I t appears that the seemingly never ending wait for OS X is actually drawing to an end. During his keynote at todayis 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 oneis 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 Mayis 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.