Apple to Release first Tiger Update

Ninj4Bytes writes "AppleInsider is reporting on the first update to Mac OS X Tiger. The update is reported to address 'over three dozen componets, with an emphasis on improving general stability and reliability'. The patch is listed for a mid to late May release."

Comments

Re:Good

[Golias]

I've got it running on my iBook, and I think it's pretty slick.

I had it running on the Mac mini which I'm using for a home theater media console, but my Sonica USB soundcard from M-Audio doesn't work with Tiger at all yet, so I had to downgrade back to 10.3.9.

(Apparantly M-Audio decided the perfect time to roll up their sleeves and start making 10.4 drivers for their Mac hardware was a week after the retail release.)

From what I've seen so far, Tiger's a pretty sweet OS, and as soon as M-Audio gets their shit together, I'll be running it in the living room.

Let's hope they fix Dashboard

[wembley fraggle]

When I got Tiger, I went and downloaded a bunch of Dashboard widgets to try them out. Later, when my Dasboard launchbar grew to 5 screens of widgets I wanted to remove some from the launchbar. Couldn't figure out how to do it, so I went to apple help.

This is what Help said: "You cannot remove widgets from the Widget Bar or change their order"

And that's just plain stupid. I hope they fix that soon.

Hey, maybe they fixed my bug...

[Monthenor]

I submitted this bug report to Apple the day after Tiger came out. (Bug ID 4104116)

Summary:
In Tiger, the iCal Info Drawer becomes an invisible window in Expose's windowing modes when the main window is minimized.

Steps to Reproduce:
1) Open iCal.
2) Open the main iCal window.
3) Click the "i" button in the lower right (or press command-i) to open the Info Drawer.
4) Minimize the window.
5) With iCal as the active application, trigger the Expose "Application Windows" mode.
6) Mouse over where the Info Drawer would appear if the main iCal window were not minimized.

A) Now trigger the Expose "All Windows" mode.
B) Mouse around the empty spots of the screen.

Expected Results:
After both step 6 and step B, there should be no window found.

Actual Results:
After both step 6 and step B, there is an invisible "window" with no name that can be clicked to activate iCal. It is the approximate size and shape of the iCal Info Drawer.

Regression:
OS X 10.4.0 Build 8A428
iCal 2.0 (1024)

The bug only occurs IF one is using 10.4.0 AND iCal's main window is open AND the Info Drawer is open AND the main window is minimized. If iCal's main window is open and visible, Expose treats it correctly. If iCal's window is closed, no phantom Expose window appears. If the Info Drawer is closed, no phantom Expose window appears.

Notes:
This is obviously not a show-stopping bug, just something very very weird. It does throw off the window-arrangement calculations of Expose, so I suppose it has slight usability implications.

And once again, as with my iTunes + null separator character bug, it was quickly marked "No Workaround" and I lost privileges to view it. I cannot fathom why they don't want me to see the report again.

No AntiVirus for Tiger

[xactuary]

I was at the Apple Store yesterday talking with several employees (wearing very cool spotlight T-shirts) about the lack of AntiVirus for Tiger. They were quite sheepish about the subject and mentioned the training they'd received about how to broach the subject when customers ask about it. The bottom line was that there is no AntiVirus software compatible with Tiger at the moment and that they were to upsell .mac where Apple's servers run AntiVirus on .mac emails. Is this a non-issue? Is it odd that you don't hear much about this? I've read a lot about Tiger over the last six months and that is the first I had heard of this issue.

Tiger w00t?

[el_womble]

I can't decide if I like Tiger or not. having splashed out for a family pack, for my iMac G5 (1GB RAM), my Al PowerBook G4 (512MB RAM), my parents Al PowerBook 17" (256MB RAM) and mother-in-law's mini (512MB RAM) I can't say that I've seen anything about it that I would recommend. If anything it feels slower than panther. Spotlight is useful and I played with it for a bit, but its way too slow to be as world changing as we had been promised. I was really looking forward to Automator, but the few times I though it would be useful it wasn't (although I haven't given up yet). Dashboard widgets are an interesting addition, but at a substantial memory cost - I don't feel it on the G5, but the G4s I've got access to you seem to have a choice - Dashboard or Fast User switching... fast user switching is more useful to me.

My hope is that these new technologies expected Quartz 2D Extereme to be turned on and that once its stable, I'll get the "it just feels snappier" experience that we mac users have come to expect from an upgrade. At the moment this feels more like Win2k to XP.

To keep this pro apple, its not all bad. There are two technologies that I wouldn't give back: Safari RSS and QuickTime 7, both of which feel positively super charged. But I wouldn't describe them as "worth the ticket price alone", especially as you can now get QT7 for panther.

This update can't come soon enough. Lets hope it unlocks the true tiger within!

Re:This isn't the type of post that belongs on /.

[Winterblink]

100% is realistic, there isn't a story on Slashdot that EVERYBODY wants to read.

The point is that this site will always be one where news is interspersed with rumors, opinions, etc. That is what Slashdot is. This particular posting isn't inconsequential if you're someone like myself who has had issues with the latest OS (not showstopper ones mind you, but issues nonetheless).

Right on schedule

[jht]

This has been Apple's pattern ever since 10.0 - I think it's partly because their beta program is so closely controlled. Despite all the testing they do, it's still a tiny fraction of the number of users who install it in the first few days after release.

The other thing is that once Apple freezes a release as "GM", then you've got a gap of around a month before the public release. So in the meantime, they've got a head start on fixing issues, plus the ones that come up in the first week or two of public release. That makes for a first bugfix release within a month of launch (which has always been Apple's pattern in the X world), followed by further point releases every couple of months afterwards until the next major rev.

And that's in addition to the (now) monthly security updates and any other updates to components that come along.

I've got a whole fleet of Macs (iMac G5, PowerBook 667, PowerBook 15" 1.5 and mini at the office, iMac G3 and a pair of iMac G4s at home), and the way I handle a major update is to try it on one system at launch, because some of my customers will jump immediately. In this case, I threw it on my newer PowerBook G4 (I put my copy of Server on the mini). After the 10.4.1 update, I'll probably start deploying it on a couple of the other Macs, but keep 10.3 around for a while so I can support my 10.3 customers.

A handful of my customers still use 10.2, but it's not enough to bother keeping a 10.2 system around.

The disadvantage of Apple's approach is that the new release usually has a lot more little minor bugs and compatibility issues than a new Windows rev, because the new MacOS version is in the hands of relatively few people for a shorter development cycle. On the other hand, the fixes are rapid, and within a couple of months all the straggling 3rd party developers have usually caught up. Apple releases entire new versions of the OS in the time it takes Microsoft to release a service pack.