UPDATED: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Ships Friday, Aug. 28!

UPDATE: Official press release from Apple: Apple to Ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard on August 28
The Apple Store is back up, and as expected it's brought the next generation of Mac OS X, 10.6 Snow Leopard, with it! Pre-ordering is now available for delivery by this Friday, August 28 in the US (international stores may only ship by 8/28).
At $29 for single user and $49 for a 5-user family pack, for Mac users, this is likely a no-brainer. We're not sure what, if any, goodies will be in there specific to the iPhone of iPod touch, but with OpenCL (use GPU as CPU), Grand Central Dispatch (packetize processor tasks like network traffic), built-in Exchange ActiveSync support, QuickTime X, and a whole heap of refinements under the hood (hello, Cocoa Finder!), it'll be worth it anyway. Find out more at Apple.com.
For everyone else, worry not, Windows 7 is still on track for October 22, Ubuntu Karmic Koala is set for October 29, and if you rock a different distro... well, you'll likely have an update at some point too!
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Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.