Conspiracy theories not your cup of half-caf double latte with extra foam, whipped cream, and a cherry on top? Perhaps numerology is more your speed, then. Regardless of whether or not you think 10.4.9 is the last update to Tiger, I’m going to say that I’m pretty certain it’s the last point release we’ll see before Leopard is spotted—oh, yes I did.
Switch to the Mac has taken number crunching to the extreme, compiling all of the relevant statistics and calculating a target date of Friday, May 11, 2007 as Leopard’s coming out party. I know, I’m on record as having said that April 1st was the circled day, but in all fairness, that prediction was made back in the heady days of Macworld Expo, when the future seemed bright, full of promise and Mac news. But two months of news drought has ensured that I’m merely a shell of the blogger I once was, and now I shamble along, zombie-like, on the WWDC bandwagon.
This, I believe, though: we will know the release date of Leopard by the end of March. Assuming that 10.4.9 is in fact the final update before the Great Spotted One appears, Apple has shown a history of dropping a release date for the next major version within a few weeks of the last update to the previous iteration. So cross the old fingers that we’ll have some definite news on 10.5 in the next couple weeks.
I predict September 29, 2007 since that will be just too late for people buying a new computer for the school year. And Apple has a history of missing this key mid-August date again and again. But, they will have a $29.99 upgrade if you bought your new mac in the last 30 days.