appleJAC Macintosh Users

Apple Pulls a Microsoft: Delays Leopard Until October

Getting the iPhone ready for its June launch has had an unintended consequence, however: QA and “some key software engineering” resources allocated to Mac OS X needed to be diverted from their work to finish the iPhone. As a result, Apple won’t release Leopard at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, as it had first planned.

“While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones,” reads the statement.

Leopard is on the way!

Apple previewed 10 features of the upcoming OS X Leopard at the WWDC 06.

The Time Machine dubbed backup and versioning feature is sure one of the more impressive features. Other highlights are the 64-bit Application support, improved iChat, improved Dashboard, Spaces (multiple desktops), Spotlight (enhanced with network search) and mail enhancements (to-do's, stationery, notes).

Apple OS X Leopard will ship Spring 2007.  See more about some of the upcoming features on Apple's web site.

Get the World's First Look at Leopard

The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is the once a year chance  for Apple developers to dive deep into a full range of the Mac OS X technologies.  This year, that includes preview coverage of Mac OS X Leopard. There are over 100 sessions and more than 35 labs spanning five technical tracks: Application Technologies, Graphics and Media, Development Tools, OS Foundations, Information Technologies. More than 175 sessions and labs are planned in all.

So what does that mean to you?

Generally, Apple makes product announcements during the conference that set the stage for the remaining part of the year.  Since Apple stopped the summer MacWorld Expo conference, this is it's opportunity to let us know the direction of the product line for the all important Christmas shopping season.  If rumors have it right, we will see the first showing of Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard  Also rumors say we may see introduction of the final PowerPC to Intel conversion, the PowerMac (Likely to be called the MacPro).

So keep your eyes open on the morning of August 7th for Possible Exciting Apple news.  It is likely to be an exciting ride.

PodCasts from MacWorld Posted

A set of four Podcasts produced from the eighth User Group University sessions at the Argent Hotel which kicked off the MacWorld Expo 2006 in San Francisco on January 9, 2006 has been posted.

It was hosted by the Apple User Group Advisory Board and UGAB Support Services.

MacWorld User Group PodCasts

Since You Asked: Your User Group Questions Answered with Adam C. Engst, Chris Breen, and Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus

User Group Websites That Work with Terry White from Adobe

Tiger’s Least-Known Features: Dave’s Faves with David Pogue

The Art of the Start with Guy Kawasaki

These are great to listen to while traveling this summer.