Apple Incorporated announced Tuesday that the newest version of its Macintosh operating system will go on sale on October 26, finally reaching the market after a four-month delay due to the company's work on the iPhone. The new operating system, which is called Leopard, is the sixth update to Apple's OS X software and will cost $129 for a single user and $199 for a family package, which can be installed on up to five computers in a single household. New features include a file back-up, improvements to e-mail and instant messaging, the ability to preview documents or files without opening a separate program, and quick access to other computers on a home or office network. “This is going to be great for Mac momentum, which has already been strong for the past few years. This is just one more thing on top of that,” Apple's vice president for marketing, Phil Schiller, told Reuters. In its fiscal third quarter that ended on June 30, Apple sold nearly 1.8 million Mac computers, up 33 percent from a year earlier, a growth rate that is about triple that of the broader personal-computer market. In April, Apple delayed the release of Leopard to October from its original June target, citing the need to divert software-development resources to the iPhone, which was launched in late June.
