Category: OS X

Hey, kids! Have you heard about the Leopard! Oh, yah, it’s the new thing all the hep cats are into! Come Friday, you don’t want to be that one dorkweed still on Tiger! I mean, Tiger? What’s that?!

Ha-ha!

Well, it’s the operating system you’re all running now, of course.

Except for Larry who’s still running OS 9.

Get with the program, Larry!

Now, you may have seen some sites that attempt to give you the 411 on Leopard. But don’t let those bitches use your toothbrush, my friend! We’ve boiled down their “supposed” list of “300 features” to 10 essential things to take away about the Leopard!

Now… Let’s Leopard!

If you’re like me, you have many questions. What is Leopard? What does it do? How does it do it? Who’s responsible? What’s that thing on my back? Is it a mole? Should I have that checked? It’s more like a flap of skin, isn’t it? Does that look right to you? Doesn’t it look like the kind of thing you see on the people who live in the Port Authority terminal? Should I get some kind of an ointment? I probably shouldn’t pull it off with a pair of tweezers…

…or should I?!

Let’s find out!

1. Leopard runs on your compooter! Provided your compooter is one o’ them there Mac jobbies. It makes the computer go and run fast!
2. Leopard is one of those cool kids who kind of spans all groups. Like sometimes you’ll see it with the stoners out back of the cafeteria by the dumpster, yah, but it’s also got a letter jacket in track so it can hang with the jocks. And it spent the summer in Paris and totally rules the French Club!
3. You may have heard that Leopard is made up of ones and zeros. Not true. Leopard is made of fancy cheese!
4. Did you know that Leopard adds integers and fractions?! It’s true!
5. Leopard manages the sharing of the resources and processes system data and user input, all while lookin’ all gussied up like! Yeah! It’s tarted up prettier than a $50 whore! Have you seen that Time Machine? Oh, man, would I like to hit that!
6. Apropos of nothing, Leopard makes its own blender mayonnaise!
7. Leopard comes with a free sticker! How cool is that?!
8. If you were to time travel and take a Mac with Leopard loaded on it back to 1973 and were to show some people then what computers will be like in the future, you could totally get some hot 1973 chick into bed with you! But make sure it’s not your mom, dude.
9. Leopard avenges thee upon those who hath wronged thee!
10. Leopard is a sense of warm fulfillment, like sitting close to a loved one in a far-away cabin watching the snow fall and drinking hot chocolate. Which is good for you, because everyone hates you and you live in an efficiency and are allergic to chocolate.

So do yourself a favor, princess. Get in your busted-ass AMC Pacer and head down to the Apple Store on Friday and pick up a copy of Tiger.

I mean Leopard.

Whatever.

Or maybe you just need some RCA cables.

Fuck if I know.

Who am I? Kreskin?

Shocking news came late this afternoon as – just hours after announcing a release date of October 26th – Apple announced that Leopard would be delayed again. According to the company, some late testing revealed that there were lingering performance issues on older Macs.

When asked which Macs were affected, head of Mac hardware engineering Peter Mehring said “Mostly Performas. For some reason it runs really slow on even a later Performa like a 6400. And that was a really nice machine. Despite what people said.”

Mehring said he thought it might be the Core Animation.

“Or, really, it could be an icon, actually. They’re a lot bigger than they used to be.”

Asked about the system requirements that state a G4 or higher is required, Mehring said “Oh, that? That’s wrong. I mean, why wouldn’t we get it working on as many machines as possible? Like the PowerBook 2400? Now that was a machine.”

Mehing thinks it will only take another 10, 14, 28 months to get one or two of the 300 Leopard technologies running on Performas.

“I’m sure everyone understands. Shouldn’t be long. Well, OK, kind of long. But, we’d hate to leave our Performa-using customers behind.

“Um… again.”

Apple announced disappointing news this afternoon that due to efforts to ensure the iPhone would stay on target for a June release, Leopard would be delayed until October.

And right now the Mac community, as is its wont, is in full freak out mode.

“But, but…” stammered the Unofficial Apple Weblog’s Scott McNulty, “If Leopard is delayed, then Leopard is Vista. And if Leopard is Vista, then Apple is Microsoft!

“Aaaaaagh!” McNulty screamed as he hurled himself through the window of his office.

Fortunately, the window was open and McNulty’s office is on the first floor.

But the same reaction is being echoed all across the Mac community tonight.

“Steve! Why have you foresaken us?!” screamed an distraught Gus Mueller of Flying Meat, as he rent his garments. “WHY?!”

“We must have done something wrong,” said the MacUser‘s Dan Moren, his face ashen. “Steve is angry! We must offer sacrifice to appease him!

“Does anyone know any virgins?

“Anyone?

“No? Just one would do. One? C’mon. No one knows one virgin?! Really?”

While Moren scurried off to look for virgins, other members of Mac using community set about gathering up goats and first-born sons to offer to their apparently angry god.

But Scott Bourne of the Apple Phone Show offered another path for the bereaved.

“My brethren,” Bourne said, “Steve hath not forsaken thee. For, lo, he hath delivered unto us this day most joyous news! The iPhone cometh! In June, as has been foretold for lo these several weeks!

“As for Leopard, let he among you who has not missed a deadline cast the first stone.”

As a small stone flew from the gathered crowd outside his San Francisco condo striking him in the forehead, Bourne cried out in pain.

“Owwww!” the MacBreak Weekly panelist said, putting his hands to his head. “Don’t you know a rhetorical challenge when you hear one? Damn it. You weren’t really supposed to… supposed to throw a stone. Owww. That’s gonna… that’s gonna leave a mark! Crimeny.”

As of the posting of this story, a crowd of wailing Mac users has formed outside of Apple’s Cupertino headquarters seemingly intent on sitting there and whining until October.

Reports late last week claimed that Apple had delayed Leopard in order to make its latest operating system update more compatible with Microsoft Vista. According to MacNewsWorld ace reporter Katherine Noyes, Apple was pushing the Leopard release date back to October in order to make Boot Camp fully Vista-complaint.

Many in the Mac community rightly expressed bafflement as to why Apple would delay an operating system used by millions for a feature used by thousands.

Crazy Apple Rumors Site has confirmed that Apple is delaying Leopard until October, but not for Vista compatibility. It is delaying it because Steve Jobs is buying a hamster.

According to sources close to Jobs, the mercurial CEO has saved his salary for each of the 10 years since he returned to Apple and is now looking to invest the $10 in a small rodent.

“Steve feels he’s ready for the commitment,” said senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller. “He’s got the Habitrail with the little wheel all set up in his office. Got one of those ball things. Some pellets. And now he’s just waiting for that special little… um… critter.”

Jobs apparently expects the process of learning to care for a hamster to be quite involved, hence the need to delay Leopard.

“I’ve told him you just give them some water, toss some pellets in there and then you can leave for the weekend,” Schiller said, “but he just smiles at me and says ‘Oh, Phil!’

“It’s really fricking pissing me off.”

Regardless of the reason, the move to delay the release of Leopard was hailed by Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Boneheaded Jackass Enderle Group. [Editor: we were really sure it was the Boneheaded Jackass Group but when we checked he apparently calls it the Enderle Group. That’s what he said and that’s what’s on his business cards, but I’m just not sure. We’re still looking into it.]

Reached for comment, Enderle said “I eat paste!”

Wait, that’s not right…

Hmm.

Oh. It is.

Just checked my notes.

Says right here. “I eat paste!”

He seemed pretty excited about it, too.

He also had a little in the corner of his mouth.

Paste, that is.

An Apple spokesperson said that Jobs’ hamster break-in period is not expected to go past October, but warned that Leopard could be delayed further if the Apple CEO suddenly takes up macramé.