"Apple and its partners have been privately dropping hints to developers that its upcoming release of its Mac OS X operating system, dubbed Snow Leopard, will ship earlier than expected," the report says.
It's unclear if the newspaper is basing its claims solely on a presentation slide used by Apple's Unix technology director during a recent system administrators conference, or whether it has other reason to believe an early release is in order.
The slide shown last month by Jordan Hubbard provided a historical rundown of major Mac OS X releases alongside their release date and how long it took the engineers to bring the software to market. It listed Snow Leopard for a release during the first quarter of 2009 (Jan-Mar) following a development cycle of "14+ months."
While announcing Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard at its developers conference last June, Apple stated that the software was "scheduled to ship in about a year," which would have put its release somewhere in the second or third quarter of the year, rather than the first.
In its report, the Guardian suggests that Schiller will confirm speculation of an early release during his keynote address at January's Macworld Expo while touting two of the software's core features: Grand Central and OpenCL.
The report also cites Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group, as saying Microsoft has given Apple good reason to push for an earlier than expected release of Snow Leopard. The Redmon-based rival is also working on its next-gen system software, dubbed Windows 7, which is similarly scheduled to drop mid-year.
"There is a rush to get the new platforms to market. The estimate for Microsoft's Windows 7 is sometime in June," he said. "Apple would like to beat that. Having something with which Apple can pound on Microsoft until 7 shows up could do good things for their volume."
A slide from Jordan Hubbard's presentation at the LISA conference last month.
The analyst goes on to say that although Apple is expected to show off Snow Leopard at Macworld, it's unlikely that consumers are going to be able to obtain a copy until two or three months later.
Indeed, the most recent betas of the software issued privately to developers this month reveal that some of Snow Leopard's core features are still evolving.
90 Comments
Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller will use a portion of his keynote address at next month's Macworld Expo to show off a more refined version of the company's upcoming Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system, ...
Even though I am sure Snow Leopard will be great, personally I think the new Safari improvements and QuickTime X are going to be the one two punch of next year. Apple will put Microsoft and Adobe back on their heels in regards the only OS that really matters, the Web.
Hopefully Apple is careful with this. Getting things out earlier than expected is great and all, but really only works positively if it is full featured and stable. Beating Windows 7 to the gate solely for the PR bullet point isn't advantageous. I guess Apple will be working overtime over the Christmas holidays to complete all the features and have something like a release candidate ready for Macworld to distribute to developers.
If it's really being slated for an early release, I'd suggest Snow Leopard had better be in tip-top shape. Just being quick to market doesn't cut it. Remember Vista.
Even though I am sure Snow Leopard will be great, personally I think the new Safari improvements and QuickTime X....
Quicktime X eh.......(googles).. how on earth did that slip by me, first I have heard of it, exciting. When was this announced? Thanks for the heads up, have been deep in code for months, and I'm obviously losing touch!
Rob Enderle is a fool. He's the wacko who, when Apple announced the iPhone would have a glass screen, went around telling the press that it was a questionable move, because if you dropped the iPhone the screen would shatter.
He did this months before the iPhone shipped, and stuck to his guns right up to when the iPhone *did* ship, and the glass screen proved quite sturdy.
This guy is a hack, he has no idea what he's saying, even on the most basic of topics.