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Apple's Mac OS X 10.5.3 Has Landed
jaymus of dawning writes with word that, as promised, "Apple has just released the latest major revision of OS X. The update yields improvements to tons of system components and applications including the Software Update system, Address Book, AirPort, Automater, iCal, iChat, Mail, Parental Controls, Spaces, Time Machine and VoiceOver. This release contains 200 bug fixes from 10.5.2. See Apple's release page for all the delicious details."
Just like yesterday's test build.
For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
Now, like all updates, I'll wait a week to make sure there are no serious problems. (For those of you still in disbelief, yes, Mac systems do have their share of problems. Like pesky system updates that may or may not allow you to boot into your OS. I forget which revision that was.)
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
During install, my MBP restarted an additional time or two. I thought for a minute there that I was gonna have to restore from a week old super dupe. Alas, on the third startup, it actually started.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
10.5.2 Server has a show-stopper bug with AFP/Open Directory which gradually makes authentication impossible. Gradually, you get no file access, no VNC, no SSH and in the end you cannot log on locally with an attached screen and keyboard. The issue has been heavily discussed at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1251475&tstart=0
You prefer your bugs to go UN-fixed?
Am I just not seeing why this would be hard?
I really want to be able to backup to a remote drive. Perhaps allowing me to save to a disk image?
MABASPLOOM!
Why would this be a problem? I'd rather my OS manufacturer pay attention and regularly release updates rather than stockpile them for a rainy day (never used XP at home, so I'm not sure how MS does the Windows SPs).
If you're going to judge an OS by the number of service packs released, it can go both ways. "Oh, this one only has one service pack, it must be really stable." -- "Oh, this one only has one service pack, this other company must pay closer attention to bug reports".
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
You know they actually fixed the dock folder problem, right? If you right click and check "Display as Folder", it shows as the icon of the folder itself. You can then choose the icon of the folder itself to fit your needs. It's been there since at least 10.5.2.
Of Code And Men
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
I prefer not to have to install little patches that have many dependencies on other patches and require restarts individually when I have a fresh Windows install.
It would be nice if Microsoft bundled their updates quarterly and let you download one blob and then select the updates to install in one shot.
SP3 was in the oven for a long time and I'm so glad it's here now, but getting an SP2 or earlier system up to date was a huge pain in March.
Quarterly updates (delta and combo version) are helpful. They would reduce my work building slipstream disks by a lot.
You don't miss bug fixes because you just do quarterly+other updates as they come- but for new installs combo updates are wonderful.
Nope. I got the 420 MB version through Software Update on both of my MBPs (one 2.16GHz Core Duo, one 2.4GHz Penryn).
Actually ever since the release of Leopard you could use Time Machine on a network drive, as long as it was shared by another Mac.
You mean a standalone network drive, and that need is supported by Time Capsule.
Or you could create the TM volume on a disk attached to your local system, then put it up on a network shared device (like attached to an Airport).
Or you could use any number of workarounds to allow you to use the remote system as a TM drive...
It's not like there are not options, some of them even Apple supported, and many of them working ever since TM was out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't recall His Steveness ever spending much time talking about double point updates to OS X. He certainly doesn't talk about "how well it's doing."
The keynote is almost certainly going to be dominated by iPhone. I'm sure he'll also mention the old standards, that iTunes is the biggest US retailer of music and that Mac sales have continued to grow faster than the industry average.
I agree about the timing, but I disagree about it being filler. I'm guessing that there are features built into the new OS that are required by the presumed new iPhone to be announced. Google syncing being one of the obvious ones. By releasing the update now, people won't need to do 200 and 400MB downloads when the phone is released.
One thing that supports this theory is the new iPhone SDK Beta released today requires 10.5.3 to install. I don't think this is arbitrary. The iPhone SDK has done a lot to destabilize my system and I suspect it needed OS support and fixes to work out the kinks.
It could also be bandwidth planning. After all regardless of a new phone, the iPhone App Store is coming in June and that's going to bring the inevitable iTunes update that will be downloaded by millions of people =P
Leopard's Spaces had been criticized for making it hard to organize virtual desktops by task rather than by application (for example at http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/why_apple_spaces_is_broken and http://www.dribin.org/dave/blog/archives/2007/11/13/spaces/).
10.5.3 seems to address most of these criticisms with two small changes: Command-Tab now tries to find application windows in the current space before switching spaces, and there's a new preference to not switch spaces at all when switching applications.
This makes a big different in the usability of Spaces!
Hahah.
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