With the April 29th release of the highly anticipated Mac OS X 10.4, nicknamed Tiger, approaching rather quickly, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is in understandably high spirits.

In an interview with BusinessWeek, he could hardly contain his enthusiasm and it’s understandable why he feels this way. In only 15 days, Apple will be officially launching one of the more complete operating systems ever developed (at only $129).

In an effort to relay his excitement and relief, Jobs offered these thoughts about Tiger, “It has turned out just wonderfully. It’s our biggest leap forward since the original Macintosh in 1984.”

Because Tiger is such an “overhaul” from its previous incarnation (boasting over 200 new features), the Mac community shares, if not exceeds Steve Jobs’ enthusiasm. However, Jobs did not let his excitement deter him from pointing out the shortcomings of Apple’s competitors. Jobs says about Tiger, “this is one of those rare occasions when a major software release is actually early.”

Although he didn’t mention them by name (that time), it doesn’t take an insider to realize this was directed at Redmond, Washington and the delays surrounding Longhorn. Jobs’ feelings are also made apparent by this statement: “Tiger will give customers one more reason to buy a Mac, because it’s so far ahead of Windows.”

He goes on to say Tiger will have its share of imitators, mentioning the teams responsible for Longhorn’s development “are trying to copy everything they can from [Tiger].”

Because Apple now offers their most inexpensive Mac computer ever and the expected success of Tiger, it’s easy to why Jobs is so excited about Apple and future of the Mac computing line.

To learn more about Tiger and its features, please visit Apple’s Tiger page.

Thanks to Macworld UK for pointing this interview out.

Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.