Panther, Tiger, Lynx?

"CUPERTINO, California— May 4, 2004— Apple® today announced that Steve Jobs will kick off its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote on Monday, June 28, 2004, beginning at 10:00 a.m. at San Francisco’s Moscone West. This year's keynote will include a preview of “Tiger,” the next major release of Mac® OS X."

Everyone's saying how Apple is going to release a new version of the OS this year. That sounds good in theory, but to me it's just going to be annoying. Apple, famous for being an education led organisation where much of their sales comes from the students and academia, will experience a huge surge in orders for the 2004-5 college year. They want to release an OS this year but clearly aren't going to get it out in time for those of us buying their products this summer to benefit. Unless they give out free updates/upgrades to the OS for those who'd purchased a new PC is say the previous six months before release of the software, I will be mightly pissed off.
I'm thinking, why would I want to spend almost £2000 - over three thousand dollars - on a new computer if it's going to be deliberately outdated perhaps only a few weeks later. I'm hoping that Steve Jobs, at the June WWDC, tells those present that he's preparing a move like this - a move to compensate followers. I'd hate to get pissed with them right after buying from them.

By the way, what's with the whole nature thing? Intel does rivers (Cupertino etc) whilst Apple does big cats? At least with Microsoft they make up some useless rubbish to codename their stuff and then give it another less goofy title when it goes on sale. The progression of big cat names is simply odd.

Apple Announces Year of the Tiger