Apple today released the following statement:
iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned.
While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones.
Sources: PRNewswire, Apple Hot News
Ouch.
Still, better fully-baked in October, than undercooked in June.
Good thing Mac OS X Tiger is already the world’s most advanced operating system.
(Note: Big party scheduled for the weekly Dvorak-Enderle-Thurrott-Kantor coffee klatch! Stay tuned for ridiculous articles trying to equate Apple’s 4-month delay to Microsoft’s over 4-year long Windows Longhorn/Vista/PigLipstick debacle.)
Related articles:
Ihnatko: Hands-on with Apple’s iPhone (which runs Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) – January 18, 2007
Latest Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard build still accompanied by lengthy bug list – April 12, 2007
RUMOR: Apple to release Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in June – April 02, 2007
Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard to feature ZFS? – March 29, 2007
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard’s top secret ingredient: 3D everywhere, including new 3D Finder? – March 27, 2007
Apple to delay Leopard? Digitimes.com’s poor Apple rumor accuracy – March 23, 2007
Apple to postpone Mac OS X Leopard until October in order to support Windows Vista? – March 23, 2007
RUMOR: Some Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard ‘top secret’ features leak out – January 26, 2007
RUMOR: Apple Mac OS X Leopard to replace ‘Aqua’ with ‘Illuminous’ – December 11, 2006
Apple confirms ‘resolution independence’ and more coming in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard – October 23, 2006
Oh. Hell. No.
MW: ‘attack’
Noooooo!!!!!
Damn.
Oh dear.
ouch is right MDN….ouch
MW: ‘problem’…Cupertino, we have a problem
Growth has its price. Apple’s stock price will go down…
Still, it is undoubtedly the right decision…
April 1st….is two weeks ago….NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Well that sucks weiner.
In the great words of Darth Vader…
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo!
I’m predicting another buying opportuntiy for AAPL in the near future.
Gosh darn it!
Note to Apple: 17″MBP purchase now put off until October 2007.
I, for one, am glad that they are doing the right thing…
However, will this ruin any chance of getting a major number of switchers from Windows? It may just be too much time for people to wait… they will just “get Vista instead”.
AHHH-HAAAA-HAAAAA-HAAAAAAA. OH. HOOOOO! HOOOOOO!
Oh! Watta Chihuahua! Blaa! Blaa! HAAAAA! HAAAAA! Chickamoni Tickina maya tookusabaloney!
fskers!
btw.. Derin’s a puss.
Saw it coming all along. Even the very latest Leopard client release. What seems to be problematic at this point is keeping it universal, as in backwards compatible.
Then, when it finally comes out, some people will say- “all that wait for this?”
You watch.
I’m just glad Apple said October instead of “fall” so we are spared MDN take and MDN take parsing what “fall” means.
This will definitely affect revenue forecasts from Wall Street. The stock will take a hit.
Long term, Apple is making the right choice. Leopard NEEDS to be a near perfect, revolutionary release or Apple will jeopardize the built-up momentum and good will.
I just hope they plan to get people excited about the hardware again by updating the current line of Macs. October is a long time to wait for new hardware.
I never owned a cell phone and have no interest whatsoever on those devices.
Wanna know what I think about the iPhone?
Wise decision. Why split the spotlight among two very, very major products from your company? More is riding on the successful launch of the iPhone than Leopard. Doesn’t make sense to have two compelling products competing for attention at the same time.
So, on the one hand soooooooooo many people posting to this site castigated and chastized and utterly lambasted Adobe for “being late” with CS3. They said that new MacPro sales would finally accelerate and pick up once CS3 shipped because it would get here AFTER Leopard.
Well, lawwwwwwwdy, Miss Kitty! Now it’s APPLE who’s LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!
My oh my oh myyyyyyy . . . the shoe’s on the other foot now.
I wonder what Chizen is doing right about now? Hmmmmm . . . let’s see . . . I’d say he’s most likely . . .
LAUGHING HIS ASS OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What is the source for this? June, July, August, September and October. That is not a minor slip, seems like a major slide. I have a hard time believing this.
This is the best thing that Apple could have done in order to ship a quality product. If it was not delayed, Leopard would be compared to Vista’s problems — making Apple synonymous with Microslacker. Definitely not a good comparison.
I applaud making the hard decision.
As much as I hate the wait, I agree it is better to ship late rather than ship a buggy product.
Does this mean we’ll eventually see a 10.4.10?
Peace.
I sure hope it’s a fake, but the press release sounds real.
I can’t find any thing regarding this on Apple’s site… am I missing it?