Mac OS X 'Leopard' Expected Same Time As 'Longhorn' Windows

Intel

"The response to Tiger is off the charts," crowed Jobs in a statement.

Mac OS 10.4, as Tiger is officially called, released to fanfare at the end of April, but the next iteration, presumably 10.5, won't appear until the end of 2006 or early 2007, Jobs said during his presentation opening the company's annual World Wide Developers Conference.

"We intend to release Leopard at the end of 2006 or early 2007, right around the time Microsoft expects to release Longhorn," Jobs said.

The 18-month period between Tiger and Leopard isn't unusual for Apple, which unlike Microsoft, rolls out new operating system updates on relatively short schedules. Mac OS X 10.3, Panther, rolled out in October 2003, 18 months before Tiger.