Okay, Mac users like myself just barely finished rebooting after the 10.4.4 update, and here comes the first information on 10.4.5: “Apple Computer this week is expected to begin widespread testing of Mac OS X 10.4.5 Update, the next in a series of maintenance updates to its Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger operating system and the first update to address bugs lingering the company’s initial release of Mac OS X 10.4.4 for Intel-based Macs.”
There’s a ton of room for optimization in the intel code, Apple engineers have admitted this themselves (read the MWSF blogs). Now that the hardware platform is the same, comparisons between Windows and OSX are going to be much less forgiving and Apple will want OSX to be in top form by the time Vista or XP eventually get booted on Macintels.
…is the first update to iLife ’06. iLife ’06 is very, very buggy. Especially iMovie and GarageBand 3. With GarageBand 3, the Snap To Grid feature doesn’t work anymore, and the GarageBand->Preferences are inaccessible. With iMovie ’06, the performance is terrible. It’s slow, capturing video is jerky, and the import button is right on top of the video window! I mean literally on top of it, as in in front of it, blocking your view of video! Inexcusable. I have installed iLife ’06 on three different Macs, and all experience these same problems in the same way. If anyone is thinking of shelling out for iLife ’06, I suggest you wait until the update, because this suite is not ready for release.
10.4.4 to me is a bit buggy, applications lock up, usually when doing virtually nothing with them, where as from 10.3.0 all the way through to 10.4.3 i had no problems with apps locking up and becoming un-responsive, today at work i’ve had to force numerous apps to quit, where as i wouldn’t normally have to
thas definetely the polar opposite of my experience with the 10.4.4 update. My G5 dual 2.0 simply screams now and its as if the finder and all finder functions (opening/closing windows, copying etc.) is more responsive, apps launch in less two bounces, etc., finally to the levels of OS 9 IMHO. I have had 0 issues since this update and i definitely appreciate it.
0.4.4 to me is a bit buggy, applications lock up, usually when doing virtually nothing with them, where as from 10.3.0 all the way through to 10.4.3 i had no problems with apps locking up and becoming un-responsive, today at work i’ve had to force numerous apps to quit, where as i wouldn’t normally have to
Is this on a x86 system or a PPC one? I noticed some strangeness after the first reboot, so I did permissions fix/check, rebooted, and it seemed to had gone away of its accord.
G4 iBook, all permissions are fixed and such
I agree, 10.4.4 is probably the most rushed update in recent memory. I noticed that iChat AV, which I use for videoconferencing, has a major bug in it. Basically, the audio component of videoconferencing is buggy so that it’s hard to hear the person you’re speaking with, even if their mic is turnied up all the way and so are your speakers. Tell them to go use a Panther machine, using the same iShight camera, and all is well again. I hope they fix iChat AV in 10.4.5, cause it’s a big selling point of Tiger and for them to “break” it in 10.4.4 is embarrasing.
I’ve had Zero problems with 10.4.4 on my three Macs. As far as iLife’06, I’ll know soon after I get home tonight. My new iPod case (Booq) and iLife’06 are inside my screen door waiting for me. Sorry wife, I’m busy tonight.
Also note. 10.4.4 has not only be non buggy on my Macs but is definitely noticably faster than 10.3.9 which I just upgraded from. Zero issues. And games are also noticeably more responsive. Not that I was unhappy with 10.3.9 but I wanted Dashboard (love it) and Spotlight which I also love.
>>As far as iLife’06, I’ll know soon after I get home tonight.
Well…? How did it go? Did you try opening the GarageBand preferences? Did you try turning GarageBand’s Snap to Grid off and then back on again? Did you open up iMovie and notice how they placed the Import button right smack in front of the video while it plays, blocking your view of the video? Please post your experiences here.
Discovered the Dock calls eg-www.apple.com when Dashboard is activated started in 10.4.4.
So it looks like some sort of store widget is coming?
http://homepage.mac.com/hogfish/Personal4.html
I’m hoping that this upgrade will restore the ability to print for those of us with HP Photosmart printers!
Every OS X 10.4 update I’ve installed has only made things faster, more stable, and less quirky. I don’t understand some of the problems people claim to have … “OMG I INSTALLED 10.4.4 AND NOW ALL MY APPS ARE CRASHING AND STEVE JOBS ATE MY BABIES”
How can the 10.4.4 update function flawlessly on my Mac Mini and iBook and not function on someone else’s Mac Mini and/or iBook? It’s the same hardware, and same OS. It’s not like Windows, where each and every installation on 10 identical computers will differ here and there.
“I don’t understand some of the problems people claim to have”
What’s so hard to understand? We’re living in the dark ages of computer technology, where quality is not the primary concern of either the hardware producers, or the software writers.
Poor coding, sloppy design, imperfect fabrication, limited testing, no lemon laws. For all the flash and hype, computers and software today suck, and have since we first started building them.
That doesn’t even come close to answering the question.
How can the same software work on a particular piece of hardware, but not work on another identical piece of hardware, given that both pieces of hardware are functioning correctly? The only reason I can see is if people have been screwing with their OS X installation, or installing weird kernel extensions.
“How can the same software work on a particular piece of hardware, but not work on another identical piece of hardware, given that both pieces of hardware are functioning correctly? The only reason I can see is if people have been screwing with their OS X installation, or installing weird kernel extensions.”
Certainly a possability. Differences in environment, be they software, settings, hell even power related should be more than enough to cause the differences in experience.
Certainly a possability. Differences in environment, be they software, settings, hell even power related should be more than enough to cause the differences in experience.
Its interesting though that there is a consistant message that comes through.
Those who do a clean install of 10.4, run a very vanilla environment – that is, they use no tweakers, addons, modifiers etc. and install updates AND fix their permissions, don’t seem to have any problems.
I am in that boat. I don’t run third party utilities that promise to boost performance by 200% or claim that my hard disk despirately needs to be defragmented; everything seems to ‘just work’ as it should be.
Exactly. I’m in a similar boat.
I’ve tweaked the sh*t out of my OS X installation, but I’ve done it meticulously. Anything that might affect future upgrades I have avoided, all while doing the best I can with the other portions. I’ve been doing this since 10.4.0, and my upgrades have all gone smoothly up until 10.4.4.
There is a recommendation among some Macheads that when upgrading a mature OS X installation, that you should use the combo update, rather than the delta update. I’ve always done this because it seems like a more “reliable” solution.
(For those not in the know, the former is an all-in-one that can update any 10.4 system to 10.4.4 [or whatever] because it contains ALL changed files since 10.4, while the delta updates only update from the previous point release to the current.)
“How can the 10.4.4 update function flawlessly on my Mac Mini and iBook and not function on someone else’s Mac Mini and/or iBook? It’s the same hardware, and same OS. It’s not like Windows, where each and every installation on 10 identical computers will differ here and there.”
It probably isn’t in fact the same environment. It may not even be the same hardware exactly – there may well have been revisions of the components in the same model name. People may well have installed all kinds of different apps. Finally, the upgrade process may have been done in different stages.
Its a mistake to think that the environment is much different than Windows. Yes, less hardware is supported. But, my own experience, hardware in Windows is pretty unproblematic.
The difficulty you have with the argument is that either an XP or an OSX installation will be very stable as long as its left in its original state – which you talk about in a later posting. However, for both OSs, people buy them with a view to installing their own stuff to work as they want, and once that happens, you are testing something completely different: stability under change. Now, I don’t think its ever been shown that OSX is better than XP in this respect.
Stability under user made changes is a critical parameter of the OS.
What is better than either is a Debian based system…
Edited 2006-01-26 09:35
“Stability under change” depends on how deep the changes go. While hardware is unproblematic in Windows, installing something as simple as a CD-burning application will put registry entries all over the system, and install loads of BS into the Windows system directories.
After installation of the usual set of applications, a Windows installation is junked up. It is no longer close to being virgin. I would equate it to an STD-ridden prostitute at that point.
OS X is different. Nothing ever touches the System folder (unless you’re installing something with kernel extensions), and to a lesser extent, the /Library folder. You can remove the application and its preference file, and once again have a virgin OS X installation. With Windows, cruft gets left around, and it builds up over time.
For this reason, I’m tempted to think that OS X has better stability under “change”, because the changes are really only skin-deep.
10.4.4 has been extremely stable for me thus far. Hasn’t crashed or otherwise been ornery in the 10 days since I installed it (my last reboot). On the other hand, I’ve taken to using Adium instead of iChat and Camino instead of Safari, so that’s probably why my perception about the stability of the software has gone up
Hmm, I would use AdiumX, however, their MSN support royally sucks – the lack of cam support, custom emoticons support etc. etc.
> I would use AdiumX, however, their MSN support royally sucks – the lack of cam support, custom emoticons support etc
As if MS’s own MSN Messenger for the Mac did support those… or did I miss it?
Edited 2006-01-26 02:40
As if MS’s own MSN Messenger for the Mac did support those… or did I miss it?
Who said they did? I use aMSN, which is a multiplatform ( http://amsn.sourceforge.net/ ) messenger for my MSN needs.
Audio will glitch for about 1-2 seconds, repeating the same bit of audio, once ever now and then. I thought it was iTunes, but i heard it in quicktime, VLC, Unreal Tournament 2K4, and elsewhere. I’ve a new Powerbook 17″ (the hi-res one), anyone else having this?
yes:
http://powerbookdefect.info/
This could be the year when the MacOS could take a significant share from MS or be condemned forever to the apple loyalists.
I believe the mac market share is going to grow a lot during this 2006 and this will show what Apple is made of. They lack the expertise in many areas (namely patch management, hardware support, response to security issues) and with an increasing market share comes the inevitable hacker interest, consider this: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Ancient_flaws_leave_OS_X_… and patches like the one described in this thread.
So if you ask me what the result will be, is that apple will fail. We will realize (if not already) that it is a company with very good designers and marketing people, nothing more.
At this rate we’ll hit 10.4.9 way before 10.5 is released. I am interested to know what Apple will do in this situation. Will they just release 10.4.10 and hope it doesn’t cause too much confusion for users?
Hmmm, if this were Microsoft I wonder if the posts would be so accomodating…??? 🙂
At this rate we’ll hit 10.4.9 way before 10.5 is released. I am interested to know what Apple will do in this situation. Will they just release 10.4.10 and hope it doesn’t cause too much confusion for users?
Point releases are not decimal numbers so 10.4.9 is not .1 away from 10.5. Therefore the next point release would be 10.4.10 and so on. For example, the Linux kernel is currently at release 2.6.13.
Hope this helps.
i just checked, no problems with garageband, preferences opened fine, snap works same as before..
as for the imovie import button, yeh, putting it in the video window is odd, but, i dont see it obstructing the view that much either, it is about 25 pixels from the bottom, and is like 65 pixels wide and 25 pixels tall, not exactly blocking much..
still, weird that they moved it into the video window
Well I’m running Mercury on my Powermac G4 10.4.4 and regularly webcam with PC using friends with no issues.
My Powerbook G4 still doesn’t reboot or shutdown properly, it simply hangs after shutting down the apps. And there doesn’t seem to be any way of tracking what causes this, annoying.