14 DAY TRIAL // People close to Apple are telling iPhone in Canada that Cupertino is already making arrangements to begin development on the fourth major revision to its Snow Leopard operating system, Mac OS X 10.6.4. While Mac OS X 10.6.2 spent only a month in development, the most recent update – version 10.6.3 – took about three months to go public. Apple’s development cycles are far from predictable, but the company generally spends between two and four months to release these increments.
Details about early 10.6.4 builds remain unknown, as the “reports” iPhone in Canada claims to have received only said that, “Apple is preparing to begin testing of the next main revision of Snow Leopard, version 10.6.4.” The site itself noted that, “This week, in less than a month later since the last OS X release, Apple seems to be pushing forward with plans to update Snow Leopard” (emphasis ours), so it’s not clear as to whether the news is in fact accurate to begin with. Still, if the past is any indication, Apple should have kicked off testing on both OS X 10.6.4, and the next major version of its operating system, Mac OS X 10.7.
Responding via email to a fan curious about progress on the Mac OS X front, Apple’s CEO recently revealed that the company’s latest activities had not, in fact, shifted resources away from the operating system. Speculation that work on OS X 10.7 was lagging emerged when Apple pundit John Gruber posted a blog update saying that, “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. That is no longer the case,” and adding that, although Mac OS X 10.7 development was still underway, Apple had allegedly set in place “a reduced team and an unknown schedule.” Based purely on experience, Gruber thus concluded that, “There will be no 10.7 news at WWDC this year, and probably none until WWDC 2011.”
A Canada resident reportedly emailed Jobs on the matter. The email conversation was soon made available by 9to5mac.
“I was wondering, is it true that the iPhone 4 is cutting into OSX development causing a delay, as a big Mac user, this is of huge concern to me,” this person allegedly wrote to Jobs. “I just hope your balancing development and working as much as you can. Is OSX development still a huge priority? I have a worry that Apple is branching away from computers and not updating their computer customers as much.” According to the report, Jobs’ reply was, “No. Not to worry.”