Tech Goes Boom

The Cooling off Period

It's a tough time in the Mac blogging scene. Obviously, the real news is Tiger, Apple's upcoming replacement to the 10.3 operating system. But everyone who has a legitimate copy of Tiger is also under an NDA, and are therefore on shaky ground about what they can or cannot talk about, lest they bear the wrath of Steve.

This is a real shame. Tiger has some very cool features that are either completely unreported or are under-reported. It would be nice to see some in depth coverage of the metadata system, or some of the more interesting underlying unix level changes, but that info is locked away behind an NDA.

Many mac developers and IT people, at least for the next couple of months will be putting 10.4 through it's paces, trying out their applications and workplace solutions, and the general mac populace will be in the dark.

Now, there are some legitimate reasons for an NDA here. Apple doesn't want to be beholden to a userbase if they decide at the last minute to remove a feature or change the way things work. If a user has been reading about a feature for almost a year, and has made a purchasing decision based on it, and Apple decides not to release that particular feature, then you're going to have an angry customer. Apple needs the freedom to kill features that aren't up to snuff, without taking a whole ton of flack for it.

On the other hand, Microsoft is riding a wave of hype about Longhorn with everyone and their mom blogging extensively about features that could for all intents and purposes turn out to be vapor. Is this a good thing? Well as they say, all press is good press. The more that users and IT managers are hearing about your product, the more visibility you have, the more likely you are to be making sales.

Come on Apple, let people talk about Tiger.