Leopard release: October 26th

If you're one of the many speculating the release date for Apple's next version of OS X, Leopard, you can tick the other 10 of the remaining 11 business days left on the October calendar because it's finally official: Mac OS 10.5 launches Friday, October 26th at 6.00pm, and may we just say friggin finally. Minimum specs: Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor with 512MB of physical RAM. $129 for a single-user copy or $199 for a 5-user, single-residence family pack. Upgrade price? You're kidding, right... this is Apple.

[Tabfugnic @ Oct 16th 2007 8:38AM]

FINALLY!!

[Zadillo @ Oct 16th 2007 9:37AM]

So green nature photography now is "Vista-style"?

[suv4x4 @ Oct 16th 2007 11:09AM]

"So green nature photography now is "Vista-style"?"

Why not, if drop shadow or white-shiny is "Apple-style".

I would prefer neither side is ridiculous about minor details, but if we can't have that, at least we can put some balance in the picture. Leopard *is* trying to appear shinier than Vista.

It's another question if it was worth it.

[Felipe @ Oct 16th 2007 8:38AM]

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/developer/

page cannot be found...

leopard "developer" and "technology" pages can't be found.

[imacmatt09 @ Oct 16th 2007 8:47AM]

http://www.apple.com/macosx/developer/

happy?

[imacmatt09 @ Oct 16th 2007 8:47AM]

heres tech if you want it to...

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/

[Felipe @ Oct 16th 2007 8:55AM]

ok... i guess i visited the last 5 minutes of apple.com/macosx/leopard/
before the new page was there...

[Jersey @ Oct 16th 2007 8:39AM]

Or the Edu price of $69. Awesome.

[Jersey @ Oct 16th 2007 8:44AM]

Eh, WTF Apple? $119? Edu has always been $69. In fact I checked Tiger yesterday just to verify. First you take away Edu for iPods, it never exists for iPhone, and now you add $50 to your OS?

Haters.

[customholle @ Oct 16th 2007 8:46AM]

Where does one find the edu price?

[Rollins @ Oct 16th 2007 8:58AM]

I must say that I am extremely unhappy about this, as well. Of course, I'll still buy it, and that's what Apple's counting on. :(

I guess too many college students were taking advantage and Apple felt it could raise its profit margins a bit.

[Bob @ Oct 16th 2007 9:09AM]

as if they were having less profits ...ha .....

[Leo Pard @ Oct 16th 2007 9:18AM]

Just a reminder, it could be worse. You could be using Vista Ultimate at $399 and have a far inferior OS.

[V @ Oct 16th 2007 9:53AM]

but....windows comes out every 5 years or so...os X comes out every 1-2 years so pricewise it is almost the dam same.

[t-bone @ Oct 16th 2007 10:56AM]

@Leo Pard: My educational discount allowed me to buy Vista Ultimate for $15. I also get all Vista Service Packs for free.

[Kasona @ Oct 16th 2007 11:58AM]

My University's Computer Science program is part of MSDN Academic Alliance, so I got Vista Business (and XP, Visual Studio Pro, Visio,...) for FREE and Office 2007 for only $20

I'm not seeing Apple be anywhere near as generous to us near-broke students.

[Tony @ Oct 16th 2007 12:14PM]

@t-bone

Which service packs have you been paying for?

[t-bone @ Oct 16th 2007 12:33PM]

@Tony: Microsoft hasn't charged for a single one and clearly don't intend to charge for service packs in the near future. I love getting my OS upgraded for free.

[JeffR @ Oct 16th 2007 1:27PM]

Yeah, it says $119 on the Apple education website, but I just called my university computer shop and they said they'd have it for $69. Got my copy reserved!

[ark_v2 @ Oct 16th 2007 4:03PM]

@ Leo Pard: Or get a linux distro, an ever supperior OS, for free.

[tyler @ Oct 16th 2007 11:42PM]

Definitely awesome. I just called and ordered it up today for 69 beans. Have it next Friday.

Just wish I had time to install it then. We'll be kicking some Buckeye ass next weekend. Darn.

[John @ Oct 17th 2007 1:51AM]

You guys really need to check your facts. Universities often have deals with companies like Apple and Microsoft to give discounts on their products to ease the process of updating every campus-owned computer. If your university has a program like this (chances are, it does), you will get a much greater discount because part of your tuition goes to such discounts. If you're reserving your product straight from Apple, their website can't determine which schools have their update program, so you get stuck with the much smaller run-of-the-mill educational discount.

Also, the comment "Upgrade price? You're kidding, right... this is Apple" amazes me considering the $299 upgrade price tag on Vista Ultimate. How much lower do you expect them to go, Ryan? Get your head out of your ass and stop bashing Apple like you actually have a valid point. Stop trying to please the haters.

[misha @ Oct 17th 2007 2:00PM]

What do you mean the edu price is $69

[Luc @ Oct 25th 2007 2:43AM]

Here is the education discount link. http://store.apple.com/1-800-780-5009/WebObjects/EducationIndividual?type=higherEd
The edu price is $116. Gee, what a discount. I saving myself $13. Now, I can get myself that iPod shuffle that I've been eying with the savings I'd get from purchasing Leopard with the edu discount..

[cc @ Oct 16th 2007 8:40AM]

I for one have to say: AT LONG LAST!

[Jamie @ Oct 16th 2007 8:40AM]

This is Apple?

THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

[Drew @ Oct 16th 2007 8:43AM]

Why would there be an upgrade price? Mac OS X only runs on Macs... All Macs come with Mac OS... Therefore, *every* copy sold is an upgrade.

[Luigi193 @ Oct 16th 2007 8:46AM]

To bad I already have it...

[thegrey @ Oct 16th 2007 8:48AM]

SPARTA!
300 features

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html

[mushrooshi @ Oct 16th 2007 8:51AM]

OH MY GAWD ITS FINALLY COMING OUT!

I wonder if I should get a DS or Leopard for my November 19th birthday.

[Le Master @ Oct 16th 2007 9:04AM]

Always choose hardware over software for presents, you will be more content.

[Xzavier @ Oct 16th 2007 10:29AM]

Bro.. it’s only $129! By the time you finish downloading that 2-4 gig OS, 2-3 months would have went buy... So how much do you PAY for that HIGH SPEED internet access again?

[makishima @ Oct 16th 2007 5:29PM]

"Bro.. it’s only $129! By the time you finish downloading that 2-4 gig OS, 2-3 months would have went buy... So how much do you PAY for that HIGH SPEED internet access again?"

And what crappy half-assed internet service do you use that it takes 2-3 months to download 4 gigs? Normally takes less than a day for me and I've just got cable.

[Xzavier @ Oct 18th 2007 11:01AM]

Dude... just go to the store and buy it! It’s $129 and yea you SHOULD be advocating purchasing the product not d/l it.

1 hr, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, etc... Don't go and pay a fortune for a MAC hardware and then come back around and d/l their OS. That’s so ghetto!

[Tony @ Oct 16th 2007 8:54AM]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Leopard SERVER BAABY!!!!!!!

[David Clark @ Oct 16th 2007 9:58AM]

Because Leopard has these revolutionary new features.. like.. *gasp* backup! Not to mention a ton of eye candy like a reflective dock and new, and even more mattel-like, window animations that we've grown to know and love.

Seriously. Leopard is everything the Mac community has preached against since '98.

[Tony @ Oct 16th 2007 10:58AM]

I think you should go back to your cave you ignorant peasant.

[Joshua @ Oct 16th 2007 8:56AM]

"Upgrade price? You're kidding, right... this is Apple."

Best line of the day. Totally made my morning

[Michael @ Oct 16th 2007 8:55AM]

So what makes you excited about Leopard? Any of you? Tell me.

[Luigi193 @ Oct 16th 2007 9:00AM]

Why were you excited about vista?

[Michael @ Oct 16th 2007 9:08AM]

I'm not excited about vista at all.

[timeTraveler @ Oct 16th 2007 9:33AM]

Because we get to see & use what Microsoft will be calling 'revolutionary' and 'innovative' when it debuts in Windows four or five years from now.

[Ty @ Oct 16th 2007 9:40AM]

I can't wait to install it on the gaming rig I built. Oh, wait...

[Michael @ Oct 16th 2007 9:44AM]

Ok, that's cool.
Let me just lay it out straight, this isn't a dig against OSX, I'm not being sarcastic.
I seriously want to know what makes people here excited about it.
What features specifically does it have that gets you geeked?

[Jeff @ Oct 16th 2007 11:00AM]

For me it's Time Machine. Instead of a 3rd party solution this one will be built into the OS. http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html.

[DorianGray @ Oct 16th 2007 10:26AM]

Wow. And I think we're all still waiting for a reply here.

I have a MacMini I use as a media center box (running VLC, not shit-assed FrontRow). I like it because it's quiet and it runs HandBrake and MacTheRipper. And it looks good on a 42" LCD @ 1920x1080. iLife '08 is okay -- I admit I like being able to send photos directly from my iPhone to the web gallery.

But I still consider the Mac to be a toy. My main box and my wife's laptop run WinXP (although each could *easily* run Vista). I hate Vista and will run XP as long as I can. I have two X360s for accessing video at other locations around the house and an Ubuntu file server that keeps the entire network happy.

I see no value added by Leopard. Seriously, I *want* to be impressed. If it's good stuff, I'll get a Mac laptop. But right now, from what I've seen, nothing stands out about MacOS to me.

What impresses you guys? Seriously, please sell me -- I really want to buy...

[Egypt Urnash @ Oct 16th 2007 2:54PM]

Time Machine.

Integrated, automatic backup that I can use by just jacking in an external drive on a regular basis, without having to give up hours of my life.

I know that I *should* back up a lot more than I do. This will make it tons easier.

[Xzavier @ Oct 16th 2007 10:51AM]

I don't think it is anything... I think it’s this iHype that people want to purchase/have.

I plan on purchasing a copy of Leopard on Friday right after work. I’ll play around with it, see the new features, but that is about it. It's not like I can download the NEW Unreal Tournament 3 demo and try it out on any MAC OS! Very little gaming on it, most apps are still on Windows, I still feel like I am lockdown with solely Apple apps/instead of a wide Varity of other applications like the Windows counterpart. With all of the iHype surrounding Apple hardware/software I think people are happy to make ANY type of Apple purchase. I have been using a MAC at my home for the last 4 years with very little PC interaction (except for gaming, or some other app/function I need). MAC OS X is very pretty and something different to work on. If Microsoft came out with a completely different UI built from the ground up, you might see a lot of Microsoft hype flying around the internet with very little marketing from Microsoft.

I remember reading awhile ago that Microsoft wanted to release an OS every 1.5 years and I said to myself… dam that is a lot of reading I have to do, to much research to keep up with! At least that is what I was thinking in the corporate work field supporting users, not playing around with your “Personal Computer” at home. Apple’s real NeXT OS will be OS 11; these are just upgrades, tweaks to the OS or more iCandy, nothing really major to claim that it is the NeXT Gen OS.

Something for all of us to go out and say, HELL YEA I GOT THE NEW OS!

[suv4x4 @ Oct 16th 2007 11:45AM]

I'm excited since Leopard is the first release of OSX that does more than just introduce fixes to OSX.

We know Tiger represented the final version of the original vision of OSX, it took some time to get there.

Leopard is here to show us where Apple wants to bring the Mac. I have some Mac using friends which are worried of the new flashy graphics, and the time machine abstraction. Some other ones like it. I want to see, can Apple deliver innovation that people can make practical use of, or, like Microsoft, it'll stumble at some point in time.

As for Vista, as a Windows developer, I was wholesale excited for Vista (then Longhorn) for 5 full years. ... And then they released it, and demonstrated the interface issues, glitches and performance issues were not due to the beta status of the code, but it's simply how Vista looks. I'm no longer excited, not until they fix it in a big way.

[Andrew @ Oct 16th 2007 8:57AM]

What a snide..stupid comment 'Come on this is Apple'

The pirce of the FULL (non edu) version of Leopard is still a hell of a lot cheaper than the BASIC upgrade version of Vista...and not to mention it sucks a lot less!