Tech Shout!

On Thursday, Apple officially confirmed that it plans to release its new operating system, OS X Leopard in October. Apparently, the iPod maker has pushed back the release date of its new OS that was previously scheduled to be released this June at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

According to the Cupertino-based company, the four-month delay is mainly due to some key engineering resources that had to be diverted within the company to ensure that its much-anticipated iPhone made its original ship date.

According to a statement made by Apple on Thursday, “iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device and finishing it on time has not come without a price- we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team. As a result, we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned.”

Apple also mentioned that the iPhone has passed several of its required certification tests and is still on track to ship the phone in late June.

Apple’s upcoming OS for Macs, Leopard is expected to include new features such as a file back-up feature called “Time Machine”, and also improvements to its email and instant messaging software. Yet another feature allows users to move from their standard desktop view to an archival view that shows every change made to a particular file.

Apple confirmed that Leopard’s features would be completed in early June much before the Worldwide Developers Conference, but the product would not be ready for release. The main reason for delaying the release of its new OS is so that it could give developers a test copy, after which shipping would begin in October 2007.

So all your gadget freaks can expect the iPhone some time in June this year, and the Mac OS X Leopard in October 2007.