Apple's announcement late last week that the release of Mac OS X Leopard would be delayed in order to push the new iPhone out the door on schedule came as a surprise to many -- especially considering that, at first, the company insisted the new operating system would be on time.

Users were unhappy, no doubt, and The Courier Mail reports that Apple's stock even dropped a bit after the announcement. The writer doesn't see the OS X delay as a reason to start drawing comparisons to Microsoft's much-delayed Windows Vista operating system, however.

...[T]he consensus is that the existing release of Mac OS X, Tiger, is still way ahead of Vista, and Apple can afford another few months to ensure Leopard is right before shipping it.

Writers at MacDailyNews, commenting on the Courier Mail story and a similar one in Wired, opine that the delay isn't a sign of trouble. It's nothing more than growing pains as Apple works to expand the reach of the Mac OS X from the desktop to portable devices like the iPhone -- and eventually to the television set.