[phillyag]

when will new imacs ship loaded with Panther? i am waiting until after the official release to purchase a new imac from my local Apple store (like xmas in october!!).

[CaseCom]

Should be shortly after Panther is released October 24.

But you'll have to wait a few weeks after that until the inventory channel is cleared of Jaguar-loaded iMacs ... if they have several thousand iMacs with 10.2 sitting in warehouses on Oct. 24, they're not going to reload them with Panther before they ship. So wait until mid-November just to be safe.