My Macbook

I was supposed to buy a Macbook right about now. I have been saving for it, and I sold my old Sony Vaio to add to my funds. The initial press release for Mac OS X Leopard hinted of a Spring 2007 availability, so I thought I could buy one by salary day May.

More than a month ago, I found out that Apple got a part of the Mac OS X Leopard team to work on the iPhone, so that it can be released by June 2007. This move pushed back Leopard a few months to Oct. Since I did not have another PC (once I sold my laptop), I felt I had no choice but to buy one even with the current Mac OS X Tiger. Good thing J "won" the right to purchase 1 of the Dell desktop PCs used by our clients and he lent me this instead. So I figured, I could buy my Mac in the fall.

My other friend J was assigned here in Japan about a month ago, and he was also planning to buy a MacBook. Since he did not have a computer yet, he had to buy already - a white MacBook with Core Duo 2.0, 1GB memory, 80GB hard disk one. (I personally would have preferred the 120GB model since I also plan to run XP on it). It was sweet! I was with him when he bought it and I also helped him in getting an Internet plan. This plan further slashed 30,000 yen off his purchase price - not bad!

A few days ago, Apple released a faster variety of the MacBook, increasing the processor and storage a bit. The processor is now 2.16, while the HD is 120GB. I was tempted to buy one then and there! Good thing I didn't have the money yet, I would've circled it until I finally bought it.

But is Leopard really worth the wait? There are a number of specific changes and enhancements announced. Some notable features include support for writing 64-bit graphical user interface applications, an automated backup utility called Time Machine, support for Spotlight searches across multiple machines, and large revisions to most core operating system components. Leopard is also expected to include a software assistant known as Boot Camp, which assists the installation of Windows XP or Windows Vista to a separate partition (or separate internal drive) on Intel-based Macs. Hmmm...

After going home and stewing about it for a while, I think I'm gonna hold out for the newer OS. I still have J's desktop anyway!