Mac OS X Snow Leopard out this Friday

OS X Snow Leopard finally arrives this Friday - August 28
OS X Snow Leopard finally arrives this Friday - August 28

The Apple Store has been updated with an order page for the new Mac operating system Snow Leopard, or, if you prefer Mac OS v10.6

As predicted, Snow Leopard's release date is this coming Friday - 28 August - giving Mac users the long bank holiday weekend to familiarise themselves with its new features and to see for themselves if Apple's mooted speed-increases really do make that much difference to their day-to-day lives.

Snow Leopard is around half the size of the previous OS, freeing up an impressive 7GB of drive space for you to stuff full of yet more music and movie files you will likely never actually get around to listening to or watching!

Faster, Mac OS, faster!

Apple is claiming that email messages in Snow Leopard will load up twice as fast and that its Time Machine backup will be 80 per cent faster than the previous OS. Additionally, a 64-bit version of Safari 4 is apparently 50 per cent faster than previous versions.

"Snow Leopard builds on our most successful operating system ever and we're happy to get it to users earlier than expected," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering.

"For just £25, Leopard users get a smooth upgrade to the world's most advanced operating system and the only system with built-in Exchange support," he added.

Pick up a one-licence copy of Snow Leopard over at Apple.com for £25 or a five-licence 'Family Pack' for £39 over at Apple.com right now.

Adam Hartley