OS X Snow Leopard to launch on 28 August or 1 September?

We've known for a while Snow Leopard upgrades will only cost some people £7.95. But TUAW and Engadget readers have the viewing spheres of eagles and spotted Apple's UK store advertising a 28 August release date for the new OS.

Yeah, that's next week, although it's now been changed to just 'September'. Furthermore, a UK store -- All Mac Shop -- is listing Snow Leopard with a 1 September due date. It's probably an arbitrary date based on Apple's it-launches-sometime-in-September vagueness. But still, you lot seem to adore rumours, so there's another for your collection.

The £7.95 Snow Leopard upgrade in question is only for folk who bought a Leopard-based Mac after 8 June -- it's as close as Apple comes to saying thanks for not avoiding buying a new computer until the new OS is released. Microsoft offers a similar upgrade programme for anyone who buys Windows Vista during the few months before Windows 7 is loaded into stores.

We contacted Apple for comment, but it hadn't got back to us at the time of publication. In the meantime, check out our complete guide to Snow Leopard's new features.

By the way, we know that photo is just a standard leopard with snow on it, not a snow leopard. But it's cute, so we used him again.