What really gets me:
Apple use to release every major version, now they re-release with every minor version... why?
Anyway as I say with any delayed product: So what, as long as it comes out quality and is worth the wait, people need not complain, however I agree with the fanboy comment made above that some people seriously look at things in a skewed way.
To answer your question....
Mac OS X is an extremely sophisticated, stable operating system. Mac OS 9 and below of course were not. The OS systems 2-6 were originally developed by Apple, and were lacking in a few departments. Apple's computer technology didn't take advantage of color options even if the hardware had implemented the facilities to support color management. Apple soon after "fixed" this problem by introducing QuickDraw. Apple soon after began developing other operating systems ( called GS/OS & A/UX ). Around 1981, Apple engineers gathered and began planning for their most sophisticated operating system, system 7. System 7 however was delayed due to resources being spread into other development sectors mainly with the operating systems mentioned above.
Around 1990, Mac OS finally started getting more attention and system 7 was released a year later. It was revolutionary due to Multi-Finder ( running more than one application ) and had built-in networking. It was a great operating system, however this is where things got shakey with Apple's operating system. Apple was desperately looking for a processor to give the system its edge. They first partnered with the Acorn Computer Group ( I believe ) to create the RISC processor which was featured in one of Apple's handhelds. Their partnership eventually developed into an enterprise relationship between Apple, IBM, and Motorola. In the mean time, Mac OS was being rewritten to support each processor upgrade for these machines. The partnership between Apple, IBM, and Motorola gave birth to the PowerPC architecture and that's when development was focused totally on PowerPC. Mac OS 7 Had seen several releases before it finally supported the Power PC architecture ( Mac OS 7.1.2 ). The early releases of Mac OS literally lacked a base that ran Power PC native code. The entire operating system was being run through an emulator to ensure backwards compatibility with previous apple software. Sometime later, when Microsoft began taking over, Steve Jobs was stripped of his job and he began developing a new company called NeXT Computer, Inc. He spent several million dollars developing this company and it began to boom, introducing innovative technology ( mostly developer centric ). Most of the components of NeXT were extremely flexible and bore many applications that we use today. Tim Burnerlee developed the first webserver on a NeXT computer. This was when the projects like Interface Builder and Project builder, which are eventually ported to Mac OS X. Apple began to take interest in NeXT around this time. NEXTSTEP 2.0 ( written with Objective-C as the native language ) was when Apple began to fancy NeXT computing.
During that time, apple began to decrease in standards while NeXT flourished. This is when Mac OS was becoming more disorganized. NeXT Computing eventually developed a software development architecture known as OPENSTEP and partnered with Sun Microsystems to create it. This sophisticated technology would eventually be the basis of Mac OS X.
Around 1997, Apple bought out NeXT computing and its engineers, having the current engineers focus on the already extremely focused platform called WebObjects and the NeXT engineers began working on the new operating system called Mac OS X. In between all this, a new operating system called Rhapsody DR1 ( I believe ) was created and a roadmap of sorts for Mac OS X was soon created. It took about 3 years for them to develop the new strategy for developing Mac OS X. Soon after an update of Rhapsody ( Mac OS X 1.0 ) was released, Apple began developing the new core eventually named Darwin. Later on, it became the core of Mac OS X. Around this time, Apple began implementing a new development strategy that featured the "No-throw away" technique that all previous versions of Mac OS lacked. The developers began writing the code with OS X, and instead of rewriting large portions of code and throwing away work, they began updating and improving current code. Apple introduced the Carbon API which was an overhaul of the "Classic" Mac OS's API. Carbon eventually was updated and Cocoa was born.
So basically, after Steve Jobs and its impressive engineers ( 5 of whom were originally developers from the "old" Apple ) were ported in from NeXT Computing, Apple began improving their practices which eventually led to Jobs being reinstated as CEO.
Anyway, back on topic...
Although I am an Apple fanboy, I really think they should get the same grief as Microsoft... I personally felt like Apple had just turned on
their copiers when I read that. I also haven't been too worried about Leopard or interested in the iPhone. I personally don't see Apple as a high priority company right now. Why would you spend your resources on a stupid phone no one ( meaning millions ) are going to get and focus on the operating system that has made you millions. But oh well. If Apple drops the ball this time, they'll find a way to pick it up by stealing someone else's fantastic ideas like virtual desktop. heh.. Spaces... what a joke.
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The 'statement' amuses me, it basically reads like "oops we ran out of staff". 
I was thinking of grabbing a new Macbook with 10.5... I don't wanna wait! :'(
Posted 13 April 2007 - 03:19 AM
