Improvements to Spotlight searches, AirPort, Bluetooth, and RAW camera support are a few enhancements Apple reportedly has planned for an early winter release of Mac OS X 10.4.4 Update, a routine maintenance update to the Mac OS X Tiger operating system.
It would be nice if Apple could update their Airport hardware to offer support for 108/125mbs data rates, as already supported by some Linksys and USR network hardware
108/125Mbs aren’t official spec for 802.11g. Those are chipset mfg boosted rates.
They are going through these version numbers pretty fast 😮
Going through version numbers is fine with me. Unlike MS their version numbers may fix security problems but at the same time they also upgrade features to make them better or sometimes add features.
MS upgrades seems to be more security patches ie critical updates…. without provided enhanced performance or features.
I agree that Apple is very proactive and progressive with their version updates. They’re doing a great job and adding value to their arguably pricy hardware.
And while I’m usually the last to defend MS, I have to disagree with you about Microsoft.
The Windows product line may have a ton of security problems–and so, yes, they release a number of patches for it. But I think the huge list of security fixes tends to dwarf the more significant, ‘functional’ items: Windows Media Player, MSN Messenger, driver updates (w/ added features). Heck, even service pack 2 for XP added some useful features to the OS (to IE, and Windows Security Manger).
So yeah.. just like apple’s iChat (MSN messenger), iTunes (WMP), Safari (IE), microsoft releases regular functionality updates to its software.
…that’s not to say I use the software. I’m just being objective/honest about it, ya know? =)~
It would ne nice if they would include support for the A2DP Bluetooth profile.
Is there a commercial Bluetooth stack for OSX available?
I hope this update fixes the memory leaks in Safari.
I hope this fixes the memory leaks between your ears.
iPhoto is buggy as all get out. Crashes all the time, when are they going to fix this junk?
iPhoto is buggy as all get out. Crashes all the time, when are they going to fix this junk?
Never crashes for me.
Perhaps you have some corrupted preferences files or something?
iPhoto never crashes on me either.
Safari’s memory leaks are largely nonexistant in the latest builds… If I can figure out how to compile WebKit, so can you!
I call bullshit on that! Just because you can figure out how to compile webkit does not mean that Apple does not have to fix memory leaks. There are thousands of people that have NO desire to download, compile and install core components of an OS.
This is a commercial OS, not an opensource OS.
Another difference is that OSX updates help improve its speed. Windows Service Packs slow the OS down.
as much as it sounds like a troll, he’s very right :O. Remember the whole “Firewire devices may drastically slow down after installing SP2”, and the annoying security centre pop-ups :/
so we may end up using OS X where we used to have Windows.
You (and many others) get still something wrong: OSX ist for Apples computers and will never be for something else. Apples computers will use Intel processors starting in 2006. Thats all.
Very true, Apple only intends OS X to run on “their” hardware, and fair enough too, they are a h/w company first, s/w second.
However, someone will work out how to get OS X 10.5.0 to run on their PC’s, then 10.5.1 will come out and break that, so they will work that out and so on. The experience will never be quite the same as using it on Apple h/w due to 3rd party componets that Apple don’t support, so some people will get a false sence of how good OS/X is, but there ya go…
My hope is that Apple price their h/w to make the choice of going with Mactel over Wintel that much harder (some of the rumors I’ve heard are already suggesting this with the iBook).
I do understand that for those who love to build their own PC’s using the latest and greatest components, then Apple probably won’t be an option, or for the uber gamer for that matter, but for the rest of us they might.
It would be real nice if Apple suported Oggs and Flacs natively.
they reject my requests for that with: “work around exists”
Everytime news is posted about Apple you can find two questions: why is the hardware so expensive? Why do they not support Ogg?
Ogg can be downloaded and installed as a Quicktime component and so it is available for all applications in OS X which use Quicktime (all?).
If you want to use Ogg on your iPod, you are out of luck. But even the Ogg developers said that in the current form the codec is not easy to implement on embedded devices. So give Apple a feedback about Ogg and ask some thousand people to do the same and maybe, maybe the 7th generation iPod will support Ogg 🙂
Well, RAW updates will certainly be nice. 10.4.3 brought a good bit of improvement there. I was happy my camera was now supported. But apple still has to fix the major bug they have with DNG. DNG only works in OSX (The OS, and Apple made apps that its, IE core image driven stuff) if OS X supports your cameras RAW format. Of course this is completely wrong, DNG should just work no matter were the camera came from. They need to get this fixed badly, otherwise a lot of people won’t be able to go to Aperture and such.
And yes, Safari is still leaking memory bad, the resent java update seamed to make it far worse then before.
I also wish people would stop saying “the latest builds work fine” or you can go build it yourself”. That means nothing. Its not fixed till apple has a posted update that fixes it.
Quicktime is BY FAR the weakest link in Apple’s software stack. It’s attractive and well-integrated, like all Apple software, and is finally getting to be pretty stable.
But does ANYONE use it on OS X without also using another player like VLC or MPlayer? No, because its codec and container format support is simply not enough to be useful. No, I don’t expect them to support WMV/WMA, but it needs to support Ogg/Matroska containers and the Vorbis codec for power users. And even if they don’t care about power users, they need to add DivX compatibility to their MPEG4 support, and fix their pathetically buggy AVI container support. It’s so bad, the audio skips in 90% of files regardless of the codec used, trying to seek while the video is playing will cause severe corruption, and worst of all, the Quicktime plugin will crash the Finder extremely often when attempting to preview movie clips in a Finder window. This is a terrible bug: since the previews are automatic on selection, it basically makes keyboard navigation in Finder a risky business when AVIs are lurking around.
I rant about this here, because I and thousands of others have already submitted the bug reports to Apple long ago and seen little improvement.
You can get WMV/WMA for Quicktime with flip4mac and DivX from hmm DivX. I really I don’t see Ogg/Matroska for “power users”. Those power users Apple targets are using DVD authoring software or other video editing tools and there is by far to sign of Ogg/Matroska. So Ogg/Matroska is only for geeks :-). For the rest of your post I have nothing to add because it is sooooooo true. Have you ever tried to view a non Quicktime movie on a G3 machine?
I like your take on ‘power’ user. I think that your view is more in line with the geek user. I often deal with video files that are over 100 Gigabytes in size, and let me tell you that only QuickTime is able to handle them with any aplomb.
Try working in lossless formats for a while and then tell me how bad QuickTime is compared to other containers.
Geek != Power
Very true. In windows and Linux Geek == Power, he assumed this is the same in OSX. Not true at all. OSX Geeks write apps, OSX Power users use apps to do some work.
and yes, “workaround exists”, but sucks and shouldn’t be necessary.