AppleInsider is reporting that Apple is currently hiring new staff for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa divisions of AppleCare, and they’re looking to train the staff in Apple’s OS X 10.8 operating system. Not really big news, but what is news is that Mountain Lion may actually be a lot closer to release than we expected:
The source went on to say that Mountain Lion may be just a few weeks from launch as internal training recently commenced regarding certain facets of the operating system. Apple usually restricts the operating window of support staff training to a minimum before large product release presumably to avoid leaks … Though purely speculation, the training could point to a OS X 10.8 debut at WWDC 2012 which is scheduled to take place from June 11 to June 15.
It would certainly be a big change-up from the last couple of major OS updates from Apple. Lion was released on July 20, 2011, and Snow Leopard was released on August 28, 2009, with both releases falling a full month after WWDC of that year. The Leopard release was a giant mess with the shipping date slipping numerous times. If we take the last two releases as a case in point, Mountain Lion would be released sometime in July this year, with the Gold Master being available to developers at, or around, WWDC 2012.
We’re inclined to believe that the pattern will continue this year, because we have no reason to believe it won’t.
