14 DAY TRIAL // It was widely expected for Leopard to sell twice as well as Tiger, but sales of Apple's new operating system have been exceptionally high, with the company hitting a significant milestone just days after the launch.
Apple has announced that it has sold over two million copies of Mac OS X Leopard since its release on Friday, a dramatic leap ahead of the first-weekend sales for the previous version of the operating system. It took Tiger 43 days to sell its first two million copies, wile Leopard only needed three. "Early indications are that Leopard will be a huge hit with customers," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, in the press release. "Leopard's innovative features are getting great reviews and making more people than ever think about switching to the Mac."
Leopard's main selling points include Time Machine, an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac; a redesigned Finder that lets users quickly browse and share files between multiple Macs; Quick Look, a new way to instantly see files without opening an application; Spaces, an intuitive new feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; a brand new desktop with Stacks, a new way to easily access files from the Dock; and major enhancements to Mail and iChat.
Sales included copies sold at Apple's retail stores, Apple Authorized Resellers, the online Apple Store, under maintenance agreements and bundled with new Mac computers. Leopard is the sixth major release of Mac OS X and is packed with more than 300 new features.
Microsoft announced that its Vista operating system "sold" 20 million copies in the first month, which would amount to 714,286 copies per day and 2.143 million copies in the first 3 days. Considering the staggering difference in the installed base of the two platforms, Apple's latest big cat is a clear winner.