First Weekend Leopard Sales Surpass 2 Mln

Apple says sales of Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" exceeded 2 million copies during its first weekend of availability.

Apple has certainly been hoping its long-anticipated Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” would be a big hit with users when it hit the streets October 26th, and early indications are that the Apple faithful have been putting their money where their hearts are: Apple announced today that more than 2 million copies of Leopard were sold during the operating systems’ first weekend of availability.

“Early indications are that Leopard will be a huge hit with customers,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in a statement. “Leopard’s innovative features are getting great reviews and making more people than ever think about switching to the Mac.”

The signature feature of Leopard seems to be Time Machine, a built-in backup system that enables users to “go back in time” to retrieve previous versions of documents or even to restore their computers to previous states. Reviews of Mac OS X 10.5 are praising Time Machine for making backups seem cool: although some tech-savvy users of pooh-poohed the system as being too simplistic and filled with eye-candy, others have pointed out that flashy, cool, and simple are exactly what’s needed to get ordinary computer users backing up their data in the first place. Leopard also includes a raft of new features, including Quick Look (which enabled users to view common file types without launching an application), a revamped Finder that can show files in an iTunes-like “Cover Flow” view, a virtual desktop utility called Spaces, and enhancement to standard Apple programs like iChat and Mail.

Leopard is available for $129 (there is no upgrade pricing from previous versions), with a five-license family pack available for $199.