every single "Top Secret" feature then.



    That's a month and a half.
  • Reply 7 of 17
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Personally if I was forced to guess I would say if was because of the new UI and the new filesystem that will be bootable - ZFS.
  • Reply 8 of 17
    tednditedndi Posts: 1,921member
    I like Ireland's ZFS idea.



    Bootable ZFS would rock the socks!
  • Reply 9 of 17
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by max_naylor View Post


    I don?t think that that?s the actual reason. Although I do admit its possible considering Apple said so. LOL.



    I would agree that having the complete UNICODE 5.0 specification and POSIX compliance for UNIX certification, OpenGL 2.1 complete support with Cocoa APIs to leverage the entire OpenGL SDK, amongst myriad other under-the-hood options would delay the OS.
  • Reply 10 of 17
    rongoldrongold Posts: 302member
    From what I hear, Leopard is still being released this spring...



    ...in Australia!



    Springtime in Australia is in October. And the extremely fitting venue will be the Sydney Opera House. Fitting in that Steve Jobs will likely draw a parallel of himself at Apple to the Opera House architect, Jørn Utzon, who was also forced out by politics after starting what is now considered to be the world's formost and admired architectural structure.
  • Reply 11 of 17
    feartecfeartec Posts: 119member
    I'd rather have it delayed another year if Apple needs to. Once OSX goes on my computer, I expect it to work properly with only minor updates. We are not talking about Microsoft, Apple only has a small market share and it's fragile enough to if a bad OS comes out their market is doomed. Delay away Apple, Delay away.
  • Reply 12 of 17
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TednDi View Post


    I like Ireland's ZFS idea.



    Bootable ZFS would rock the socks!



    Most systems will be an "upgrade."



    Having it as an option is fine. Having it as the default filesystem is neither pragmatic nor business intelligent.
  • Reply 13 of 17
    macvaultmacvault Posts: 323member
    Here's my theory... Mac OS X Leopard will be opened up to run on comodity PC hardware, or at least certain vendors, such as Dell. Apple needs the extra time to get drivers working, etc. I guess I'm just hopeful because Mac OS X's biggest drawback currently is that it will run ONLY on hardware which Apple decides is good for their business.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Stupid Apple, for doing what's good for their business.
  • Reply 15 of 17
    crentistcrentist Posts: 204member
    I was just watching some of the last WWDC keynote on Leopard and noticed some irony in the first "To Do" Steve publicly used to test Mail's new To Do feature:



    "Make sure Leopard gets done on time."



    Add one more level of irony if the actual reason for the delay is trying to get "To Do's" working right.
  • Reply 16 of 17
    mbaynhammbaynham Posts: 534member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Macvault View Post


    Here's my theory... Mac OS X Leopard will be opened up to run on comodity PC hardware, or at least certain vendors, such as Dell. Apple needs the extra time to get drivers working, etc. I guess I'm just hopeful because Mac OS X's biggest drawback currently is that it will run ONLY on hardware which Apple decides is good for their business.



    no way in hell. one of the reasons mac os x runs so well is because apple control the hardware. and you can run mac os x on non-apple hardware, its just a little bit illegal, i think...
  • Reply 17 of 17
    daffy_duckdaffy_duck Posts: 248member
    "i say voip support"



    No, I think the secret features are going to be mass appeal type of features. Something that everyone will like. Dashboard and Spotlight are such features. I couldn't care less about VOIP and I don't know many people that do care about it. I also doubt it's that difficult of a feature to add in comparison to Dashboard and Spotlight.
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