Letting the Cat out of the Bag - Mac OS X 10.5
Posted February 20th, 2007 @ 07:42pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Think Secret seems to believe that both Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Mac OS X 10.5 will ship in March. Me, I'm not so sure, and I think a lot of people will be incredibly disappointed if Mac OS X 10.5 doesn't have some massive UI overhaul. A March release would be a first, after all - we've not really been treated to much of a tour of the OS by Steve Jobs as we usually are.
When will Apple let (release/sell) the cat (Leopard) out of the bag?
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Posted 20 Feb 2007 at 8:11pm #
The last AppleInsider (I find them to be more reliable) article said that Leopard still has tons of bugs in it. It can't be ready for March.
I would imagine that maybe Steve will hold a presentation, showing off the secret features. This will give developers time to react, and fix bugs in their software that conflict with these new features. Then maybe a full release a month later?
The dust is still settling on Vista, seriously. March is way too soon.
Assuming this happens, I think it's reasonable to expect the presentation to happen in April, give developers (and the Mac community) two months to react, then a release at WWDC in June.
Posted 20 Feb 2007 at 9:44pm #
I read some where that CS3 will be released March 1st so my money is on April XX.
Posted 20 Feb 2007 at 11:17pm #
Eric said on February 20, 2007:
I doubt very much that PS CS3 will be available March 1, let alone the entire CS3 suite.
Posted 20 Feb 2007 at 11:29pm #
10.0 was released in March
Posted 20 Feb 2007 at 11:35pm #
Dan said on February 20, 2007:
Nobody said it wasn't. I said that a release without a "full tour" would be a first, as I'm assuming a March release would not give Steve enough time to give us a tour and then announce a ship date.
Posted 21 Feb 2007 at 3:08am #
March - well, they might announce a ship date then, but...
Going on recent builds (NDA here so I'll err on the side of caution): Last seed to ADC members was released just over a month ago. I waited for a bit, thought "maybe I should give it shakedown cruise to see where things are at...", file a few bug reports while I'm at it and generally start getting comfy with 10.5. So I grabbed the dmg and installed it.
Not one of my greatest ideas. I tried it on my MBP for two solid weeks - then decided to roll back to 10.4.8. Current build Is a long way from solid. I'm still waiting for the next build to see how much progress has been made - but the frequency of public seeding of builds is much lower than it was for 10.2-10.4.
I'd also tried the prior (Dec?) build on a 24" iMac with similar success - obviously I noticed improvements between builds, but a March release date? Repeat after me - nope. My money is on a release sometime in the month before WWDC.
[And if for some reason I'm proven wrong - I'd strongly suggest waiting until at least 10.5.2 or better before even thinking about an upgrade. YMMV.]
Posted 21 Feb 2007 at 9:15am #
Given that 10.4.9 is not out yet and that it deserves a couple of months of air time, I think it'd make sense to release 10.5 nearer the developer conference.
Posted 21 Feb 2007 at 11:40am #
My bet is announce in April, just like Tiger. A nice two year upgrade cycle?
Posted 21 Feb 2007 at 2:30pm #
Well, I have to be careful what I say, given that I'm an ADC Select member and have access to the seeds..
I will say that I was surprised that 10.4 came out as early as it did. I thought it needed another 2-3 months of work, based on the last 10.4.0 developer seed we saw. (And looking back at the first few updates to it, I'd say I was right. it wasn't really stable until 10.4.2 or so.)
Leopard seeds are moving a bit slower than Tiger, and I imagine Apple wouldn't want 10.5.0 to be as buggy as 10.4.0, so I imagine they'll wait until WWDC. That way they can show off their "secret" features (if they exist) too. Although if the secret features impact developers at all, then I' d hope for at least a month between letting developers know about it and the final release.
Posted 21 Feb 2007 at 5:54pm #
Webkit just limited trunk checkins and is working on closing out all their P1 bugs. Webkit is an important part of the OS and I think the closing of them will be a good indicator of when the release is. March would be too early for most of them to be closed out. I think May/June is more realistic.