Still holding out hope for a surprise Mac OS X 10.3 launch tomorrow to coincide with the 10/3 date? Congratulations, you've officially driven right through the city of Optimism and crossed the town line into Delusionville (population: you-- and an imaginary howler monkey named "Jim-Bob"). We hate to be the ones to burst your bubble (well, not really-- dashing hopes and dreams against the jagged, unforgiving rocks of reality is what Tiggers do best!), but Panther would have to have been "golden master" by at least three or four weeks ago in order for boxed copies to make it onto store shelves by tomorrow, and given the continuing stream of new development seeds since then, that clearly didn't happen.

There's also the fact that the October 3rd release rumor originated at AppleInsider, who has since abandoned the possibility of a super-cutesy release-number-and-date tie-in. And last but not least, whatever your opinion of Apple's marketing department, surely you agree that at least they know enough not to risk the media ignoring a major operating system upgrade just because it came smack in the middle of the journalistic orgy known as No Salt Week.

But cheer up, frowny-pants; the latest update at AppleInsider insists that 10.3 "will indeed ship this month," either on the 24th or 25th "depending on geographical location." Apparently developer seeds of Panther lost their "Pre-Release" label a few builds back, and the current 7B85 build that emerged a few days ago has since proven to be The Golden One. It's probably being duped off and shoved into boxes right this very second, destined to meet its public in just over three weeks' time. So mark your calendars-- although you may want to do it in pencil, seeing as none of this is official just yet. Save the red Sharpie for when Apple issues the press release.

Now, we know we've been hollering for 10.3 to ship ever since Uncle Steve's Wild Panther Ride hooked us with an Exposé demo last June, but that said, we really hope that 10.3 doesn't wind up being a rush job. Hypocritical? Yeah, a little, but here's the thing: we're still dealing with assorted unpleasantries associated with that preternatural spawn of evil known as Mac OS X 10.2.8, including the first time since the pre-X days that we've seen a Mac actually freeze-- no clock blinking, no cursor movement, no disk access, no option-Apple-escape, yet no kernel panic message. (Ahhhh, nostalgia...)

Accordingly, we've regained a poppin'-fresh appreciation for the virtues of putting wacky concepts like "thorough testing" and "quality control" ahead of an early ship date. We're not too worried about Panther, though; developer reports characterize it as rock-solid, and given how scary 10.2.8 turned out to be (plus the fact that Apple's only public self-imposed deadline for a Panther release is the end of the year), we think it's pretty unlikely that 10.3 would be heading off to duplication right now unless it's six microns from bulletproof. Here's hoping.