Well, if you read the accompanying article and were all fired up about being able to dual-boot your new iMac or MacBook Pro, you may have to be patient. That is, if you want to be able to run Microsoft’s long-awaited Windows Vista (the operating system formerly known as Longhorn). This week Microsoft announced that consumer versions of Vista loaded on new PCs will now not ship until January 2007. Business and enterprise versions will ship in November, but the holiday buying season will find consumer PCs loaded with good old Windows XP, much to the chagrin on PC makers.

Microsoft said the additional development time was needed to “crank up the security level higher than ever”, as well as to iron out usability issues. Whatever the reasons, the holiday buying season suddenly becomes a big opportunity for Apple.

Last summer Apple outlined plans to release its next major operating system revision, Mac OS 10.5 (code-named “Leopard”) at the end of 2006 or in early 2007. There’s no doubt that Mr. Jobs and company are monitoring the progress and arrival date of Vista with great interest, looking for the most opportune time to spring the next big cat on the computer tribe.

The folks at Apple don’t have to worry too much about Vista’s feature set, as more than one tech pundit who’s used the Vista beta builds has remarked how much Vista resembles the current Mac operating system, called “Tiger”. Some have even said, “Want to see tomorrow’s Vista? Look at Tiger today”.

Very little is known about Apple’s Leopard, except that it certainly will run on both the older PowerPC processors and the new Intel chipsets (as all versions of Apple’s OS X operating system have done since Day One, at least covertly inside the Apple campus). Some sketchy details have bubbled up, however, discovered by a somewhat new breed of Apple-watcher – those who monitor the public-record reports from Patent Offices worldwide.

For example, recently issued patents reveal that the Finder (the part of the Mac operating system, a program in itself, that handles keeping track of everything on your Mac) is in for a big upgrade. The patents also indicate an even bigger role for Apple’s Spotlight search technology. Many more details on Leopard will be released during Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference, scheduled for August. The cat and mouse games will continue.

© 2006 Peter F. Zimowski