14 DAY TRIAL // Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu predicts that Apple's upcoming Mac OS X version, 10.6 Snow Leopard, may not arrive until late summer or even fall 2009. When introducing the new OS last June, Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs said Snow Leopard would arrive in “about a year.”
According to a Fortune report citing the well established researcher, this was just “one of the nuggets of news” handed to clients in a note on Wednesday. Wu also claims that Mac build plans have increased, that the Mac mini is a “sleeper hit,” that a quad core iMac is also on its way but being delayed, all this while new products are being developed in Cupertino as you are reading these lines.
“Due to stronger-than-expected reception of Apple’s newly introduced Macs ... the Street’s current estimates of 2.2 - 2.3 million Macs shipped in the March quarter may turn out to be on the low side,” reads the report citing analyst Shaw Wu. In regards to recent speculation about an Apple netbook, Wu says that “several initiatives” are being worked on, according to the analyst's sources. Wu's contacts also suggest these include “a smaller MacBook Air or 'MacBook mini' (essentially a netbook) and oversized iPod touches.”
Citing a “surprisingly positive feedback” on Apple’s cheapest Mac, Wu says the Mac mini is a “sleeper hit.” According to the researcher, the compact desktop computer system was “warmly received” for its beefed up hard drive, the NVIDIA graphics chip and a faster processor.
Lastly, Wu says it makes more sense for Apple to wait for Snow Leopard to launch a quad core iMac. Main reasons are not production delays, but intentional ones, the analyst suggests, according to the Fortune report, “Now [Wu] says it makes more sense for Apple to wait for Snow Leopard, which takes better advantage of the quad core processors, and for lower-power parts from Intel that don’t run quite so hot.”
As Fortune indicates, Wu's track record on Apple hardware predictions is a mixed one, but he did predict the recent release of new desktop Macs accurately.