The Apple store had been down for quite a while today, and lo and behold when it was reinstated Mac OS X Snow Leopard became available to mankind – that is to say you can now pre-order a copy. The major update to OS X, aka 10.6, will start shipping next Friday August 28, as had been rumored by websites like Macenstein and MacRumors since last Thursday.

As our MG Siegler wrote a while back:

OS X Snow Leopard is going to sell for only $29.99, as Apple is considering it mostly a performance upgrade over OS X Leopard. But the performance improvements are expected to be significant, and the footprint of the install has been significantly reduced (due mostly to the fact that it’s Intel-only).

The price is actually $29, but the real question is: are you buying?