Apple to postpone Leopard to support Windows Vista

[Ian]

Wow.. that's quite a delay just to add Vista support. Most likely, they're not done with the OS yet and they're using this as an excuse.

http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20070322PD214.html

Apple is expected to launch its next generation Leopard operating system (OS) in April, but according to industry sources, the release of the new OS will be postponed to October to allow Apple to make Leopard support Windows Vista through an integrated version of its Boot Camp software.

The sources pointed out that 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. Boot Camp is an Apple software application that currently assists in the installation of Windows XP on computers using Apple's latest OS. The company hopes with support for Vista, Mac computers using the new OS can grab more market share, according to the sources.

[bicomputational]

Ah, the wonderful, wacky world of Apple rumors. As someone who follows
the Apple rumor sites, I should let you know that Digitimes does not have a
great track record for Mac rumor accuracy. Most Apple rumors sites are guessing a June release, based on frequency of developer builds going out, and the stability of those builds. I would also be suprised to see
Apple hold up the release for Vista compatibility with boot camp based on the way boot camp has been rolled out so far. They didn't hold the original release for any major operating system upgrade but have made it available
as it was ready. There is no doubt a stable version running XP will be part of the next OS, and I would expect them to add Vista capability the same way they added XP capability - as they develop it. A much larger percentage of
Mac users upgrade to any new OS version than Windows users (mainly because it tends not to need the huge hardware upgrades), so Apple would
be losing a lot of money by any delay that wasn't absolutely necessary. But who knows. Just as an example, my 7 years old G4 runs Mac 10.4.9 - the latest version - faster than any previous version of OS X (based on both "feel" and benchmarks). Can't say that about my 5 year old Dell.

[aviationwiz]

Yeah... personally, I'm doubting this one is true. Plus, as bicomputational mentioned, Digitimes does have a pretty shotty track record. I generally just rely on MacRumors for my Apple rumors.