Seybold - OS X Beta Release Date Announced

by , 2:00 PM EDT, August 29th, 2000

It appears that the seemingly never ending wait for OS X is actually drawing to an end. During his keynote at today's Seybold Conference, Steve Jobs announced that OS X beta will be released on September 13th, just one week before "summer" officially ends.

While there is no word on how users will actually be able to get their hands on Beta, it has been reported that the product will be available on CD only, and users will have to pay a nominal shipping fee. In actuallity, this will likely get the product into users hands and on to their systems near or after September 22nd.

Almost all agree that the delay in shipping the product will be beneficial to the overall stability and performance, allowing Beta to essentially server as one's everyday OS. Apple originally planned 6 months of beta testing, and if that time table hold true (as a MacUser source last week said it would) then the final release of OS X will be ready for consumption in March. However, with no major Apple events planned at that time of year, the officiall rollout with all the fanfare may not actually take place until May's World Wide Developer Conference, an appropriate forum for such an announcement.

As of yet there are no details on exactly when or how users will be able to obtain OS X Beta, but we will release that information as soon as it is available.

The Mac Observer Spin:

And there was much rejoicing! This is the product that many of us, including this author, have been anxiously waiting on for the last four years. If OS X is half of what it promises to be, and Beta is half of that, then we will still have the best operating system in the world. OS X aims to fundamentally change the way people use their computers, and the expectations that people will have.

We plan on bringing you full coverage of the OS X Beta release, including an in-depth first look, in the coming weeks. We hope the product lives up to its hype.

One note: The Editor-in-Chief, Bryan Chaffin, and the Assistant Editor, Kyle D'Addario, had a bet for US$5 on whether Beta would ship before September 20th. Looks like Bryan is going to be a five-spot richer... :-)

Apple