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OS X Operating Systems Businesses Apple

Mac OS X Tiger Accidentally Shipped Early 540

boarder8925 writes "Engadget reports: 'In many places around the world, Mac fans and Apple distributors received a shipment they weren't quite expecting: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger arrived at the door a full eight days ahead of schedule for some lucky folks who pre-ordered. Vendors PCMall/MacMall and ClubMac gave pre-order customers a treat by unleashing the OS ahead of schedule, quickly followed up by a 'recall' of the copies from PCMall.'"
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Mac OS X Tiger Accidentally Shipped Early

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  • Oh come on... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:40PM (#12330971)
    They're telling customers the Tiger copies that shipped out early will not be supported by Apple, and that users will have to return the boxes and get new copies shipped next week
    What a bunch of jerks, they should just suck it up and admit they dropped the ball. There is no way that this boxed up and shipped version is going to be any different then the one they send a few days from now.
    • by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:47PM (#12331035)
      Hey this is Apple, clearly this is a new and innovative shipping concept, designed to be aesthetically plesing to the user.
    • Re:Oh come on... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TWX ( 665546 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:48PM (#12331036)
      I've got one better...

      If I were a customer, I'd insist that they ship me the supposedly legitimate one and pay for my return postage before they get the other one back, seeing as how it was their mistake, not mine, and that I should not be liable for their cockup. If they want it right, they have to do the work to make it right, not me. If they won't support the product then the credit card company gets called and the charge is revoked, as I as a consumer haven't been given what I've paid for.
      • If I were a customer, I'd insist that they ship me the supposedly legitimate one and pay for my return postage before they get the other one back, seeing as how it was their mistake, not mine, and that I should not be liable for their cockup. If they want it right, they have to do the work to make it right, not me. If they won't support the product then the credit card company gets called and the charge is revoked, as I as a consumer haven't been given what I've paid for.

        I'd have to imagine Apple's arrang

      • Re:Oh come on... (Score:5, Informative)

        by NormalVisual ( 565491 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @04:19PM (#12331248)
        I wouldn't even worry about it. If you're shipped an illegitimate version, then that's not the item you ordered. Under Federal law you have no duty to return an item you didn't order, and the supplier is still on the hook to deliver the merchandise you've already paid for.

        If they want to be jerks about it, then do as you mentioned and dispute the charge. If Apple does in fact figure out some way to identify and exclude the early users from the support they're owed, they'd best make sure those people get a totally legitimate copy. Otherwise, they just grabbed the biggest shovel in the shed to dig a very public hole around themselves.
    • Re:Oh come on... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I am a former Mac Genius, and some current Mac Genius friends of mine have told me that they were instructed to support people who got early copies.
    • Humbug (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DABANSHEE ( 154661 )

      They're telling customers the Tiger copies that shipped out early will not be supported by Apple, and that users will have to return the boxes and get new copies shipped next week

      Notice such quotes are useally in the 3rd person, alway

      they're telling people, not they told me.

      At most as a legitimatly sold product all Apple could do was withhold support till the official release day. Fact is once the release day occures Apple's support staff/contractors won't give a fuck if someone's purchase &/or deli

  • by ehack ( 115197 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:40PM (#12330973) Journal
    Feature 201: It's early !
  • by jshaw001 ( 857478 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:41PM (#12330975) Homepage
    I just want to know who were the people that returned the copies, so I can laugh at them. somethign like that.
    • Do they get them back a week if they return them? Really I mean it's a week. Good for them. How much damage can a week early release do?
      • None at all. In fact it is a benefit. Lots of savvy people like to wait a short while after a software update or new OS release to make sure things like corrupted firewire drives or boot failures or java cockups are sorted out.

        Think of it as a limited pre-release. By the time I get my copy these issues are usually already sorted out by those who got it early and couldn't wait.
    • by King_TJ ( 85913 )
      Well, they did offer to throw in a free copy of iWork '05 if you returned Tiger and waited another week to receive it again. So who knows? At least one or two people very well might have taken them up on the offer - figuring they get a decent free bonus out of the deal, and there's no pressing need to run a new OS 7 or 8 days before everyone else starts installing it.
  • by SYFer ( 617415 ) <syfer@syf e r . n et> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:41PM (#12330977) Homepage
    If you are located within 50 miles of Cupertino and listen very carefully (I actually had to turn off my computer to cut the fan noise), you can actually hear Steve Jobs yelling!
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:42PM (#12330982)
    But Microsoft will ship Longhorn...oh...just a wee bit late, so on average...the world is OK
  • Isn't this old news... Like happened at least three or so days ago.

    Either way, I'm sure they're going to get one of Steve's Armani boots lodged up their ass.
  • Torrent (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:43PM (#12330989)
    Torrent please
  • by The Amazing Fish Boy ( 863897 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:43PM (#12330991) Homepage Journal
    At least one [thepiratebay.com] other "reseller" has received legal threats [thepiratebay.org], but apparently they think they are immune [thepiratebay.org].
    • by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro&gmail,com> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:50PM (#12331059) Journal
      Whats amusing about this legal threat is at the bottom it states
      This message and any attached documents contain information from the law firm of OMelveny & Myers LLP that may be confidential and/or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not read, copy, distribute, or use this information.
      Now for the love of god ... Who puts a warning about not being aloud to read something at the bottom .. you know the bit you um read last .
    • by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro&gmail,com> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @04:02PM (#12331132) Journal
      Ok responding to the same thing twice , bad show i know but i had another thought .
      first off I do not support what Thepiratebay is doing , but i have a problem with apples lawyer.
      First off you do not send a legal threat to a sweedish site citing US law.
      Second if your going to send a legal threat for the love of god do it in the right language , as sending it in english can cause problems .

      Apple need to have a word with their lawyer about this as it is bad practice .
      Other than that , apple do have good cause to be angry at this site ..

      However i do not yet know if bittorent sites can in all sanity be proesecuted for any breach , as First they are only holding information pertaining to the download IE: the torrent(not any copyright material) and in civil cases i don't think you can be prosecuted for such things(obviously very difrent in criminal law) in most european countrys.
  • It's ok (Score:5, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:43PM (#12330993) Homepage
    It turns out that ut's not an 8 day early copy of OS X, it's a 1 year 8 day early copy of Longhorn.
  • by Your Average Joe ( 303066 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:43PM (#12330998)
    What a shame, with all that money and R&D and little old Apple beat MS to the punchline. Now Windows is the last desktop OS that is 64 bit...

    Our 64 bit Windows OS Just Works, barely

    Makes me want to cry...
  • ...that Longhorn will be out earlier than expected? Cool!
  • I used to work at a video game retailing store, and we used to get shipments of products in well before their offical release date. They would be in plain brown unmarked boxes that would have red tape on them with the offical release date on it. Anyone who even openned the boxes early could be fired. We had Halo 2 the day before the release, and believe me, it would have been nice to start calling up the preorder people and telling them to come get it.

    Anyways, my point is, doesn't Apple (or other software companies,) have a similar policy regarding the release of their product and preorders? If not, perhaps they should.
    • by hazem ( 472289 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @04:03PM (#12331142) Journal
      Anyways, my point is, doesn't Apple (or other software companies,) have a similar policy regarding the release of their product and preorders? If not, perhaps they should.

      I think the issue is that no OS companies are USED to shipping early. It's a contingency they're not prepared to deal with!
    • by pla ( 258480 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @04:04PM (#12331150) Journal
      Anyone who even openned the boxes early could be fired.

      Perhaps only tangentially related, but I've found that some stores very regularly start selling products before their official release. One that immediately comes to mind, Blockbuster usually starts renting movies about a week before the actual release on DVD.

      I wonder, do these "release dates" actually have any legal teeth behind them? Obviously a distributor could refuse to sell anything to those stores that don't cooperate, but such a threat against companies like Blockbuster or WallyWorld amount to cutting off their nose to spite their face - WallyWorld might just respond with "okay, bye", instantly halving the available market for that product.
      • (In addition to what the others have said)

        If you violate the release date and they find out, you will not get product from that company anymore. (If you are a really big company they just won't ship it until the release day)

        This means customers who want the hot product on the day of release won't get it at your store, because you won't even have it until the truck arrives (If you are big, latter that day, small companies sometimes next week, unless it is a big seller when you don't get it until the big g

  • Maybe... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SnowCrashed ( 778322 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:46PM (#12331026)
    Maybe Microsoft could have something that closely resembles this feature in Longhorn =)
  • by zapfie ( 560589 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:47PM (#12331034)
    So.. this must be how my girlfriend feels when I.. uh.. arrive ahead of schedule. :|
    • by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro&gmail,com> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @04:09PM (#12331184) Journal
      Hey , for a simmilar reason the ladies call me Longhorn ,First time ever that I don't mind being compared to an MS product.
      • by Sentry21 ( 8183 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @06:23PM (#12332118) Journal
        <psaux> extracting Longhorn as we speak
        <wrmachine> lame
        <psaux> your mom
        <wrmachine> see, i don't install beta anything unless i'm beta testing a game
        <wrmachine> nor do i install software i don't intend to use
        <psaux> I'm installing it in Virtual PC
        <psaux> I want to see what's done right and what's done wrong, so that I can give the verbal smackdown to people who are all bitching about things they don't know what they're talking about
        <wrmachine> ya i figured it'd be on a virtual pc, but still
        <wrmachine> laaaame
        <wrmachine> my mom made banana bread
        <psaux> does your mom want to help me test my longhorn?
        <psaux> it's stable and fast, and it can stay up for months without a problem
        <wrmachine> i bet it'll crash as soon as i boot it
  • This was a mistake?! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:50PM (#12331054)
    I'm one of those lucky persons who received Tiger early. Actually, I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to receive it. Heck, I pre-ordered, so I thought the April 28 date was just the final date, when it was guaranteed to be available at any location.

    Anyway, I installed it already, and oh man, it is everything I thought it was going to be. Actually, those ten improvements (Spotlight, Dashboard, Automator, etc.) that everyone's talking about are all pretty cool, but the OS really is significantly faster and smoother than 10.3.x. And a lot cool stuff is changed under the surface. Check the man page for cp, etc., and you'll see what I mean.

    I have to say, I really am impressed with this release. Every previous upgrade has been a big surprise and a big improvement, and I was skeptical that Tiger would be anything to jump up and down over, but I really have to say that I've been pleasantly surprised with this one.

    And no, I'm not sending it back!

    • by MasonMcD ( 104041 ) <masonmcd@ma[ ]om ['c.c' in gap]> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @04:07PM (#12331168) Homepage
      Anyway, I installed it already, and oh man, it is everything I thought it was going to be. Actually, those ten improvements (Spotlight, Dashboard, Automator, etc.) that everyone's talking about are all pretty cool, but the OS really is significantly faster and smoother than 10.3.x. And a lot cool stuff is changed under the surface. Check the man page for cp, etc., and you'll see what I mean.

      Don't forget the levitation thing tha... oops. Nevermind. Just got my C&D letter.
    • by azuroff ( 318072 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @11:03PM (#12333515)
      Check the man page for cp, etc., and you'll see what I mean.

      I CAN'T "check the man page for cp" for another 8 days, you insensitive clod!!
  • by Lapsed Catholic ( 875641 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:54PM (#12331085)
    ...where I work. We get prerelease CDs from Apple regularly and we send back bug reports regarding their JVM. We always make sure to destroy the CDs by the proper dates. I suppose we should be more careful with them to avoid turning into a Slashdot story like this one.

    Most of the stupid JVM bugs specific to OSX that we run into aren't reproducible on the machine running Tiger. Java seems to be really improved in this release.
    • OT: Have you had a chance to run JEdit on Tiger? If so, what was your impression?

      I'm looking for a good editor to do some Mono work on my mini. Yes, seems a little heretical to be using a java-based editor to write C#, but SharpDevelop hasn't been ported yet.

      Thanks.
      Chip H.
  • by skahshah ( 603640 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:57PM (#12331100)
    When they annouced the release for the end of the month I called my retailer to secure a copy. He told me he would have it the following week, and that I could come and see a demonstration, but that he wouldn't sell any copy before the 29, having signed an embargo contract with Apple. I will have mine in 5 days.
  • Question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thesupermikey ( 220055 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @04:05PM (#12331155) Homepage Journal
    Does anyone know if computers order from apple before next firday come with 10.4 installed?

    or does one have to wait to the release date for new macs do have 10.4?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24, 2005 @04:05PM (#12331158)
    Duke Nukem Forever will average everything out when it finally goes gold.
  • by Mean_Nishka ( 543399 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @04:12PM (#12331201) Homepage Journal
    What's the point of release dates anyhow?
    With digital distribution now finally catching on, it would be in the best interest of most companies to release when it's done.. I'd much prefer to download a (legal) burnable disc image than have to wait for a box to show up.
    IMHO much piracy is due to impatient souls who simply can't wait for the release. Music is a great exmaple of this. I say when it goes gold, release it. Many of these downloaders would probably pay for it.
    • What's the point of release dates anyhow?

      The initial amount of tech support that goes into a product the first few months it launches is not the same that is required down the line. There will be a lot of "seasonal" tech support at Apple because of the deluge caused by a new OS. Sometimes these are simple questions answered by reading the "What's New?" part in help but people don't always do that. They have to get ready for this.

      To be fair to all distributors Apple gives time for the shipping of the

    • With digital distribution now finally catching on, it would be in the best interest of most companies to release when it's done.. I'd much prefer to download a (legal) burnable disc image than have to wait for a box to show up.

      There are a LOT of reasons why Apple doesn't just dump their product on the website the day it's done. For one, regardless of whether you personally would download a 4gb DVD image, most sales will still be through brick-and-mortar stores. Unless Apple wants to alienate (and likel
  • by IdJit ( 78604 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @04:59PM (#12331532)
    OSX Tiger Came Prematurely

    See, that's what I like about Longhorn...He's Mr. Slow-n-Easy...Just like Barry White.

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