Why can't apple just announce the release date?

[pdjudd]

Its a cultural thing. People get what they want when they want it.

That’s why you have to have strong policies to prevent this from happening. This exact thing can happen with any computer manufacturer and is completely irrelevant to the date. Apple can tell you the date and time of the OS release and it doesn’t matter if you can’t certify it before hand - something you can do with the DP’s and the GM.

If people will upgrade their computer on Day 1, they can do that for another OS and they will do it outside of certification, hang a date of release is going to mean little to them. The only way you can do this is to set a firm policy and say that anybody who violates it won’t get supported until they are on a supported platform. I don’t give jack about entitlement. If you work in business you need a firm IT policy that you can back up with management. YOu have to control your employees and their equipment or you will never be able to properly support them.

Look at it this way. Anybody can upgrade to the newest OS on day one on any platform. In any industry. Without knowing the specific date. Without the approval of the IT department. Even with technical polices in place. Of course most employees don’t do that because they know that they won’t get supported by their department. You have to be firm with people and let them know you are serious. If they don’t respect polices in place that is a problem that no tech company can and should address. Any time you have even a vague date you should be working to make sure you can support it.

 

[JS82712]

Are they just trying to be annoying and lame on purpose?

A major OS has no release date other than July, except I guarantee that Apple already knows when they plan on releasing and have known for a while now, and they refuse to publicly reveal it

by your logic, I can say, why cant apple just tell us the release date for iPhone 5

 

[Meyvn]

Tentative. I get it and it's wrong. 100% wrong. This is commercial software. There are advertising campaigns built around it. There are activities in thousands of stores built around it. All planned for a specific date, not a tentative date, plus or minus a few days if there are bugs.

Are you serious? Could you play semantics any more? "Plus or minus" means tentative. It means not specific.

 

[kodeman53]

Are you serious? Could you play semantics any more? "Plus or minus" means tentative. It means not specific.

Reading comprehension, it's a beautiful thing. Try it, you'll like it. English appears to be your second language. If so, I apologize.

Apple's release date is not, repeat not, tentative, not plus or minus. It is specific for the reasons I've already mentioned. Just because they do not announce it ahead of time, i.e., just because you don't know it, doesn't mean it has not been determined.

 

[sectime]

Reading comprehension, it's a beautiful thing. Try it, you'll like it. English appears to be your second language. If so, I apologize.

Apple's release date is not, repeat not, tentative, not plus or minus. It is specific for the reasons I've already mentioned. Just because they do not announce it ahead of time, i.e., just because you don't know it, doesn't mean it has not been determined.

Your attitude goes well with your tag line. Get over yourself.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

English appears to be your second language...

For real? You're the one who seems to be having problems grasping big words like "tentative".

Apple's release date is not, repeat not, tentative, not plus or minus.

If a serious bug was discovered now Apple would fix it and potentially release a second GM regardless of if it delayed their tentative release date.

The release date would be internally set assuming there are no major issues and to think they wouldn't be flexible with the release to avoid bad press/releasing a serious bug is moronic

 

[mabaker]

Can't believe one week before the actual release date people on here actually argue about the release date.

 

[stevemiller]

Can't believe one week before the actual release date people on here actually argue about the release date.

Amen. Talk about arguing for the sake of arguing.

"Secrecy" is a part if apples brand identity, whether you agree with it or not.

 

[kodeman53]

For real? You're the one who seems to be having problems grasping big words like "tentative".

I've seen your posts in other threads. Not worth my time responding to the rest of post here.

----------

Amen. Talk about arguing for the sake of arguing.

"Secrecy" is a part if apples brand identity, whether you agree with it or not.

Read the first post. The OP went on a rant because Apple didn't consult them about the release date. Then more posts by people like meyvn who have zero understanding about what goes into a commercial software release, particularly a major upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion. Add in those who have a knack for stating the obvious, e.g., "If a serious bug was discovered now Apple would fix it and potentially release a second GM regardless of if it delayed their tentative release date." Oh, toss in a post by someone who can't stay on topic, truth in sigs threaten them, and here we are.

 

[taedouni]

Apple does everything for a reason. When it's ready then it will be released. They probably do not want to make an announcement because they know that if they make an announcement then everyone will flood Apple's servers on release date. If they do a surprise launch then people will upgrade at various times which will lessen the load on Apple's servers. Well that's just my .02.

 

[pdjudd]

The servers are going to get mobbed anyhow - it happens with all the big updates too ten though Apple just releases them anyhow. Apple knows that they are going to get lots of attention and they can’t really surprise people for long. They announced Lion a day before so they don’t seem too worried about people swamping their servers on day one - they like the idea of massive demand.

I think it’s just that they don’t see a big reason to give pre-anouncement these days. They have to tie the release into other internal things (store overhauls etc) that they don’t talk about either. Apple just likes the idea of it being available “now” or as close to that as possible. Also they don’t have to commit to any specific date should something crop up post GM.

 

[Gutwrench]

Look at it this way. Anybody can upgrade to the newest OS on day one on any platform. In any industry. Without knowing the specific date. Without the approval of the IT department. Even with technical polices in place.

You have to be firm with people and let them know you are serious.

I realize I'm coming in the middle of the conversation but these lines caught my eye. Where do you work in IT, desktop support? Nice academic spiel but most desktop techs run around with their heads caught off solving mundane trouble tickets. If they see, at least in my large company, someone with Admin Rights, has installed an unapproved app (Jing, for example) they have no time to play nazi and reimage their machine.

As a developer I need various tools and upgrades/plug ins to do my job. The desktop team and desktop managers have no clue or time to constantly enact red tape and research/approve every single object. If the desktops and network can't prevent unauthorized installs of OS then there seems to be a deeper systemic problem at that organization.

Lastly, in regard to your reference including personal devices...I demand my employer provide the machines I use for work. So they provide my desktop at work, and since I need to support after hours production batch processes they provide me with laptop for remote connections. They asked I be reachable by email on my iPhone and iPad and and declined my expectation to provide me with one. I agreed to allow them to install/configure apps on my personal iPhone and iPad but refused to sign their aggreement they could wipe my devices at their discretion. They acquiesced. I track emails from my person mobile devices and they did not install the setting requiring password changes and auto lock. My personal security habits anyway. if my company is concerned with SOX and SAS compliance and want to flex their muscles as you say "show they're serious", then be prepare to budget to provide me with the devices to do my job.

 

[pdjudd]

I realize I'm coming in the middle of the conversation but these lines caught my eye. Where do you work in IT, desktop support? Nice academic spiel but most desktop techs run around with their heads caught off solving mundane trouble tickets. If they see, at least in my large company, someone with Admin Rights, has installed an unapproved app (Jing, for example) they have no time to play nazi and reimage their machine.

I do work in IT. Of course we we hammer our polices in place that you don’t install just anything on your computer without asking first - and we are very liberal about giving people admin rights to their computer. People generally think before they do things like this. We have never had any problems with people upgrading their OS - we tend to be very proactive and they consult us.

And we generally don’t re-image unless we absolutely have to. When someone gets a new computer we get it first - we don’t allow anybody to just bring in stuff sight unseen to our network. We only re-install if the OS itself hosed. If they go outside of our polices, we try to help, but we let them know they are on their own. We have a bunch of independent contractors that own their own equipment - hell almost everyone owns their own cell phone which we gladly support. We don't make them sigh anything on their devices they own. Of course they also understand that we can only support certain things and that we may need to wipe their device if necessary (which we almost never had to do).

When Windows 8 becomes available (which is when we will test it) we will make sure nobody buys it on their own - nobody bothers anyhow since most people either don't care or are running really old hardware. (we are still on XP mostly!). If anybody asks about supporting it, we explain we haven’t certified it and they are largely on their own.

If you set a policy and employees follow it (which is up to management - and they can be accommodating - we have made exceptions before) people rushing out to upgrade shouldn’t be a problem. All you need to do is tell people that you have not certified a new OS and any upgrading of the OS must be cleared before upgrading otherwise you will have to wipe it.

Again, we have known about the July upgrade for a while now. You can alert employees the day that we had a month. Knowing the exact day isn’t going to change the fact that you need to have a support policy.

The vast number of enterprises have no issues dealing with employees wanting to upgrade. They have policies in place and IT can be very proactive with dealing with this.

 

[kodeman53]

...and we are very liberal about giving people admin rights to their computer.

Really bad idea which violates every security recommendation.

 

[MisterMe]

Really bad idea which violates every security recommendation.

Yes, that's why they are inundated with Mac malware.

 

[pdjudd]

Really bad idea which violates every security recommendation.

I agree, but we have some programs that require it. It’s not my choice - we tried more restrictive accounts, but it caused more hassle than it was worth. Luckily we have pretty good firewall restrictions to prevent a lot of vectors for attack. Most of the threats out there are a problem because we are stuck with Windows XP for the most part.

It’s not my idea and I am not in favor of it, but I don’t have the ability to change it and it hasn’t been a problem as yet.

Yes, that's why they are inundated with Mac malware.

We don’t run Mac’s. We have a buch of iPads and iPhones floating around, but we don’t lock them down at all either - no reason to do that - we don’t have a legal requirement to do that. We are a private company.

ETA: This is a side point anyhow. Knowing or not knowing the specific date of the OS release isn’t going to stop users from upgrading. If you have compatibility concerns, you need to be proactive with your users. Apple has warned us that the OS is coming. We have known about it’s existence for some time. If you don’t want people upgrading, that is going to be a personnel problem that needs to be tacked long before release. Knowing a date doesn’t mean jack if users aren’t kept under reign by management. That is a personnel problem and that needs to be specified before you hire them or they need to be taken aside.

If you need to make accommodations for edge cases, well again, knowing the date doesn’t change the fact that software is incompatible.

 

[kodeman53]

Yes, that's why they are inundated with Mac malware.

Security means more than addressing malware. Try again.