Leopard, the latest update of the Apple Mac operating system OS X, goes on sale on Friday.
The release ends months of waiting for Mac fans, after Apple pushed back the launch to finish development on its much-hyped iPhone.
Early reviews for Leopard have been positive with veteran technology writer Walt Mossberg calling it “evolutionary, not revolutionary”.
Apple is hoping to build on recent strong sales of its Mac computers.
In the last three months, Apple sold 2.2 million Macs, up 400,000 on its previous best quarter.
The company is touting Leopard as a Vista-beater, pointing to new features not found in the new operating system (OS) from Microsoft that drives many PCs.
Leopard, the latest update of the Apple Mac operating system OS X, goes on sale on Friday.
The release ends months of waiting for Mac fans, after Apple pushed back the launch to finish development on its much-hyped iPhone.
Early reviews for Leopard have been positive with veteran technology writer Walt Mossberg calling it “evolutionary, not revolutionary”.
Apple is hoping to build on recent strong sales of its Mac computers.
In the last three months, Apple sold 2.2 million Macs, up 400,000 on its previous best quarter.
The company is touting Leopard as a Vista-beater, pointing to new features not found in the new operating system (OS) from Microsoft that drives many PCs.
‘Few disappointments’
In the New York Times, technology columnist David Pogue wrote: “Happy surprises, and very few disappointments, lie around every corner.”
At the MacLiveExpo, being held in London, there was a mixed response from attendees on whether they would be rushing out to buy Leopard on day one.
Many of the delegates said they would wait for the operating system to “bed down” before they bought it.
“I never buy any operating system when it first comes out. I normally wait until it has been out for six months or a year,” said David Ramage, a Mac user from Luton.
He added: “Tiger does what I need it to do right now. I’ve not seen anything in Leopard to make me want to buy it immediately.”
For developers, a new operating system means having to work to ensure their programs run smoothly on the new platform.
Ben Rudolph, director of communications at SWSoft, makers of Parallels, said Leopard was a big step forward for Apple and “would continue to drive sales of Macs”.
Parallels lets users run Windows and Linux alongside OS X on a single Apple machine.
Mr Rudolph said Parallels would run smoothly under Leopard, barring any last minute changes to the code released by Apple.
“If that happens, we’ll release a free, automatic update to account for them very soon after Leopard’s launch,” he said.
Of the new features in Leopard, Mr Rudolph said he was looking forward to being able to take advantage of his Mac’s 64-bit architecture.
The new OS takes full advantage of the latest generation of chips inside Apple machines, while running applications on older processors also.
“I’m also looking forward to new user-experience features like Stacks, which should help me organise my incredibly messy desktop, and Spaces, which lets me cycle between different desktops.”
Nik Rawlinson, editor of MacUser magazine, said many users would get Leopard in its first few weeks on sale.
“When Tiger was launched it earned Apple $120m very quickly and all the expectations are that sales will be double that.”
He added: “Vista has been quite a disappointment for many people and Leopard could be the reason many people make the switch to Macs.”
He said he felt Leopard had enough new features to distinguish itself from Microsoft’s Vista.
“A lot of things that were previously only add-ons in the Mac world, such as the Apple TV interface, are now integrated into the OS.
“That is competing directly with Media Center on Windows PCs. Apple has seen that Microsoft has moved forward in some areas and is responding.”
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Apple’s unveiling of the Macintosh nearly a quarter century ago heralded a new era of computing.
The Mac was the first computer to use a graphical user interface and a mouse. It was the computer for the masses that didn’t want to bother with command line interfaces and balky hardware.
The computer was finally a completely self-contained package, and as an added benefit was an attractive piece of hardware, even when it wasn’t turned on.
Few can doubt that personal computing would have charted a different future without the Macintosh. Yet, as things turned out, within six years the Mac would see a steady decline in sales following the introduction of Windows 3.0 and the desire among computer users to work outside of the Mac’s confinements.
Where once consumers found the Mac’s turnkey simplicity reassuring, they now hungered for additional hardware which, quite literally, didn’t fit inside the box Apple provided. This luxury was standard on the competing IBM-compatible platform, allowing users to add their own hardware and software with ease.
As a trailblazer, the Macintosh was a milestone in the development of home computing, and by extension, the Internet. The Mac also earned a pedestal in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art for its design aesthetic. The sustaining elements of the computing revolution weren’t unique to Apple–the company merely made those elements more attractive.
Nearly a generation later, Apple is once again trying to create a totally controlled, self-contained environment–this time not for computers, but for music and entertainment. However, the market served with Apple’s iPod devices is far more digitally sophisticated than those early computer users. And today’s legions of tech-savvy music listeners are not likely to accept the company’s shackles for long.
Despite popular conception, Apple did not invent the digital portable music player. What Apple did was take a product that was slowly working itself into the hands of willing consumers and make it sexy. In addition to making the product attractive to consumers, Apple was able to sell the concept of portable digital music, just as it had with home computing decades earlier.
But even as consumers have purchased Apple’s devices in droves, they’ve come to realize that there’s more to digital music than what’s contained in the little white box. Other, arguably superior devices are now on the market; more are being introduced regularly. These players offer features that will become the sustaining elements of the digital entertainment revolution–they will be smart devices with IP connectivity and increased onboard storage.
We’re already beginning to see this paradigm shift. Consider the following industry changes, which have occurred in the last several years:
- Traditional audio manufacturers–Denon, Yamaha, Bose–are bringing to market equipment boasting super storage, connectivity and the ability to play multiple audio formats.
- TiVo and other set-tops are tapping their storage and processing abilities for more than time-shifting TV shows.
- All the major cell phone manufacturers have phones with increased storage, processing power, connectivity and use of different audio and video formats in their five-year design plans. This year alone we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of new music phones and a clear shift in the marketing to consumers.
The greatest objective for today’s music listeners–what they regard as their inalienable right–is absolute portability: music that can be accessed anywhere, at anytime. Today’s consumers want their music immediately available at home, in their car, at work, on their phones, at a party, or while working out at the gym, without the hassle of using multiple devices that are each tethered to different services.
In such an open-source world of unfettered digital entertainment, the device is a means, not an end, to set listeners free. Why then, in the long term, would anyone accept the limitations of the proprietary lockout of the iPod and iTunes? Once the digital revolution stabilizes, we’ll be left with a wide range of devices that can play music seamlessly. Everything from car dashboards and cell phones to stereo consoles at home or work will give us access to our entertainment.
In the not-so-distant future, Apple will again be acknowledged for introducing consumers to new technology and marketing the first truly successful line of digital music players–products that the masses lusted after, but eventually moved beyond.
The technological aesthetic created by Apple has earned it a rightful place in design history. However, a new generation of device makers and consumers is writing the next chapter in digital music history.
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Leopard, the update to Apple’s operating system for its computers, will be released on 26 October.
Due in June the update was delayed by four months as Apple deployed engineers to work on its iPhone.
Leopard is the sixth version of the operating system to appear since OS X made its debut in 2001.
Apple said it had more than 300 new features onboard including one named “Time Machine” that automatically backs up important files.
Pre-order online
Also inside Leopard is the finished version of the “Boot Camp” utility that allows people to run copies of Windows XP or Vista on their Mac.
In a statement Apple said it hoped the release of Leopard would boost the prospects of its home computers.
Market data compiled by Gartner suggests that Apple is now the third largest computer manufacturer in the US. It has a 6.4% share of the computer market, said the analyst firm, up from 5% a year ago.
Apple owners can pre-order the software via the company’s online shop. In the UK the price for a single version will be £85. A family pack, which means it can be installed on up to five computers, will cost £129.
In the US prices for these packages will be $129 and $199 respectively. Prices for Apple products in the UK and Europe tend to be higher than direct currency conversions suggest.
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