1 out of 12 for Vista and predicting the arrival of Leopard
19 September 2007

"Advanced warning that the following may sound a little like Windows bashing. If you don't like that, look away now."

Since Vista launched at the start of the year I've separately spoken to around a dozen people who have Microsoft's new OS. I haven't gone out of my way to seek these people out (after all I tend to spend most of my non-work computer time conversing with fellow Mac users) however you do from time to time stumble across poor unfortunate individuals who've either bought a new PC or, perish the thought, "upgraded" from XP.

Out of these people only one, yes just one, had anything good to say about Vista. And remember, these are people who don't know each other and I made a point of asking their opinion without mentioning any other comments I'd heard. OK, so they (mostly) knew that I am a "Mac fan" so perhaps that would influence their comments but I don't find this feedback, however unscientific it may be, particularly encouraging for PC owners.

When I switched to Mac nearly 3 years ago now (blimey, how time flies) I wasn't in any regular contact with anyone who had a Mac. I knew people (mainly through work) that had Macs but this was a pretty big switch for someone who generally dealt with PC people on a day to day basis. Of course, I'm still in contact with these PC-types but I mostly look contented and smug while they moan on about their latest virus or computer rebuild. Recently, however, I've been surprised at the number of people I know, who previously would only ever have considered buying a Windows computer, that have suddenly switched and bought an iMac. My sister, my sister-in-law and a work colleague have all made the switch in recent months. I'd never have thought 3 years ago that this would be the case.

Not exactly a MORI poll, I know, and I don't for a moment think that Windows will be dead any time soon but with Mac OS going from strength to strength and the open source Linux distributions improving at a similarly impressive rate I wonder what kind of stranglehold Microsoft will have in 10 years time. Here's hoping not a very convincing one :-) I could waffle on here at length about why I think that this is the case. I won't bore you, but I will make this comment particularly about OS upgrades. Ignoring business editions of the OS and instead looking at consumer-led products, Windows has been upgraded twice this century. Windows XP in 2001 and this year Windows Vista. XP was in many ways completely different to Windows Millenium that it replaced and Vista is different again. Not only do simple menus and folder contents change but also the underlying way everything is organised and how subsystems communicate. Every time a new Microsoft OS comes out, they seem to be saying to us "We got it totally wrong last time so we've changed it all. Again.".

Apple's OS X, on the other hand, also launched in 2001. It has been updated five times since then with the sixth revision due out next month. Each update doesn't fiddle comprehensively with the way things were done before - basically they got it right first time - instead the updates add new features while improving the reliability of existing ones. It's a simple paradigm that works a treat. This means that when OS 10.5 Leopard launches in October you can quite happily install it without wondering if your system will work and if you're actually going to be able to find anything on it afterwards.

OK, Windows slagging session over ;-)

Leopard on the horizon
Trying to predict when Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will come out is difficult. After it was delayed in the Spring (sob) Apple simply stated that it was being put off until October. I'm writing this in mid-September, so does this mean I can expect Leopard in 2 weeks from now or 6 weeks? I'd like to offer an opinion.

For those who don't know (or care) about these things, when a piece of complex software is nearing completion all development is frozen and intensive testing is carried out. This version is called a "release candidate". If a problem is found that can't be put off until a service release then all testing is halted, the necessary changes made, a further release candidate issued and the whole process kicks off again. How long this takes very much depends on how many cycles this process goes through. Apple appear to have a very good process worked out for this as they write and release a large number of computer programs as well as Mac OS X so one would hope that a certain amount of delay will have been built in to the plan. So, can we work out when it will ship? Well, I think we can make an educated guess.

The last developer release of OS X (9A527) saw the light of day around August 24. Developers were asked to feed back on 15 key areas by the end of that month. This is just a guess, but personally I'd see two or three weeks to sift through those comments and schedule appropriate tweaks and additional testing to Apple's internal release candidate (although there's no guarantee that anything other than underlying bugs would be changed at this late stage). That would pin a further release candidate on or before the third week of September. So about now then! I would then suggest another couple of weeks of really intensive testing when everyone at Apple R&D throws all they can at the OS to see how it holds up. I would suggest a gold master (this is the version ready to go for packing and distribution) on or before the second week of October and a release by 19 October or early the following week.

Originally I thought Leopard would come out as late as Apple could get away with. Perhaps not Halloween (they wouldn't leave it that late) but Tuesday 30 October seemed a possible if not the Friday of the previous week. However, this week Apple and O2 announced the UK launch date for the impressive iPhone: 9 November. My reason for picking a mid-October release for Leopard is that I don't think Apple would want to launch two such important products so close together - even if this is something not happening in their core market of the USA. Just a thought, but if past product launches is anything to go by I see them leaving three weeks between the new OS and the UK iPhone. Of course, I could be totally wrong and at 2 weeks before the 26 October could still be the date. But I hope I'm wrong.

In case you hadn't noticed I'm actually considering buying 10.5 Leopard when it comes out. I didn't with 10.4 Tiger (I stayed with 10.3 Panther for a few months before making the leap). For the reasons set out above, I have complete faith in the upgrade process. Windows users take note. Last 30 entries in this Blog

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