14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like Leopard is just about ready, with the company already starting to prepare for after the launch. Although there is no Gold Master yet, Apple is in the final stages of polishing the last release candidate and preparing the last Tiger update.
AppleInsider's reports that Leopard is just about finalized and that Apple is already starting to train its support staff on the upcoming OS. The company has started providing initial training materials in the form of self-paced training modules that cover the more popular features of Leopard, including mail and Boot Camp. The last full pre-release version of Leopard came on the 21st of September and was presumed to be a release candidate. Since then there has been another automatic update and AppleInsider reports that internal builds are still progressing. The Gold Master build is expected to be finalized within a few days, but won't likely be seeded to developers.
Although everyone is interested primarily in Leopard, Apple has not forgotten users of its current operating system. The Cupertino Company is also working on the last update to Tiger and reports are that builds of Mac OS X 10.4.11 started appearing on Tuesday. Builds 8S161 (for PowerPC Macs) and 8S2161 (for Intel Macs) reportedly focus primarily on Dashboard and include fixes for the software's WebKit foundation. This last update is believed to deliver over four dozen fixes for various minor bugs and issues encountered by Tiger users.
Leopard is scheduled for release in October and is expected during the month's last week. The general consensus based on Apple's previous OS launches indicates October 26 as the most likely candidate. With little over two weeks left, Apple doesn't have much time left for finishing touches and if support training is any indication, the Gold Master version is as good as out the door.