Briefly, there were reports over the weekend that Apple's newest OS X release named Leopard would be pushed back to October. Well, some Apple insiders took note of these reports and went right to the source. The original report said, “…the launch delay is not due to software design problems with Leopard but instead is attributed to Apple's plan to have its new OS support Windows Vista through an integrated version of Boot Camp,” as reported Friday by Taiwanese-based DigiTimes.
Boot Camp is software from Apple that allows the installation of Windows XP on computers using Apple's OS X. Another reported rumor is the statement, “The company hopes with support for Vista, Mac computers using the new OS can grab more market share, according to the sources.” That statement is up for debate and Apple has made no official comment.
What Apple did say was that the reports of the delay in Leopard were false. Jupiter Research analyst, Michael Gartenberg, seen these reports and called Apple to confirm them, on his blog he reports the conversation.
“Reports coming in that Leopard’s delayed until sometime in October. Just spoke with Apple who confirmed the reports are wrong and Leopard is still scheduled to ship in this spring as they previously announced. The rumor mill is wrong again.”
When the story was moving across the web reaction was mixed, many called foul almost instantly and others still could not believe that Apple would worry over Vista when most of Vista still has issues working with Apple.
“No way Apple will delay Leopard to support Vista. That is just a ridiculous speculation. If it really wanted, it would just release a PATCH months later to support Vista. No way would they delay the ENTIRE OS for Vista support,” said one comment on DigiTimes and another, “Vista doesn't even have Vista support. No need to delay, that's what patches are for once the kinks are ironed out,” hit the air of disbelief home.
There were other comments and various opinion segments on the subject and at first many of them attacked Apple for “pulling a Microsoft” which was odd considering the loyal following that Apple has. So for now Leopard is on track and more information can be located at http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/
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