As the Apple Turns: Scene 2904: Mac OS X Backlog: Outbreak! (3/6/01)

Mac OS X Backlog: Outbreak! (3/6/01)

Ladies and gentlemen, we have confirmation-- and an explanation, of sorts. Yesterday we told you that faithful viewer Scott Learmonth received email from the Apple Store informing him that his order for Mac OS X may not ship when anticipated. We found this passing strange for several reasons. For one thing, whereas hundreds (hopefully thousands) of Mac users must have preordered Mac OS X by now, Scott's was the only report we'd received about a Mac OS X backorder notice. (Heck, we've preordered the lickable new OS, and we sure didn't get any email about it shipping late.) For another, since Mac OS X hasn't been pressed yet, the idea of a backorder seems somewhat anomalous; why couldn't Apple just crank out enough copies to fulfill all preorders in its first run? Mac OS X may be in the Final Candidate stage, but it's not Golden Master quite yet.

Since yesterday, however, we had since received three more reports from Apple Store customers who preordered Mac OS X and have since been notified via email that their orders may not ship when expected-- so if it was just an Apple Store glitch, it wasn't limited just to Scott. But here's the thing: Scott wrote back to tell us that he's in Canada. (Now's the part where you make an "ohhhh" sound, narrow your eyes, and nod your head sagely.) Furthermore, faithful viewers Rick Krutina and Georges also received the Mac OS X backorder email, and they, too, are both in Canada. While backorder victim #4, faithful viewer Joe Shmoe, didn't specify his location, his email appears to have originated from the Ottawa area. Clearly, this "backordered Mac OS X" phenomenon is endemic to the Great White North.

So does this mean Canadian Mac fans won't get Mac OS X until after the 24th? Nah, we bet they'll get it pretty much when U.S. customers do. We've seen the actual text of the email in question, and it makes no reference to an actual ship date at all-- it just says that Mac OS X is "experiencing a greater backlog delay than originally anticipated." Maybe Apple Canada is just a) overly optimistic, and "originally anticipated" a ship date sooner than March 24th for some reason, and b) exceedingly polite, and felt compelled to apologize for Apple's own published Mac OS X ship date. (Or it could just be an AppleScript gone horribly awry.)

On the other hand, if you choose to interpret the data as implying that the mighty nation of Canada will indeed get Mac OS X later than we will in these here United States, you can stop waving the Stars and Stripes and doing the "We're First" dance-- Australia's getting it before any of us. Yup, the MacEvangeList confirmed with Apple Australia that Mac OS X will arrive down under on March 24th local time-- which is March 23rd here in the U.S. So if you really want your copy of Apple's new operating system as early as possible, start booking those flights now...

UPDATE: Suddenly, reports are coming in from all stations-- it's no longer a Canada thing, people. Faithful viewer Jonathan Levenson got a backorder apology, too, but he's in Texas. (Yes, that's almost another country, but it doesn't quite count.) And in the last few minutes, two more reports zipped in-- from faithful viewers Chris and Mike, both in Massachusetts. And in just the time it took to read those, three more reports showed up, from Billy, Kookstick, and Sarah Bombich. It's a backlog avalanche! So now it appears that Canadian customers just got their notices first. Here's hoping these apologies are just automated fluff with no actual bearing on Mac OS X's actual ship date.

SceneLink (2904)

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The above scene was taken from the 3/6/01 episode:

March 6, 2001: That single Mac OS X backorder email has since multiplied into several sightings. Meanwhile, early testing reveals that the 733 MHz G4+ is sometimes slower than a single 533 MHz G4, and a research firm discovers that (surprise!) Mac owners are loyal customers...

Other scenes from that episode:

2905: Careful What You Wish For (3/6/01) We all whined like babies for a year while the G4 languished at 500 MHz and Intel zipped onward to 1 GHz and beyond. "Why can't Motorola do that?" we moaned. Sure, we knew that clock speed alone is a fairly meaningless measurement of a processor's overall performance, but the bottom line is, the Unwashed Masses look at megahertz when shopping for one o' them thar "personal computers," and Apple was getting the tar beat out of it when shoppers did a price-per-megahertz comparison...
2906: More Addictive Than Crack (3/6/01) We wouldn't exactly consider it news, per se, but a new report by research firm Harris Interactive reveals that, among 6500 computer purchasers in the first three quarters of last year, Apple's customers were the most loyal...

Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast...


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