iPhone in June, Mac OS X Leopard in October

Apple has delayed the launch of Mac OS X Leopard by almost four months… and is blaming the iPhone for the delay.

Apple apparently has had to borrow key software engineering and QA resources from the Mac OS X team to get the “revolutionary and magical” iPhone ready… by late June. With this announcement, Apple has indeed confirmed that the much-awaited iPhone will be available in June but not during the Worldwide Developers Conference as speculated. Apple says, “The iPhone has the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device and we can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. The iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned.”

Leopard was initially set to release in June at the Worldwide Developers Conference. Though Leopard’s features will be ready by then Apple maintains that they will not be able to deliver the quality release expected of them during that time. They now plan to show developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October.

Apple maintains a very judicious note saying, “We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones.” We hope so too people.

Read more about the 11 June iPhone release rumor here.