In theory, Leopards new garbage collector could dramatically cut down on development time. Provided they use it in most of their applications; notably the Finder (which probably would need a complete rewrite in Cocoa to enjoy GC)…

I still think they will release Leopard in Q2, but I think it’s possible that they are on a roll

I don’t think Apple needs to rush. Vista is only nearly caught up with OS X 10.4. When 10.5 comes out, it will be far superior to Vista.

And please don’t bring up the driver issue. Over the last few years, most of the hardware used by the general public has been integrated on to the mother board.

But it doesn’t solve the driver issue. Even if the hardware is fully integrated on the motherboard, you still need drivers for every single part of it.

From what I can see in hardware sales, it seems that Apple would also make a lot more money by selling hardware to a 5% marketshare than selling software to a 30% marketshare.

First of all, piracy would probably skyrocket. How many pirated XPs are out there? A lot. Having iTunes and iPod operable on Windows is only a gateway to allow people to experience a little bit of Apple. There’s no piracy because iTunes is free and they have to pay for the iPod. 10 million pirated copies of OSX for PCs would generate zero income for Apple. 10 million iPods connected to PCs generate income.

Second, the quality of the Apple experience would drop. Apple wouldn’t be able to say “it just works” anymore, because you WILL have driver issues. You WILL have support issues, because you will have the scenario of installing a buggy driver causing system crashes, just like on WIndows. It’s enough for Apple having iTunes to support various soundsystems and CD/DVD burners on Windows. Imagine the horde of glitches you’d experience with Quartz, because 30-40 different odd graphics card aren’t supported properly. This is one of the main reasons to buy a piece of Mac hardware, to get rid of such problems.

Inflating the market share like this, doesn’t help Apple one bit. It would in the end make things a whole lot worse. Something about peeing in your pants comes to mind.

David DeTinne:
Your lack of understanding when it comes to the personal computer market is amusing. Furthermore you clearly lack historical perspective on both markets, especially Macs. While it’s a shame you have invested money on sub-standard hardware, others have made better decisions. Your suggestion that device drivers write themselves once the chips are moved onto the motherboard is moronic. There is no reason to open your mouth when it comes to technical discussions. Everyone including yourself would be better served without your idiotic closed minded drivel. Leave the heavy thinking to those who actually understand this market.

Hi
Sure there is a 7.0.1 update but that dose not justufy the crashing not to mention the hassel of re downloading.

Can you imagine if Steve Jobs/Apple decided to allow the purchase of a shrink wrap copy of OS X for PC’s to compete against Vista? With the licensing restrictions and problems with Vista, with one decision Steve could knock out 20% to 30% of the desktop market in a few months. For those of you who state that Apple will never do this because they are a hardware company, I agree. However with that said, I would not mind buying an apple computer but just can’t justify it because I have too much money invested in GOOD working computers. I will run XP for a while longer due to the new licensing restrictions for Vista. And please don’t bring up the driver issue. Over the last few years, most of the hardware used by the general public has been integrated on to the mother board.

It sounds like I’m not the only one having problems with iTunes 7…. for me it seems to crash without any report every 3 or 4 tracks and sometimes even more frequently. I’ll be much happier with a stable if later Leopard.

There is a 7.0.1 update for iTunes that’s supposed to fix some crashing bugs. Have you tried that?

Peace,
Gene

I’ll third Javaholic’s comments. As a mac and linux user I’m happy with being kept at arms length from the code as long as it just works but when things go wrong it’s very irritating not to be able to figure out what’s happening –
It sounds like I’m not the only one having problems with iTunes 7…. for me it seems to crash without any report every 3 or 4 tracks and sometimes even more frequently. I’ll be much happier with a stable if later Leopard.

I couldn’t agree more with Javaholic’s comment. I believe that Apple is pretty confident in where they are standing in the market with their Operating system, sure it may not hold the massive market share that microsoft does, however it has much of the features that microsoft aspires to have in their products, and I’m quite curious to see what the secret features will be, I believe it will involve Safari, Finder and iCal, why? just because from screenshots of the Leopard beta they are the only ones that have yet to lose their brushed look.

Two Horse Race?
He He He. I can assure you that it is a one horse race…

If the first release of itunes 7 is anything to go by, I’d rather Apple take more time with the quality testing their software with Leopard. Right now I could care less who gets to the finish line first – as long as the customer isnt penalised with beta releases because of a 2 horse race.

I believe Apple will show off, but not release, Leopard at MWSF in January. The features shown at WWDC will be enhanced (as some already are in developer builds) and ready to go, so the “secret” features will take center stage. Steve will probably announce a real shipping date, but it will be 6-8 weeks after the show to give them time to put the finishing touches on the “secret” features and get a million DVDs pressed.