Leopard pre-release jitters
There’s been a lot of traffic on the MacSB mailing list and on various blogs (e.g. Panic and Atomicbird) about how Apple is handling the release of Leopard in the same way as they did with Tiger, and about how indie developers get the short end of the stick because we don’t see Leopard until our customers do.
I think this is all just jitters. The people who rush out and by Leopard on day 1 are all early adopters - they have the “bleeding edge” gene anyway, and will understand if it takes a week or two for their favourite app to work correctly. Sure, things will change between the last seed and what’s shipped, but it’s not going to be anything major. And yes, your apps might break within the first few days of Leopard being released. But realistically, if you’ve run your app on the seed at all, I find it hard to believe that it will take long to get it working against the release version.
The other main concern is that developers who get the software as part of their ADC membership don’t get it the same day the general public gets it. Yeah, that’s a bummer but it’s not really that big a deal. Chances are good your software will work as intended, and if it doesn’t, it’s only a few weeks’ wait.
I tend to really focus on knowing the nitty gritty because I’ve got customers who will be installing on day one and therefore I need to play with it beforehand.
I’d like it earlier, sure, but the differences between the last beta seed and the final version will be relatively minor and the installed base will be in the thousands not millions in the weeks following release.
ie, if it takes 1 quarter to sell 2 million Macs then that’s 660 000 Macs running Leopard by the end of November…
Oh…that’s quite a lot really. And doesn’t include upgrades. Ahem.
October 23, 2007 @ 9:05 am