Apple's Missed Opportunity With Leopard Delay 641
An anonymous reader writes "According to an article on OSWeekly.com, Apple missed a big opportunity by not releasing Leopard soon. They could've taken advantage of Vista's losing streak and one upped Microsoft, the author suggests. 'It's not uncommon for Windows users and technology consumers in general to say that Microsoft missed out on making the most of Vista both before and after its launch. Longtime fans of Windows have changed their tone due to Vista's inadequacies, and regular users are in many cases stuck with trying to figure out why they still can't get certain things to work within the operating system. Granted, it's not a completely horrific OS, but is that even a compliment worth accepting?'"
Apple has been known to dissemble... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what Apple said, but people who were on the beta were saying that Leopard wasn't likely to be ready on time already, that it was way less stable and mature than Tiger and Panther had been at a similar point. And Apple has been known to dissemble, perhaps not outright fibbing but certainly exaggerating minor issues and not even mentioning major ones... so I still think this explanation should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Freakish article (Score:5, Interesting)
His piece is titled:
Apple needs to come out with 10.5 of all systems.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Right, they should have followed Microsoft's le (Score:4, Interesting)
The reality distortion field is strong in this one....
But even stronger in the article. Come on... Joe Average hears about problems in Vista - he's going to look at the Mac, perhaps. Will he understand the differences between Tiger and Leopord - or Jaguar or Krazy Kitten (oops, that's the next Ubuntu release, sorry)?
And who is really not moving towards Vista? It's large corporate systems with millions of dollars invested in a stable XP and little desire to mess with that. That move will be slow but steady. But really slow - probably slower than the 98 to XP move. Witness all of the systems still on 2000.
I may be more of a poster child for a switcher - having used Windows in all flavors and sizes since 3.0. I finally got fed up with the cheapass hardware that laptop manufacturers have tossed out on the market and looked to find something that might, perhaps, get hardware support for more than a year. I've also used Unix since the 1980's and have two Linux boxes at home (well, Ubuntu anyway) - so I'm not adverse to learning another OS. It's still a royal pain to switch if you do anything more complicated than Letters / Browsing / Music.
(Start flames about Apple using cheapass hardware - they do - I just hope they use the SAME cheapass hardware so I can replace it down the line).
Re:Apple has been known to dissemble... (Score:2, Interesting)
Good point. Although, one other point is that the iPhone was already in development for a long time before Apple made that announcement. They very well could already have taken many developers and testers from 10.5 and moved them to iPhone long before. My guess is that Apple, at all costs, wanted to avoid doing what Microsoft did and completely disenchanting their user base by releasing a half-finished OS.
I'd say there were two factors at play - first, Apple took staff from 10.5 and moved them to iPhone in mid-to-late 2006. Apple figures it will impact Leopard but they weren't sure how much. Second, Vista was released in November 2006 and flops. Apple then learns from this and realizes they need to improve Leopard dramatically before release.
It takes Apple until January, and Apple announces the iPhone release date and the Leopard release date as everything solidifies.
Apple was doing something completely new for them - a touch screen and a phone - and they didn't plan for enough resources, so they re-appropriated resources from a project that could afford a delay.
But they were already slipping... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's what I think the real reason was. If Leopard had been on track for the expected 18-month release cycle in mid-2006 it would have been pretty solid by the time they started on the iPhone, with a late 2006 or early 2007 release. The mid-2007 "non-slipped" date was already 2 years after Tiger.
Maybe the iPhone made the slip worse, but if it wasn't already slipping it wouldn't have needed the resources they pulled out for the iPhone.
And I don't think this slip cost them much of an "opportunity". If they'd had it out around the same time as Vista, 18 months after Tiger, then sure... but I don't think they could have pulled that off no matter what resources they threw into the pot. Brooks' Law always trumps Moore's Law.
Re:Missed opportunities are missing features? (Score:2, Interesting)
Outside of developers who use version control systems, a great deal of even IT workers don't understand the concept of point-in-time recovery. Time Machine is a blessing, and all OSes should have a well built backup/recovery client integrated. Hopefully it will promote the idea that backup services shouldn't just be used in emergencies. That's the way most are used today and why nobody trusts them. Trusting a backup solution is HUGE and very underrated. You only get there by using it.
Re:Hardly... (Score:4, Interesting)
My anecdotal evidence: In the last several years of all my friends who use Windows only one had switched to a Mac, despite me being the "computer guy." And now in just the last couple of months seven more have switched. It's been almost spooky.
One had even recently purchased a computer with Vista installed and got so frustrated that he gave it to his son in law and bought an iMac.
Re:Hardly... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Macs are not replacing Windows PCs (Score:4, Interesting)
"Macs are not replacing Windows PCs, they have become Windows PCs. Buyers no longer have to choose Mac OS X or Windows, they can have both. That is the catalyst that is driving the increased sales."
That's the main reason I picked up my iMac last year. I was teaching in Korea and had limited space in my tiny apartment, but I needed a new computer. I picked up an iMac because it's so tiny (smaller than a Mac Mini, if you consider the fact that a Mini requires a monitor *and* a box on your desk), installed Windows, and haven't looked back. I could really care less about Tiger or Leopard, but as far as I'm concerned, Apple's doing great things with its hardware.
Vista's not so bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Vista's honestly not that bad. Quite nice in some areas. I've had no serious app compat issues - but then I only really use OSS apps, and those tend to be well behaved anyway since they're usually portable, and tend to be quickly updated for new platforms.
I find the UI a small but significant improvement, and I'm already in love with the indexing service's integration with the rest of the OS. Yes, mac users, I know about spotlight - I admin macs at work.
I'd also say that fears about battery life _on_ _new_ _hardware_ with the latest generation of mobile GPUs are somewhat overblown. I don't see a huge difference between Aero on and off - much as I see relatively little difference (1/2 an hour out of this laptops 4 1/2 at most) from activating Compiz on Ubuntu. I'm not even sure there's any effect at all, since whatever difference there is is well within the measurement inaccuracy of any battery testing.
It's not some huge leap forward - it's more like what Apple does between two Mac OS X releases (including the breakage of apps with rather hacky innards that people yell about - try admining a DTP lab with Adobe and Quark products and tell me how much you love Mac OS X updates). What it is, though, is a _lot_ of small and medium improvements rolled up into what I'd call an overall much better OS.
I'd feel pretty ripped off if I'd paid to upgrade from XP - but as a new OS it's quite nice. I don't find the UAC stuff annoying (though it was a HORROR in prereleases apparently) though I do think it's a waste of time that'll just get people clicking the dialogs without even thinking.
As it is, I find Vista much more usable than XP already. It took me a few hours to get used to some of the differences (and I still hate the control panel UI in "new mode" - though I'm sure it's OK for non-technical users) but it's now quite nice to use. I tend to switch between it and Ubuntu on my new laptop, depending on task.
It's not the timing...it's the hardware. (Score:2, Interesting)
If they were to do this there would be mass conversions on a scale that would have Ballmer throwing Chair's out the top of Microsoft Tower and Bill Gates hair turning white. After a few years when the tide has shifted and the majority of home users were on OSX, Apple could then make inroads to the corporate world where execs, admins and users alike would welcome them with open arms. Game over.
Re:Missed Opportunity? (Score:4, Interesting)
Shifting large numbers of employees around on projects for short periods isn't effective in shortening product cycles. I seriously doubt Apple's claim that it applied the Leopard development team to help deliver the iPhone.
It's more likely that that Leopard simply didn't make internal development milestones and its schedule shifted out. The iPhone excuse is just spin.
As for what I own, I have both an iPhone and Macs. I realize that Apple lies to manipulate its customers and the market just like every other company, though.
Only counting NEW mac sales? (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly! But there's more to the number than the statistics would indicate.
In the past three years most of my family switched to a Mac. I switched (desktop and laptop), my college-aged daughter bought a mac, I switched my parents and inlaws, and two of my colleagues switched off their PCs and are now using Macs for everyday work. So that's seven Macs in my immediate circle of family and friends. But only two of them were new machines, the rest were used G4s. The statistics in this review are only counting sales of new computers, so these switchers are "invisible."
However, that brings up a question I've had for some time. It's quite common to hear about people switching from PCs to Macs. What about the other direction?What percentage of people switch from Macs to PCs. I would wager that figure is extremely low.
(And yes, Parallels desktop is awesome!)
Re:Only counting NEW mac sales? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:At least half right, anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
i also want to know what quality? i know at least 3 or 4 people who have apples that have sent them back and forth to apple to get fixed and they just can't get it right. one of them has sent it back and forth 7 times (at $80 a pop on apple's dime... you'd think they would've gotten him a new computer by now). the market share is growing because people value shine, not because of quality.
Re:Only counting NEW mac sales? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why? Because Apple doesn't offer accidental damage protection in their extended warranty, and Dell does. The last two laptops I've owned have ended up with broken LCDs - including the one I'm typing on right now via an external monitor. (Yes, obviously I'm a klutz, but that's something I'm pretty much stuck working around.)
On the other hand, when my little sister recently got a new laptop to go off to college with, I helped her pick out a MacBook. We could have gotten a Dell a couple hundred dollars cheaper, but for her it was worth the cost to not have to deal with virus scanners, driver problems, and all the other hassles that come with PCs. (For me, this wouldn't be as much of an issue, since I've had PCs long enough to get used to that kind of crap.)
Anyway, my point is that there IS a certain segment of the market for whom the specter of an OS switch isn't the biggest issue on their minds when choosing a computer.
Re:Hardly... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, both my parents and my in-laws, all in their 70s, have bought four Macs between them, and in the office I've now got a list of people who wants Macs officially supported along with the unofficial ones that have crept in. With a team of three plus two on the helpdesk support SuSE, CentOS, Solaris and Windows is tough enough, but with Macs on my desk and that of one of my team we ought to give it a go. IMAP, SMTP, Office, a compliant web browser and the Oracle Collaboration Suite client is pretty much the baseline, and it's all there...
ian
Re:Hardly... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OSWeekly is wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
There were no errors. You choose to make distinctions that more experienced programmers simply gloss over as uninteresting, and I dismissed them out of hand.
that even a novice Windows or novice Vista user would call you out on...
Let them try. I'm on vacation right now, so I can't promise to respond, but given your initial argument, I figure any refutation you bring would be trivially shot down, so I'm content to let other people do the actual research.
I am not going to take time to correct your post...
You should have. That was the only opportunity you had bolster your argument.
I just don't have the time to educate people when they are so mis-informed or intentionally are trying to mislead people.
I'm on vacation, and I just corrected your intentionally misleading post.
You keep referencing OS X as the 'shining' example of a 'good' OS...
I did not, and I do not code to OSX.
Let's take one: You say Aero=Quartz...
Aero and Quartz are popular names for the respective display rendering technologies. You're asking for a level of detail that is irrelevant to the scope of this thread. If we were going to seriously get into it, I'd have you explain how Aero doesn't use double-buffering for 99.9999999% of the windows applications out there today. Then you can explain how any new-fangled application that doesn't answer to WM_PAINT and make GDI calls like the rest of the world can be expected to run on XP. When you're done with that, speculate as to why calling QuickDraw is any different from calling the Win32 GDI. If you honestly believe that Aero takes all those MoveTo, LineTo, FillRect, and DrawText calls and turns them magically into vector graphics, you need to check again.
I don't buy it. If the library is on the disk, you still have to load it into memory. If you cache the data so you don't have to load it again, so what, any operating should be able to do that. That's why you have so much RAM, so the file-system can cache pages. If that was a serious issue, we'd put the libraries on a RAM disk.
Superfetch is also why large application like VS or AI open 5-10x faster because it is a 'smart' caching system, and our developers like the fact the applications load and run faster.)
So what you're saying is, you're pre-loading a bunch of stuff, wasting valuable memory in the process, and this is somehow better. How about this instead: provide APIs and technology that makes it possible to write code that doesn't require loading 50MB of dynamic libraries before giving the user control.
All I see is more bloat.
-Hope
Re:Hardly... (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed. Until Windows 95 I ran a hacked up version of Mini Linux [wikipedia.org] and DOS. DOS was pretty much for gaming and linux was for the rest (PPP, Telnet, FTP, irc ii, etc.).
Re:OSWeekly is wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Many claims are made in the above post but no numbers or specific citations. I am sensitive to this as an audio dev.
Could you be more specific? On OS X (since 10.2) CoreAudio has supported internal audio streams at arbitrary sample rates (any number that can be represented in a 64-bit float) and with up to 32 bit floating-point samples (the default mixers are actually deeper internally). All streams in the system are synchronized to the sample and streams may be linear-PCM, AC3 and all manner of MPEGs. A 3D Mixer AudioUnit with azimuth/altitude, pitch-shifting and reverb effects is available to the developer (in the case of games), or plain stereo/multichannel mixers are available; both have arbitrary numbers of inputs, of any sample rate, depth, or stream type (again synchronized to the sample through the Audio HAL).
But I'm sure Vista is much better, much better in so many ways!. I understand that the DirectShow does a bit with this, but DS is extremely limited unless you try to do stuff outside of the Graph editor, ie you actually have to code something, and then it gets insanely overcomplicated. Also DS is jammed full of DRM; Mac OS CoreAudio, on the other hand, has zero DRM technology built into it.
They really don't have much of a choice, do they? They have to put the best face on the situation, even if there's no real improvement to the end-user experience.
I'm not going to handicap Microsoft because they pre-installed a bunch of vendor drivers. Nor because Vista "had core subsystems changed". It's irrelevant to the question of the quality of the audio.
Re:Hardly... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Hardly... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hardly... (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know what "Slashdot thinks it is", but if the people in my family -- completely non-technical Windows users -- are in any way representative, it's common knowledge that "Vista sucks". They haven't seen it or used it but they all "know" that it sucks, and that they're better of with XP. The one of my relatives that has Vista would prefer to go back to XP, but he doesn't know how to do that, and is afraid it would void the warranty on his new laptop if he did.
There are a lot of common Joes that, rightly or wrongly, think Vista is inferior to XP.
Re:OSWeekly is wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
That's great that you can preempt the GPU... I guess. Somehow linux and OSX manage to duplicate most of vista's "shiny new" graphic effects without preempting the GPU, so either linux and OSX are better designed or this is just one more useless "feature" from MS.
Most of the world (read everyone but hardcore gamers) use computers for real work. My mom isn't going to care that her GPU got preempted while she was checking her email. I certainly don't want any graphics running on my web servers or DB servers, that's just a waste of processor time. My compile farm doesn't need to be wasting time dealing with graphics either. My developer team doesn't need to have time on their machines wasted by graphics either, sure they use GUIs, but WinXP, OS X, and Linux all perform the necessary tasks and don't get in the way (or require 2GB of RAM just to load the OS). Sure all our systems have at least 2GB of RAM, but we want to use that for compiling, running lots of applications, not loading the OS.
My 1.5 year old macbook pro runs circles around my cube mates 3 week old vista laptop. Oh yeah, and my macbook was ~$700 cheaper. He is constantly cursing his new system, well was, until I helped him install Ubuntu on it, now it runs fast. If your whole reason for supporting Vista is GPU preemption, well, I'm pretty sure thats a mistake.
Re:Hardly... - I'm getting a Mac (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a long time Linux user but at work we have to run Windows Apps and VMWare wouldn't cut it on the hardware we have.
My boss bought a Mac for his house, and the other day asked me if I'd be interested in getting one for work as my regularly scheduled upgrade. It will end up costing the company an extra thousand dollars since we'll have to pay the full price for software that we could have gotten practically free with MS PCs, but we're getting two Macs, one for my use (probably in the developer category, in other words, I'll probably break it a couple times) and one for regular use and we'll be paying for VMWare Fusion, Windows XP and Outlook on top of the already fairly high price of getting the two machines. It adds up to costing more than an extra machine, but we're going to try it. We're getting to try it because Vista has been a pain on the half dozen machines we've put it on and the higher ups are starting to realize something is wrong when most of the major software partners we rely on don't support Vista yet.
So, with Linux still seen as too complex for the masses, we're looking for alternatives and Mac fits the bill. If we can test it sufficiently and get it proven to be usable, the possibility of having Macs in a corporate environment open up. It's far from a done deal, but it is possible where it wasn't just two years ago.
I respectfully disagree with the parent, laffer1; it is not games but corporate adoption that will decide whether Vista is the first step in losing the stranglehold that Windows has had on the OS market. People will become familiar with what they have to use at work and will buy the same thing. Macs are finally becoming competitive in features and pricing and once they are adopted in the corporate world, the home user market can follow. If you ask me, Microsoft got their advertising right by targeting the environment that controls the user experience while Mac has been aiming at the home user when that same user will use whatever they are familiar with from work and school. I wish that I could say Linux is ready, and it would do as well or better for me, but it isn't ready for the average worker. Mac, just maybe, might be.