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Leopard declared GM; Apple Stores offline ahead of official word

Apple this week finally declared a build of Leopard Gold Master. Meanwhile, the company's online stores dropped offline early Tuesday morning ahead of expected announcements regarding the next-gen OS.

Leopard declared GM

Speaking to AppleInsider, a source familiar with the development of Leopard said the code to the software is now frozen with a Gold Master build having been declared earlier this week.

That build is said to be Mac OS X Leopard build 9A581 — the previously reported GM candidate build released internally at Apple over the weekend. The code will now be released to manufacturing where it will be duplicated onto optical media and stuffed inside retail packaging.

Apple Stores offline

Meanwhile, Apple's online stores in various regions have dropped offline ahead of Leopard-related announcements expected as early as 8:30 a.m. today. As was reported on Monday, those announcements are likely provide official confirmation of Leopard's launch date and time, which have been reported to be Friday Oct. 26 at 6:00 p.m.

Apple's retail stores are expected to close several hours ahead of launch on the 26th and then re-open at 6:00 p.m. with Leopard in hand.