Apple posts Leopard Guided Tour

Apple’s been all about the video guided tours lately, and with Leopard just around the corner, the company’s gone ahead and put John, The Classy Salt-and-Pepper Apple Store Employee, in front of the camera to walk you through the new release. Nothing particularly new to report, but it’ll keep the fanboys warm for another week.

Leopard: final features and further upgrade details

Few of the Features u shld look out for!

• Users who bought Apple machines from October 1st on can participate in Apple’s Up-To-Date Program, which provides free Leopard upgrades (for $10 shipping).
• Boot Camp’s beta Assistant software expires at the end of 2007, meaning Tiger users that want to continue editing / creating Windows partitions on their Macs need to do so before January, or upgrade to Leopard. Post-January you’ll still be able to boot to the partitions you’ve created, though.
• Users shouldn’t expect expanded sync capabilities between Mail.app and the iPhone, although it looks like you’ll be able to read iPhone notes on your desktop machine now.
• File system is, indeed, still HFS+; OS X now supports read-only ZFS, as we’d heard.
• Don’t forget to peep the new features / changes list on Apple’s site.
• Call us crazy, but with a 6:00PM Friday launch we think you should expect lines — but not for Apple to sell out.

A few features we’re looking forward to (besides the obvious ones):

• Google Maps integration with Address Book.
• Tricked out AppleScript.
• Automator UI recording / playback.
• Japanese dictionary support.
• New, easily-printable font books.
• Front Row now looks more like “Back Row” (the Apple TV interface) — too bad it’s still not more like Media Center.
• New AirPort menus that show WiFi encryption.
• Disk encryption now supports 256 bit AES.
• Built-in grammar checker. Lord knows we need it ’round these parts.
• Tabbed terminal.

Apple Officially Announces Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Today Apple announced that Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) will go on sale on Friday, October 26th at 6 p.m. at Apple retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. Apple’s online store will start accepting pre-orders as of today.

“Leopard, the sixth major release of Mac OS X, is the best upgrade we’ve
ever released,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And everyone gets the
‘Ultimate’ version, packed with all the new innovative features, for just
$129.”

Apple has also updated their Mac OS X Leopard pages with a new look.