Apple has officially announced October 26 as a release date for OS X 10.5 Leopard. The general buzz I’ve heard from developers is pretty happy. They haven’t broken NDA, but I can tell they’re in a good mood. And, ironically, Apple’s delays — which they attributed to transferring OS developers to the iPhone project, a move that irked many Mac loyalists — have had the upside of giving third parties more time for fit and finish on the new OS.
On that note, developers and software publishers, I’d love to hear compatibility reports. What works? What doesn’t? Users will no doubt want to know when to upgrade, and generally digital musicians and audio producers are advised not to upgrade on launch day, with any OS (certainly not a critical machine). We’ll keep you posted.
Update: Okay, maybe you can go out and upgrade on launch day, because so far we haven’t heard of anything breaking. Well, so far, anyway; we’ll know more once people install the OS en masse. Of course, this is the idea of building a strong OS foundation: you shouldn’t have to change MIDI and audio underpinnings with each OS release. (Previously, even Mac OS had a tendency to do so in significant ways, at least for some hardware and software.) Anyway, with any OS update, things can go wrong; there are always isolated stories of people with issues with any OS release. Backup and enjoy.
Importantly, anyone know how hardware device driver compatibility is going?