Apple will be releasing version 10.5 of the OSX operating system Friday night. Called Leopard, the new version of the Mac operating system contains 300 new features. You can read all about it on the Apple site, so I’m really not going to go into it here.

Amazon is offering it for pre-order at $109 (a $20 discount).

Local Apple stores are doing a launch party at 6 PM (local time I presume) with free t-shirts and all the hype that is Leopard. Of course, the gold RTM is already available on the torrent sites, but I’m not one to risk such illegal behavior – even if I’ve already paid for it.

I’ll likely install it once I get it. I’ve read that all the stuff I use works without a hitch. VMware Fusion, my Windows XP Boot Camp gaming partition, it’s all supposed to just work so I’m excited. I’m actually very glad I bought my Mac before Leopard so I could first get comfortable with Tiger.

Party On!