Apple has released Mac OS X 10.6.3. “Apple on Monday released Mac OS X 10.6.3, the latest software update to its Snow Leopard operating system, bringing improvements in the reliability and compatibility of QuickTime X and addressing compatibility issues with OpenGL-based applications.”
What’s the saying about not being able to make progress without breaking a few things?
I’ve been tethering to my mobile phone since November 2006. I believe I was using 10.4.x (Tiger) at the time. The connection with the USB cable was fine and the Bluetooth connection was dodgy. Leopard (10.5.x) sorted all of that and both were quite stable.
About that time, Ubuntu (9.04?) introduced support for similar devices, but recognising the device and using it were two different things.
Enter my MacBook with Snow Leopard in late 2009. The USB connection worked similarly to the Ubuntu support. It never actually identified the device but it knew it was there (and hobbled it). 10.6.3 is better, it identified the phone but of course, WWAN support doesn’t allow for phone numbers. Yeeesh.
So, here I use my almost new machine connected to a machine from early 2005. Any more progress from Apple and I’ll be using Windows.
Just a subtle hint but have you ever thought about installing, you know, the drivers? you do realise that it is required? I’ve got a ZTE 626 3G HSDPA device that works without any problems with mac OS X. Whining about something and giving no details tells me a lot, or there lack of, as to the genuineness of your grievance.
I did say mobile phone, didn’t I and that it’s been working for years?
I should have said that Apple have been supplying the drivers for Sprint mobile phones since roughly 2004/2005. They’ve moved the device category from that of a modem to a WWAN device, which is the problem, since it’s still a modem and needs to dial a phone number and they don’t allow that with WWAN devices, which is fine for your device.
Heh, and the USB mass-storage support is still incomplete too. There are a few devices that are MSC-compliant but OS X generates an error when you connect them instead of actually being able to mount the drive. Neither Linux, Opensolaris, nor Windows have any problems with these devices and none of the above-mentioned oses have special drivers. Granted they’re pretty specialized devices, but that’s not the point. When a device maker has to update their firmware to be compliant with OS X’s version of the MSC protocol rather than working properly, there’s a problem. When every other os can use these devices without an issue, but OS X can’t, there’s a problem. Oh, and Bluetooth a2dp support is still busted in 10.6.3. It’s been broken since it was introduced in 10.5, connections won’t persist after the Bluetooth powersave kicks in which happens on a five second timer which can’t be adjusted. Lately, OS X has given me more headaches than Ubuntu and that’s saying something!
If anyone using Adobe CS3 upgrades to this new .3 and notices anything odd, please post .. Im wary about upgrading myself, due to stuff working pretty much ok on .2
Im a new Mac user 🙂
(Finally got a Mac Mini after some 30 years completely unknown to that platform .. 🙂
Love it so far .. ! Hope .3 wont break it for me ..
EDIT: Though I did have some initial issues, (on 10.6.2 after a finder crash, my CS3 was suddenly deactivated and scared me good ..
(I had two NTFS drives connected to the MacMini then when one suddenly wouldnt be found and finder hanged
itself.. I also lost files on my external firewire disk with HFS+ when that happened .. Wierd .. ! Poor me (being a PC and sometimes Linux user (and former Amigan)) felt like a totally helpless newbie again !
Well hope .3 dont break CS3 for me .. Think Ill hold out a couple of weeks with upgrade..
Edited 2010-03-30 02:22 UTC
I’ve just had a look and found a new framework:
VideoDecodeAcceleration.framework
Is this what Adobe have been waiting for as so far as hardware accelerating video decoding? Have Apple finally caved in and provided it?