Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

DRWAM — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:11:04 GMT

Lindy and Jono, Paul asked the community if we wanted him to continue posting about about when he moved the blog, and enough answered yes. He graciously posts for us Apple users, and some of us are cross platform of course. So thanks Paul. I owe you a beer and some valium. Don't take them together!

Doc

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

fivepoint — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:20:19 GMT

Leopard Beta... hahaha. I guess it all depends on what you're comparing it against.

Tiger was better than Vista. Leopard is head and shoulders above... .0 or .2. It doesn't matter.

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

daveinla — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 07:00:12 GMT

"Apple worship website giving a positive review to a Microsoft product? Doubt it somehow"

That's actually totally wrong. Most Mac oriented website have given great reviews of Office right from version 98 until 2004. Well Office 2008 is a bad start but they should fix things pretty quickly. MacBU of Microsoft is a Mac enthusiast team that make product that stand apart in the Microsoft family and they are a darling of the Mac press.

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

barbeha — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:50:03 GMT

wow paul, you really have an 'interesting' following...

you really shouldn't pick on those apple programmers - they have nearly dozens of hardware configurations to deal with, while those lazy windows programmers have only thousands to worry about. tisk tisk...

i was waiting for 10.5.2 for my macbook (which is running vista sp1via vmware fusion - nice app that is), but from what i've been reading over at the macrumors forums maybe that's a tad premature?

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

jono1 — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:21:54 GMT

Lindy, he runs a Windows enthusiast site and is the news editor for a windows-focussed news website. What do you expect - him to worship Steve Jobs like the rest of the brainless hordes?

I love how it's now perfectly acceptable on the internet to worship Apple and all their products but if someone dares act the same way towards Microsoft (and in a much more mature manner I might add - less swearing and blatant company-bashing) they are labelled a heretic.

Paul runs a fair and balanced site - despite being a Windows enthusiast site it also gives mostly positive reviews to almost all the Apple products it looks at, which is more than you could ask for in the reverse situation (an Apple worship website giving a positive review to a Microsoft product? Doubt it somehow). So stop your whining.

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

Lindy — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:10:52 GMT

Well your site, and my subscription to Windows IT Pro has been getting thinner and thinner. With less relevant material.

Your Windows FAN BOY attitude shines through with this post more than ever. I almost fell out of my chair when I read "takes Leopard out of Beta".

Vista came out in December 2006/Jan 2007 and 100 million people (yeah right) paid for ALPHA CODE. Not that many had a choice when buying a new PC, or did not know better.

Vista SP1...there is not one, well there is, its slower, has driver problems, wont be out for a few months after it went gold, cant be slipped streamed, well maybe a few can have it. What a Joke.

Industry/User perception Vista = disaster stay away. Leopard = Great OS with a few bugs for upgraders. Perception of Leopard after 10.5.2 "Apple makes a great OS better, and shows MS how to Service Pack something in a timely manner". Perception of Vista after Leopard 10.5.2....where can I sell my Vista notebook so I can get a Mac?

I have been using MS OS's since DOS 3.3. I work all day on their server products, have ben for years now. Vista was the OS that got me try a Mac/OS X. Good luck with Vista/MS Paul.

You are like the Shawn Hanity/Rush Limbah of MS fanboyism. Maybe you should download their POD cast's to your Zune, and gain a few pointers from them.

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

johnpapola — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:54:28 GMT

I do agree with Dave here. Leopard by-and-large has been very solid for me with one exception: Qmaster. QMaster has been broken since Leopard's release and it's a serious problem for large video compression jobs.

I know there have been issues with airport and some odds and ends, but Leopard's first day of release was functional, stable and an unqualified improvement over Tiger. Back to my Mac is awesome, btw. So is ichat screen sharing.

I really don't have enough experience with Vista to compare, but I can say that Leopard was not "beta-quality". It was (and is) a quality release.

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

daveinla — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:59:42 GMT

Well I have to agree with Paul that Apple doesn't have beta testing program that deserves this name. But I have to disagree on the fact that Leopard 10.5.0 is dubbed a beta. All features advertised worked very well, the performance of the system (stability+speed+footprint) was at least on par with the latest Tiger release. The only things that were screwed up were the UI things: translucent menu and no hierarchical navigation in the stacks grid mode. Now I'm not saying that some people didn't encounter glitches with it, but all people around me who upgraded were very pleased with it, and that's at least 10 people.

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

Tero — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:47:13 GMT

Only infidels dare to question Apple's perfect OS releases and unmatched coolness. Apple will, after all, only do cool things, and Steve's halo is now shining so bright one needs to wear sunglasses for the next key note. It's that famous halo efect, you know.

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

DRWAM — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:31:02 GMT

Another thing that bothers some of us is the forced obsolescence. We all know that Macs last a long time, but new hardware gadgets [iPods] requires recent OS and recent OS upgrades require new hardware [computers]. Leopard requires at least an 800Mhz CPU, but there are apps that will fool the installer but making the pram look like it qualifies, and allowing the installer to work on older machines with slower CPU's, that have reportedly done fine running Leopard. The new iPod Touch requires at least OS 10.4.10. Why brag that our Macs run for years, but Apple tries to make you upgrade one way or another? I just doesn't seem very friendly to me.

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

JamesNT — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:54:22 GMT

The fact that Apple does poor beta testing, releases guargantuan updates and fixes after the initial release, and otherwise snows users is completely irrelevant.

Apple is cool. Everything Apple does is cool.

Those issues only matter when Microsoft those them. And then we should sue MS for anti-trust.

JamesNT

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

DRWAM — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:02:54 GMT

Nevertheless, I have seen Mac OS updates getting pulled due to problems that the update caused, then re-released later, so the points about [lack of beta] testing seem to be true. That's why I wait and first update a copy to test it for a few days, before updating my main boot drive. I got burnt once when I updates to 10.4.10 and lost mounting of my external USB drive, but it worked fine on the old backup copy off 10.4.9 [Pro Tower quad 3GHz, 4GB RAM, 1TB RAID 0 and two spare internal 500GB drives, ATI 1900XT]

Apple » re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

Apple » re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:36:16 GMT

Pingback from Apple » re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

drylight — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:55:17 GMT

Stupid is using Vista. Even worse is publicly lauding it as a good OS.

re: Apple Takes Leopard out of Beta

MLomasIcomm — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:43:11 GMT

Well, this is clearly going to be hugely appreciated by the Mac users - but if we're comparing the release mechanism of Microsoft to Apple, I have to say I don't see how Microsoft are doing a better job.

Microsoft have allowed the perception of Vista to become one of a slow, buggy OS reminiscent of 'Me' - the reality is of course different, but shouldn't the beta programs allow them to pre-empt that, just as much as getting feedback for development purposes?

Apple meanwhile are to a certain extent guilty of not listening until it's too late, but the perception of the OS hasn't become one of a 'bad product' - now that may be because of the Apple zealot army, but I myself have both Macs and PCs at home - and my Leopard system does work perfectly well - yes the design changes seem odd, but the overall performance and stability of the OS doesn't give me cause to question.

On Vista - I do have cause to question. Why can't my 3.2GHz PC play that simple music track without it going choppy? Why can't I browse the network without it locking up? Why does Windows Calendar crash every time I log on? The list goes on and on. They're all minor issues and ones I can explain and mostly understand - but with the yearning masses out there (coupled with a seemingly blood-thirsty tech media), it's gone down badly - Microsoft, with their extensive TAP, private and public beta testing, partner networks and developers - should have seen it coming.

10.5.2 will bolster the Leopard release - and the Mac 'community' (oh yes, and the zealot army too)- ahead of a Vista SP1 release that people seem to be straining to get their hands on - if Microsoft have managed things right, the news will be that SP1 is solid, and Vista will race away - but if the news is anything else, the fur will fly!