According to a rumour on the well-respected Ars Technica web site, Mac 10.5 Leopard will not only be later than expected, but it will not provide support for Input Managers.

Input Manager plugins will no longer be allowed, the article claims. It cites “sources” who say that “Apple isn’t really broken up about it since InputManagers were often used for nefarious purposes anyway.”

I’ve had a number of emails from Hawk Wings readers who are worried about the future of one or another of the many, many plugins available for Mail.app.

The good news is that the vast majority of plugins are not constructed as Input Managers and so will not be affected.

The notification utility iAlert will be though, as well as a number of excellent plugins for other apps, like the Inquisitor search plugin for Safari.

The Input Manager that allows TextMate to be used as an external editor for Mail and many other apps (a “nefarious purpose” if ever there was one!) will also sadly disappear, although I very much hope that Allan Odgaard will reinvent it in another format.

UPDATE: Jon Hicks has written more on the impact of this change on Safari and its various plugins.

[Thanks to Geoff, Dan, David et al.]