October 16, 2007 9:30 AMApple has officially announced a release date for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, the next major iteration of its OS X operating system. Scheduled to go on sale at 6pm on Friday, October 26th at both Apple stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, Leopard will bring over 300 new features to users for the retail price of $129."Leopard, the sixth major release of Mac OS X, is the best upgrade we’ve ever released," said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. "And everyone gets the ‘Ultimate’ version, packed with all the new innovative features, for just $129."Some of the major features in Leopard include a new 3D Dock, Stacks, which allows for a new form of file organization, and Time Machine, an integrated backup system. Also included are new versions of programs such as iChat and Mail as well as a full version of Boot Camp, which allows Intel Macs to run Windows natively.The system requirements for Leopard are 512MB of RAM and either an Intel or PowerPC G4/G5 (867Mhz minimum) processor. Online preorders are being accepted as of today.Apple - Apple to Ship Mac OS X Leopard on October 26Apple