Great comment a moment ago… When should I buy my MacBook? Before of after Leopard?
From my own point of view I’d buy when I needed to. If I needed that MacBook RFN… I’d go out and get the best, baddest I could immediately. From a practical point of view if you can wait there will be some bennies:
Who knows when or if Apple will have a grace period for those who purchase Macs leading up to/after Leopard’s launch? They’ve done this in the past. Reasonable to think they’d do it again. Otherwise, you might risk buying gear now only to turn around and find yourself upgrading OS within a month at your own cost;
The local CompUSA had a mess on their hands the night Tiger launched (this was before we had an Apple Store in Tulsa). The poor guy was imaging and installing like a mad man. It created a big headache for all involved. So, I’d say, wait until you KNOW Leopard is factory installed on the gear you’re buying;
Finally, Leopard’s awesome if the seeds are any indicator. I’d rather not run Tiger and then have to migrate from 10.4 to 10.5. I did that once just to see what pain was involved. I’d rather start fresh and build on top of that.
FYI, Leopard 9A559 received an update last night via Software Updater (apparently also applies to 9A557).
I’ve just jotted off a bug report to Apple on some “things”. Not show stoppers and probably easily addressed with 10.5.1 update should it come to that. Sure would be nice to have some of the finer bits of eye candy tight and right and showing off as best it can though.
Hoping Apple will announce an actual release date soon. Wonder what Amazon’s pre-order ship date is indicating these days? Hmm…
Wouldn’t it be fun for Apple to snooker us all and launch Leopard this Monday, October 1?
Hell, might as well fan the flames of desire here a bit. C’mon, dontcha think?!
They’re calculating like that. Take for instance, the iPhone. They deliberately launched it late 2Q2007. All just to get a pop for the quarter on ye olde stock ticker (AAPL) and punch up the Q2 results.
I can see them trying to milk Q4 for everything it’s got in it with an October 1 release. Yeah, I know, it’s all blue sky speculation and tin-foil-hat tom-foolery. But, still, they’re sly like a fox that way and I could totally see them kitting up the DVDs for the past two weeks while they feed us three or four week old images throwing us off and onto a cold trail. Why would dear old Apple do that pray tell? ‘Cause they can Timmy. Cause they can.
This release has been given the back seat while iPhone an AppleTV took center stage for the first half of 2007. As of 9A559 Leopard’s tight. REAL tight (especially Server). I’ve been using the latest greatest as my production machine for two solid weeks. So, it wouldn’t shock me in the least if Apple came out swinging for a full Fourth Quarter performance. Get this right and get it tight as a drum before the holiday season, gin up word of mouth and I see AAPL posting some mighty fine numbers on unit sales all the way around. Leopard has the teeth in it to drive some killer innovation across their product lineup (iPod, iTunes, iPhone and of course Macs).
If you’re one of my fellow ADC buddies out there… 9A528d just appeared on ADC.
I’m betting this is the last seed we see as developers prior to GM. Beware, there is an interesting matter of a new updater. Login. You’ll see…
[EDIT: Well, shut my mouth! 9A559 sure came out fast! Wonder if this is “the one”? Given the late date… it’s all but certain we won’t see Leopard at the Apple Store on Monday… I’d love to be wrong on that one btw. Apple might just want a full Q4 for Leopard sales… Hmmm.]
[FINAL: The above is, by far, the best public demo on YouTube of what Leopard brings to the table I’ve seen so far. There was no harming of my NDA in bringing this link to you.]
[EDIT: Leopard seeds are accelerating. We’re now sitting at 9A559 as of last Friday night. This is rumored to be the final image. Frankly, I’m surprised we’re this far into September with new seeds. They absolutely have to stop the seeds and start cutting DVDs… Yes, you’re going to have to have a minimum config of a G4 with a DVD drive and better than 800MHz performance processor. It’s not clear if Dual-Layer DVD is going to be used. It has been “required” with the seed installs if using optical media up to this point. More likely to be a two DVD install set. Thanks for the sharp tongued devil “foofoorabbit” I am now a much older and wiser blogger of things Apple (see comments below).]
Apple’s just postponed Leopard to October. Stock was only punished by 3% today. Watch the selloff tomorrow. I might actually want to get my position back into Apple in anticipation of another split before too long and the eventual ride back up the slope. At least iPhone is on track…
That’s going to lend more value to the shareholders than Leopard anyway.
BTW, the opening video for Leopard was posted to YouTube in the last couple of days. Watch it. Once you’ve installed Leopard you’ll see it’ll have set the tone for a few things. More I cannot say.
[EDIT: This post has obviously nabbed quite a lot of link love lately by the looks of the stats. So, I’ll do right by those hoping to get an insight into the release date… The short answer is, no one knows what date Leopard is going to ship. Last word uttered on the matter is October 2007. So, that could be as late as October 31, 2007. It could be as early as Oct 1, 2007 (doubtful, but technically still doable). All of this is speculation. Apple (ie. Steve Jobs) could easily shift the date once again for any of a bazillion reasons. Trust me. What comes out is going to be BRILLIANT for sysadmins and programmers alike. The UI… well, folks, simply needs tweaking. At this point don’t expect major developments to rock our world. Human to machine interface on the other hand is undergoing HUGE changes. Watch for those and how they can potentially affect the UI. That’s where the action will be. Voice and touch input are going to be monsters.]
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