Leopard Trial? Who Can and How Can!?

[White-Knight]

This is probably the most active on the forum i have been in a long long while.

I appreciate what you guys said on one of my other posts!! (thank you peeps) In one of the replies on their, I noticed that Fryke had a week-long trial of Leopard.

I was just wondering, where do you find the trials? Are they for anyone? or just for specific Mac users. I am just anxious to try the accessibility of Leopard, given that VoiceOver was not easy to work with on Tiger - but better than Windows Standard Narrator, and some applications made the Magification jump to random spots on the screen. It's just something I take seriously with my visual impairment, and is one reason i moved to Mac as 10.4.? had really good magnification onboard!!

Many Thanks once again folks,
White-Knight
Forum Nutcase!!

 

[icemanjc]

I'm guessing fryke got his at the WWDC, or from a friend.
Because I highly doubt they would be giving out trials out online.

 

[symphonix]

Beta (ie: not complete) versions were given out to everyone at the WWDC, and regular beta releases are given to Apple Developer Connection ADC Select and Premium members.

They're most definitely not for everyone: these releases often have entire feature sets left out completely, meaning they're really just for developers to test out compatibility with the new operating system. On the plus side, every time a new beta is given to select ADC members, we typically get just a little more of a look at what the new OS is going to be like, with extensive reviews on the rumour sites.

Pirated versions typically leak out, too, but there really is no point at all in getting one of these since, as I stated before, they are incomplete. Its like downloading a pirated movie that doesn't have the ending, or the scene in the summerhouse where the detective shot at the albino before being hit on the back of the head, and ...

If you actually want Leopard, complete, with everything working, you will have to wait until it is released. I like to read the reviews of the developer releases on the rumour sites, its a nice little preview of things to come, but I'd say chasing down any of these developer releases is a pure waste of energy.

 

[fryke]

to sum things up...

There are a couple of legal ways (and we're *only* talking about these here, mind the forum rules) to get your hands on Leopard:

1.) Along with everyone else in October. 129 USD. Thought I'd mention it.
2.) ADC Select or Premier membership. Select, the cheaper one, costs 500 USD per year. http://connect.apple.com - Check it out. Might be an interesting thing even if you only _think_ about entering software development.
3.) Apple's Seed programme. Being a registered ADC member (free), you can apply for Apple's Seed programme. However, I don't think Apple gives out too many seed accounts like this. There are enough people testing Leopard (and other software) for them.

About pre-release builds not being complete: That changes from build to build, of course. If you look in the past, you'll see that some pre-release builds of Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2) had features that _didn't_ make it into the final version. These things can be very interesting. If you're interested in the development process of OS X, that is. From an end-user's point of view, the betas are not really recommended for installation. If you ever start installing the betas (or even alphas), you have to _definitely_ seriously think about backing up everything you have. Twice. Or three times. Not that the code is bad, but you'll want to try things like a clean install, an upgrade etc. and then go back to your "current" setup without losing data. It takes a bit more precaution than just living with regular, released, OS X. And it definitely takes time.

(And it's fun.)