OS X Lion Release Date Gets Bumped Again

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It’s only been a day since we passed on the word that reports were pegging the release date of the newest Apple operating system, OS X Lion, as being July 17th. New reports are putting a little bit of a haze on the actual date, though, so get out your salt lick and your tinfoil hat, because the newest word says to look for this to come a lot sooner than first projected.

The new projected date, and this is downright bizarre how it bounced from the original target of July 17th, (not to mention from leaked documents that pegged it at July 14th), is now July 6th. But this particular date even comes with a time: high noon Eastern Standard, or  9:00 AM Pacific time.

This newest word emerges from yet another unnamed source, who made some good points overall via an analysis of the situation. We know that the supply of MacBook Airs and MacBooks proper has been tight for the last few days, and for its part, Apple hasn’t been doing a lot of resupply. This has a chilling effect on overall sales, but why bring out resupply when you’re looking to refresh the product line anyway? No, you want as many of the old ones as possible sold off before you bring out the new one; fewer needing sold in clearance sales that way. But at the same time, Apple likely wouldn’t want to risk turning away too many interested laptop buyers; they might well migrate to Windows machines that way. Plus, with this version being a download-only item, they can launch at virtually any time they wish.

And as we’ve heard from some commenters right here, OS X Lion looks pretty stable as it is, so why not push up the release date?

But still, coming off a holiday weekend, with the quarterly report days away? That seems less than likely to me, but barring official announcement from Apple, there’s only one way to find out. We’ll be watching the sixth like a hawk.

What do you guys think, meanwhile? Think this is another date-setter who’s going to get laughed out of the park? Or is Apple planning to spring this one on us a little sooner than we expect? We’re waiting to hear from you, so head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think!