Apple has announced that they will be delaying the release of their next version of OS X, code named “Leopard”, until October. According to Apple, the scheduling slip happened because Apple was forced to move engineers and QA staff over to iPhone to make sure iPhone launches when planned. Unfortunately this results in Leopard being pushed back till the fall time period when all this time Apple had been promising the new OS to be out in the Spring time.

Apple will release a “near final” version of OS X 10.5 at WWDC for testing. Ultimately what does this tell you about priorities within Apple? You could say that the iPhone has a higher priority than the iPhone .. but here’s how I look at it.

The emphasis on the iPhone is probably due to a contractual obligation with Cingular. As with anything contract related, you want to make sure you deliver on time. With Leopard.. well that’s an OS that really at the end of the day affects Apple and their customers. Since that’s in Apple’s full control, they can afford to push it back a little bit. Why? Is it a lower priority? NO.. in many ways it’s higher because of the fact that Apple wants to make sure it’s as stable and bug free as possible. If that’s really the case, then I commend Apple for that.

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