OS X v10.5 Leopard Available October 26, Pre-order Today

At the time, Apple announced that it would delay the introduction of the long-awaited operating system due to needs of the iPhone program. The delay forced OS X v10.5 to an October ship date instead of June.

"We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October," said Apple in April. "We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones."

"We can't wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is," the company continued.

The wait is almost over and eager Apple fans will be happy to know that OS X v10.5 will ship on October 26. Apple says that the revised operating system contains over 300 new features and “installs easily, and works with the software and accessories you already have.”

Some of the highlighted features include a revamped desktop, a new Finder which includes Cover Flow technology, Quick Look which gives full-scale previews of documents before opening them and Time Machine which creates incremental backups of files.

Pricing for Apple's OS X v10.5 may make some Windows Vista users green with envy. A single-user license of OS X v10.5 costs just $129.00 direct from Apple. A five-user license will set you back just $199.00.

Customers who pre-order OS X v10.5 today from Apple are guaranteed to have their copy on their doorstep on October 26.