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Friday, March 02, 2007, 10:00 am
Latest Leopard build from Apple suggests much work ahead
A new build of Apple's Leopard operating system released to developers this week introduces a handful of fresh features, but also carries with it a significant laundry list of impending issues that will need to be ironed out before any such public release is considered.Please Note: This article has been removed temporarily for edits at the request of Apple Inc.
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Did you mean to say "Serious issues also remain"?
Leopard will remind us all of the first OS X: "10.0 Cheetah" because of the issues it will have.
But it will be so compelling that you'll live with the bugginess and not care a whit.
My Theory - I'm sure there are a lot of issues and problems in the stripped down, feature barren releases that Apple is letting outside of its doors. Remember that this is the same company that is so guarded about its secrets that it created fake iPhone prototypes to throw off partners and people inside the company while developing that product. Leopard isn't any different. Steve Jobs has already said that there are these "top secret" features to the new OS and we've not seen any of those - indicating to me that they're stripping these from the beta software that they're giving to developers. I'm sure there is another set of code around the Cupertino campus which includes the full set of features and probably a lot less bugs. I could be wrong, but that's my theory. 8)
My Theory - I'm sure there are a lot of issues and problems in the stripped down, feature barren releases that Apple is letting outside of its doors. Remember that this is the same company that is so guarded about its secrets that it created fake iPhone prototypes to throw off partners and people inside the company while developing that product. Leopard isn't any different. Steve Jobs has already said that there are these "top secret" features to the new OS and we've not seen any of those - indicating to me that they're stripping these from the beta software that they're giving to developers. I'm sure there is another set of code around the Cupertino campus which includes the full set of features and probably a lot less bugs. I could be wrong, but that's my theory. 8)
My money is on a WWDC intro.
With reports like this, we would be lucky to have Leopard shipping this WWDC.
And yet, that would still be meeting their Spring target. (Spring ends June 21.) I gotta say, I've been expecting that timeframe all along - assume they got it polished, ready, and perfect by March 31. They could either try and step up all other efforts (marketing, production, etc) to meet that, including stepping up any hardware projects that may be tied to 10.5... or they could spend the time to add in some features that had been slated for 10.5.1. ie, more bugs. Too many other things are going to be tied to 10.5's release, I just don't see them shipping it early.
Perhaps they should rename Leopard into Longhorn... 
How exactly do they test the secret features while still keeping them secret?
I sure hope this is ready by June! It sounds dismal. And realistically, when will they reveal the new features (like an upgraded Finder) to developers?
With reports like this, we would be lucky to have Leopard shipping this WWDC.
Agreed... given this list as an engineering lead, my off-the-cuff estimate would be 6 months or so. It would be interesting to see the chart of new bugs vs. in-progress engineering, in-progress QA, fixed, and verified bugs, and see if they're over the hump yet. It doesn't really sound like it from this report.
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With a significant list of known issues and a "top secret" bag of tricks under wraps and broadly untested, it would seem incredibly unlikely the Cupertino-based company will be ready to push its latest cat out the door any time soon.
With reports like this, we would be lucky to have Leopard shipping this WWDC.