Mac mini might be nearing a premature EOL
Apple’s line of Mac Mini computers might be nearing a premature end of life. It has been learnt that Apple has slowed down the shipping of some of its most popular Mac Models as the anticipated release date, the 26th October of Mac OS X Leapord closes in. Confirmed sources also revealed that Apple has told its channel partners not to accept any pre-orders ahead of the festive season for its Mac Mini Desktop configurations as they shouldn’t be expecting any more shipments of the same.
According to AppleInsider, It’s no secret that AppleInsider believes the mini’s days are numbered. The last major enhancement to the diminutive Mac desktop line came well over a year ago, with recent “refreshes” consisting solely of component swaps with no added engineering effort whatsoever. Should the mini officially go end-of-life (EOL) this month, it’s not clear what the future would hold for Apple’s alternative desktop offering. The mini was last refreshed — albeit quietly — just over two months ago.
Apple Insider has also put together a short follow up of MacRumors which goes unedited in its entirety as follows-
Tracking Leopard’s road to GM
Meanwhile, the guys over at MacRumors have put forth a pretty thorough effort in recent days of tracking Leopard’s development progress internally at Apple.
They were first to report earlier this week that despite company efforts to begin training its AppleCare reps for the software’s roll-out, the Mac OS development team led by Senior VP of Software Engineering Bertrand Serlet had yet to declare a build Gold Master.
On Wednesday MacRumors reported that Leopard was finally believed to be “approaching Gold Master status” and that their “most recent checks” indicated that “Apple had 11 high priority bugs left.”
In a subsequent post on Friday, they reported that Apple “had expected to declare their upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Gold Master this week.” Although the company “had not quite reached that goal” it released Friday “an internal ‘GM candidate build’ which could represent the final version of Mac OS X Leopard, if no other issues are found.
