Leopard backpedals again: No more iPhone note syncing
Looks like Apple now believes that it has said a little too much with the new Leopard feature pages. Yesterday it backpedaled on letting us use an AirPort Disk with Time Machine, and now it appears as though all references to the iPhone …
Context & Ripple Effects
After the spring dual delay that pushed both the iPhone and Leopard back months, Apple spent October building anticipation for Friday's launch: reviewers had already blessed Leopard's refinements, and an October 4 report flagged Notes-to-iPhone syncing as one of the marquee tie-ins between the Mac and Apple's new handset.
That pitch is now shrinking at the deadline. Per Infinite Loop, Apple has stripped all iPhone note-syncing references from the Leopard feature pages — unconfirmed by the company itself — a day after similarly backing off the advertised ability to use an AirPort Disk with Time Machine. With the $129 upgrade landing Friday around 6:04 PM, buyers are being asked to pay for a feature list Apple keeps editing downward.
First-order effects
- Shoppers deciding this week whether Leopard justifies $129 lose two advertised capabilities — iPhone note syncing and AirPort Disk backups via Time Machine — from the marketing pages they'd reasonably rely on.
- iPhone owners specifically lose the promised bridge between the phone's Notes app and the Mac desktop, cutting one of the clearest cross-product reasons to upgrade.
Second-order effects
- Each quiet retraction raises the verification burden for everything else on the feature pages, putting pressure on Apple to state explicitly what actually ships Friday rather than let the web pages speak for it.
- A pattern of last-minute cuts invites closer scrutiny of Time Machine and other headline features at review time, since reviewers must now test the shipped product against a moving spec.
Third-order effects
- If pre-launch marketing routinely outruns shipping software, OS releases drift toward an under-promise discipline — or toward reputational cost when they don't — making launch-week feature audits a standing part of covering major Apple software drops.
The trend: Leopard's rollout shows Apple's feature marketing running ahead of finished software, forcing retractions in the final days before a paid OS upgrade ships.