Apple has confirmed the rumor that Leopard will ship at 6pm (PST I'd guess) on Friday, October 26th. You can pre-order it as of today.

Pricing is the same as Tiger, $129 for single user and $199 for a Family pack. Comes with free shipping.

If anyone is thinking of purchasing a Mac then check to see if they'll hold your order until 10.5 ships, or if you'll get a free upgrade to 10.5 as you've just purchased (I think they do usually have an upgrade policy for machines purchased within a short timeframe before the new release). Worst case, simply wait until the 26th before purchasing and you should be guaranteed to get 10.5 on your new machine.

For anyone upgrading from an earlier version of Mac OS X, specifically on older computers, you need to check the spec of machines you are on as the requirements for 10.5 are quite high:

867MHz or better PowerPC G4 or G5, or any Intel based Macintosh
512MB RAM or more
Built in Firewire
DVD Drive

I've got a few older machines that will happily run 10.4.x but do not meet the min requirements for 10.5

It is possible to work around the DVD requirement if you can get an image of the DVD, then you can restore that to a disk/partition and use Firewire Target Disk mode to install it. If you're doing this, which is how I've installed the seed releases due to a lack of a DVD drive on some of my test machines *cough* In this situation it is possible to change the system requirements, but do NOT try installing with less than 256MB, the installer will NOT complete *cough*

 

got mine on order

 

Cool, I'm looking forward to this

 

Hopefully we'll see a GM seed on ADC some point BEFORE the 26th, always nice to be able to test your software on the OS prior to it getting into the end users hands and then finding there is an issue.

 

Going to order a Mini soon.....although I keep hearing rumours that they are end of life.

Leopard looks pretty good - some of the extra 300 features look quite handy.

Do ALL macs come with DVD drive now?

 

dvd players - yes

 

The mini's did get a refresh to Core 2 Duo a short while ago, so they are still somewhat fresh. I can see the mini and ATV being integrated into one device to create a media center type machine, which would be nice.

As for DVD drive, looking at the specs all machines come with at least a combo drive (DVD-ROM / CD-RW) so that'd be a yes on the DVD front.

 

Ah, yes - I was thinking DVD/RW!

Yep I wouldn't be suprised to see the mini and AppleTV merge. Think I'll just go for the Mini anyway - it does everything I want. If the AppleTV inherited a DVD drive and the ability to play DivX/WMV etc and output 5.1 then I might consider it.

now who do I need to see around here for a deal on 2 Mini's with Leopard?

 

AllanB perhaps

 

With regards to upgrade pricing. If you purchase a qualifying machine after October 1st, you can upgrade to 10.5 for $9.95 + tax. More info on the Up To Date page on Apple's site.

 

And I've just had an email saying cancom will have stock son 26th, which is payday

 

nice, will get this on the octocore as soon as poss

 

WooHoo.. ordered.

 

A little tip. Apple insist on using Mat$h!ta drives which cannot be made multi-region AT ALL ! Even VLC won't play discs outside your specified region after you've used up your switches, so if you're using it for media then it can be a little restrictive. It is possible to swap out the internal drive for a Pioneer K06 (£30 or so) and flash the firmware in that to RPC1 (multi-region) with either OS9 or a PC. You'll need to run an app called Patchburn (once) to trick the native apps and OS into seeing the drive, but thereafter you can just switch regions to your hearts content with RegionX. Add Elgato/EyeTV and some external storage and it's a cracking media server. I haven't investigated, but you might be able to add the Sony/NEC external combi-HDDVD/BD drive if drivers exist for it on Mac too.

There's a massive thread running on AVForums Mac Forum about the best and latest apps, codecs and containers for all media file types.

 

You can open up most drives now, my iMac and my Macbook are region free.

 

We have copies coming in on the 26th and mine will be installed by the evening

Some interesting features on the security in Leopard. Seems they have beefed it up (nicking some features from vista along the way ), which is good news.

 

Link for region free firmware The Firmware Page :: View topic - Mat****a and Apple RPC1 firmware: a summary

 

Yep, been in the AVForums thread (although not for a while)

Region free doesn't bother me at the moment. All my stuff is Region 2.

HD-DVD/Blu-ray does interest me.....but I'll wait and see what happens

 

I'm going to order it when its realised - payday.

I was orignally going to wait for Leopard before I brought a Mac, glad I did not

 

Jack, that's brilliant news Thanks for the link (bookmarked) and I am now very close to ordering a new Mac. Swapping out the drive was the last stumbling block as I just couldn't be bothered, but once it ships with Leopard my cash is waiting

 

FYI. Dont know where people are ordering this from but MacWarehouse are listing it at £66.59 inc vat with £5 delivery.
APPLE MAC OS X v10.5 LEOPARD from MacWarehouse

Using Quidco you can get another 5% back too.

With Apple its £85 with 3% from Quidco and free delivery.

 

Glad you like the pircing from MacWarehouse guys. Apple have not confirmed the delivery date to us of the many many units we have on order but in the past we've had stock of new released some time before expected but not in big quantities.

Don't hold back buying hardware as Apple will allow any machine purchased after the 1st of October to be upgraded to Leopard for about £6.00

We're expecting a major increase in demand so you may find availability on kit gets worse.

Rumours suggest minis will be going but we are unlikely to know until we see the stock going into constraint.



AllanB

 

Allan/Anyone - Any rumors about iMacs with the Matte screens?

 

I see your price has risen Allan , will I be charged the price when I ordered or the new price when it is shipped? I do hope it's the former as you are now £3.12p more expensive than Apple.

 

We are getting some stock on friday and I have just been informed that MY copy is landing on my desk tomorrow about lunchtime....lovely jubbly

 

I'm all up and running just looks like a Tiger facelift to me, but what do i know one thing i have noticed is Safari is super quick now

 

Kev, you sound like bloody steve jobs

 

it's like i've had my broadband upgraded, it's that noticeable


Quick view is handy along with cover flow, yet to see how photoshop, quark etc. work (or not )

 

Oh, and spaces is dead useful, i'm writing DVDs on one space with loads of windows open, i've got safari open on another....

 

good man...

photoshop will run fine as will quark (though both companies have stressed that they havent done any major testing )

I have a big external GTech drive just waiting for my time machine backup tonight..its been a while since I did a backup so its long overdue