Thinksecret throws their guess in the Leopard hat: October 26th

If you listened live to our TUAW talkcast last night (and you should have, because we were on fire, if I may say so myself), you heard us doing the same thing all Apple fans are doing this week: speculating on the (hopefully impending) release date of Leopard. Most of us still hold out hope for October (and we did realize that coming out around Halloween would make for some excellent Apple-related Halloween costumes), but personally, I'm still betting on October 26th. As we said last night, not only would that make for a weekend full of Leopard-y goodness, but the full moon is on the 25th, so the stars will be aligned just right for Time Machine.

And Thinksecret agrees with me (that's awfully nice of them). Their sources (although I can tell you that I wasn't asked) say that Leopard is still on track for an October 26th release. I said last night that I expected Apple to actually announce a release date this coming week, but apparently it's still too early for that-- a new (and final) Leopard build is expected this week, and once that gets final approval, Thinksecret says October 26th is the day.

However, time is definitely running out. Let's not forget that Apple announced Tiger a full 17 days before release, and that deadline passed last week. If they're not done debugging Leopard, there's a good chance we won't see it in October at all anyway. Not even the witches and goblins of Halloween will make Jobs do something he doesn't want to do.

Thanks, Dewey K!