Apple - Eat or Sweet Operating System Launched

Apple's delayed update to the Mac OS X operating system is hitting store shelves as consumers are increasingly snapping up Macintosh computers to complement their iPods and iPhones.

Dubbed Leopard, the upgrade has gone on sale at stores around the world. It offers improvements to an operating system that already was widely praised for its ease-of-use and slick interface.

Leopard boasts more than 300 new features, including one called 'Boot Camp' that lets users instal Windows on Macs, though both operating systems cannot run at the same time. 'Time Machine,' an automated data backup system, and 'Spaces,' a way to simultaneously view open applications, are among the other highlighted features.

Macs have reached record sale levels, and the launch of Leopard is expected to bolster a continuing rise.

At Apple's flagship 5th Avenue store in New York City, a line of about 500 people snaked around the block before Leopard went on sale. The anxious, some of whom queued up more than four hours beforehand, included not only the longtime Apple faithful but new converts. Patrick van Rosendaal, 31, visiting from Columbus, Ohio, stood in line for an hour and a half before he got his hands on a shrink-wrapped copy of Leopard. He bought his first Mac two months ago. "Macs are still rather new to me," he said. "But I'm completely addicted."