Apple sells 2 million copies of Mac OS X Leopard in first weekend

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. In comparison, it took the Cupertino-based Mac maker nearly six weeks to ship its 2 millionth copy of Mac OS X Tiger back in 2005.

"Early indications are that Leopard will be a huge hit with customers," said Apple chief executive Steve Jobs. "Leopard's innovative features are getting great reviews and making more people than ever think about switching to the Mac."

Leopard is the sixth major release of Mac OS X and is packed with more than 300 new features. Among them is 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.

Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard is available through the Apple Store, at Apple's retail stores and through Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $129 for a single user license and $199 for the five-user license Family Pack.

However, the best deals on Leopard continue to come by way of online retailer Amazon.com, which does not charge sales tax and is offering an instant $20 off Leopard single license and $10 off the family pack, bringing the costs down to $109, and $189, respectively. Amazon is also offering deals on Leopard Server.

Leopard requires a minimum of 512MB of RAM and is designed to run on any Macintosh computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5 or G4 (867 MHz or faster) processor.