CNET landed an interview with Phil Schiller, Apple’s vice president of worldwide marketing, yesterday and got the Apple exec to talk about the upcoming release of Mac OS X, due in stores March 24.
According to CNET’s report the final version of QuickTime 5 will come “in the box” with Mac OS X. Apple is also working to have X versions of iTunes and iMovie video-editing software ready by March 24, although neither will come in the box with Mac OS X.
“We’re working really hard to make it available for download at intro,” Schiller told CNET. “We’re trying to make that day. If not, really close.”
As we’ve previously reported, the first launch of OS X won’t offer DVD playback. Schiller told CNET that the DVD player isn’t ready and will be available for download at a later time. Along the same lines, iDVD, Apple’s DVD authoring software, won’t be ready by March 24. Schiller said Apple can’t disclose iDVD’s availability until a March 21 press event that will launch Mac OS X.
The VP also told CNET that Apple is closely tying Mac OS X to its Internet suite of services, iTools.
“Right as you set up your machine, as part of the start-up experience, it will ask if you have an iTools account or set one up for you,” Schiller is quoted as saying. “Now on the toolbar on the Finder you click on an icon and boom, up opens your iDisk. It’s just completely integrated seamlessly.”
He also said that OS X has a feature called “Get Software” that will point you right to the Web site on the Mac OS X page to learn about the third-party software. Schiller also explained OS X’s unusual naming convention.
“We used the roman numeral because we thought it would be cool and fun,” he said. “But officially it’s Mac OS X 10.0,” Schiller told CNET. The 10.1 release could appear on new machines in the summer.”