14 DAY TRIAL // Apple pundit John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, claims that the Mac maker has reduced development resources for Mac OS X 10.7, in order to pour in everything it’s got in iPhone OS 4.0, believed to be the company’s number-one priority at the moment. Gruber is predicting that there will be no Mac OS X 10.7 news at this year’s Apple Worldwide Developer Conference and “probably none” until WWDC 2011.
Gruber suggests that Apple’s focus is now on iPhone OS 4 and that its top priority is to become an even bigger mobile-device company, an aspect Steve Jobs himself confirmed during one of his recent keynotes. Several of the “tent-pole” features in iPhone OS 4 that Apple promoted at yesterday’s event are directly related to this, he claims.
“A few months ago, I heard suggestions that Apple had tentative plans to release a developer beta of Mac OS X 10.7 at WWDC this June,” Gruber, who is generally well informed on Apple matters, writes. “That is no longer the case,” he boasts. “Mac OS X 10.7 development continues, but with a reduced team and an unknown schedule. It’s my educated guess that there will be no 10.7 news at WWDC this year, and probably none until WWDC 2011,” he predicts.
The pundit explains that, “Apple’s company-wide focus has since been focused intensely on one thing: iPhone OS 4.1 The number one priority at Apple is to grow mobile market share faster than Android. Anything that is not directly competitive with Android is on the back burner.” “Several of the ‘tentpole’2 features in iPhone OS 4 that Apple promoted at yesterday’s event are directly related to this,” Gruber concludes.
At its April 8 event, Apple announced that iPhone OS 4.0 would deliver over 100 new features when it’s released in summer, seven of which could be named as key enhancements. Those are the highly anticipated multitasking functionality, application folders, an improved email client, iBooks, more enterprise support, Game Center, and iAd – Apple’s new advertising platform targeting free applications.