Apple announced yesterday its plans to delay the release of OS X Leopard until October. They said that they had to move some staff from working on Leopard to working on the software on the iPhone. They said that the iPhone will be released in late June as planned and that OS X will be fully featured by then but will not be ready for a final release until this Fall.
This upsets me, the worry actually started back when they announced the iPhone and also announced that they would be changing their name from Apple Computers Inc. to Apple Inc. I was really worried that they would lose sight of what made them such a great company, their computers. I think that the iPhone is really important but I do also think that it could have waited until October and Leopard could not. Microsoft will gain some headroom on the release of their new operating system and Apple seems to be a bit behind.
This is a very important time for operating systems. Users are finally getting to the point where they may be willing to move over to another operating system, now whether that will be Vista, Linux, or OS X had a lot to do with what those are offering. Vista obviously looks really good but no one can claim that it is better than what you get under Linux with XGL or AIGLX. OS X is just beginning to look boring. Expose is still really cool but you can get that on your current hardware by downloading a free operating system and maybe spending about a half an hour playing around with the software to get it doing everything you want it to.
I just think that Apple has made a big mistake and that this will hurt them in the OS market more than they think it will. I have begun to be reluctant about the iPhone, yes its a great phone but I’m worried about keeping it looking good while my fingers are poking at its screen constantly. I also am not sure whether I want to have a $599 device in my pocket at all times, I would almost rather have a small internet tablet like a Nokia N800, a iPod with Video and a really thin and tiny phone.
All I can say is the iPhone better be worth the wait we all have to endure for Leopard.