Write, Readers: Where is Mac OS X Leopard Headed?

Apple's move to broaden its sphere of influence in consumer electronics is significant for Mac users in that it relates to the delay of Leopard. The major media outlets haven’t said much of interest on the subject.

What do you think?

How Does IDG Stay In Business?

It appears that IDG’s ComputerWorld, PC World, and InfoWorld recently collectively commissioned a writer to visit the Artie McStrawman Memorial Asylum For Nuts in search of wild, emotional outbursts of outrage from the fringe of Macdom, but ended up with a flat, stereotypical story that didn’t seem to say much.

Gregg Keizer, who wrote the absurd article which IDG dutifully regurgitated from all its pores, also wrote that the Leopard delay places Boot Camp users “in jeopardy.”

The delay of Leopard, Keizer said, “put users now running Windows on their Macs in a bind” because the last beta version of Boot Camp that Apple released is set to expire in September 2007.

“Without Boot Camp Assistant,” Keizer feared, “Mac users won't be able to easily install Windows, resize the Windows' partition, or remove a Windows installation from their system.”

What a tool! Does he suppose Apple can’t reissue another interim update prior to Leopard? Does Keizer even know how Boot Camp Works, or does he really think that the Boot Camp utility is required to use Windows after it is installed? How do these people keep getting work?

IDG owes everyone with an IQ above 75 an apology for printing these articles.

Prior to inventing the idea that Boot Camp was somehow a reason for unbridled panic, Keizer had published the initial article across IDG’s magazines, scouring various Internet chat rooms for ignorant diatribes from chatters, only failing the idiot journalism test once by forgetting to print anything from coming out of Rob Enderle.

I’m convinced that RDM readers are smarter than the typical wags that offer sound bites, so I’d like to solicit your ideas, comments, and questions about Apple’s moves into consumer electronics, the release of Leopard, and the future of the Mac.

The Next Step for Apple.

Despite dropping computer from its name, Apple is still very much a computer company.

While it's a bit of a stretch to call the dual processor iPod a computer, it's still very much a computing peripheral. Apple's other recent forays--including music and online media--are also tightly related to its computing efforts.

Just over a week ago, Apple announced that finishing the iPhone would come at the cost of delaying the release of Leopard. "We had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team," Apple said in a brief statement.

This set off a flurry of bizarre responses, particularly from Apple detractors always on the lookout for ways to turn the company's silk purses into sows' ears.

A short series of articles will address these questions. Add your comments! Post your ideas in the Forum: questions, answers, and additional information that begs to be said on the subject. I'll incorporate your ideas in articles as I post them, and try to find answers to the best questions that get raised.

There is One More Thing.

Was the article on Leopard, Vista and the Boot Camp Delay Myth wrong? Was the DigiTimes report by Ruby Huang and Joseph Tsai insisting that Leopard was going to be held up by Vista compatibility problems vindicated by Apple’s announcement that it was pushing back the consumer release of Leopard?

This isn’t the first time that wrong information appeared to be right in a stretched, convoluted sort of way.

Consider: about ten years ago, various PC wags fell hook, line, and sinker for Intel’s marketing rhetoric about Itanium, its new 64-bit processor that was intended to eventually replace x86 PCs, blow away AMD’s x86 compatible chips, and vanquish PowerPC.

They insisted that Apple needed to drop its PowerPC chips for Itanium in a future generation of Macs or face certain peril.

Fortunately for Mac users, Apple made no effort to do that. There were also many real and obvious reasons why Apple simply couldn’t. At the time, it was impossible for Apple to even migrate to x86, and there was no good reason to, apart from the ignorant bluster of the buzzword repeaters of the day.

But the wags thought they knew it all because they’d all heard the promises from Intel. As it turned out they were all very wrong. Itanium failed miserably, leaving Intel stuck with a disaster on top of its badly performing Pentium 4, the sickly heir to the x86 throne. PowerPC remained competitive and AMD began to trounce Intel.

It wasn’t until many years later and a set of very different circumstances emerged that Apple was able to migrate the Mac to Intel’s entirely new Core processors, which are not even related to Itanium.

Despite being very wrong, pundits still tried to take credit for predicting Apples’ migration to Intel, as if they had offered some special insight into the tech world. They didn’t; they had only offered misleading guidance.

Similarly, insisting that Leopard is being held up on Boot Camp and Vista compatibility--and then finding out Apple is delaying Leopard due to the wholly unrelated issues of its business expansion--does not make the initial speculation correct in some manner.

It’s like reporting that Britney Spears lost her hair due to chemotherapy.

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