macOS Archive

Apple To Mandate Sandboxing by March 2012

Thom Holwerda 2011-11-03 macOS 70 Comments

And so the iOS-ification of Mac OS X continues. Apple has just announced that all applications submitted to the Mac App Store have to use sandboxing by March 2012. While this has obvious security advantages, the concerns are numerous - especially since Apple's current sandboxing implementation and associated rules makes a whole lot of applications impossible.

Siracusa’s Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Review

Thom Holwerda 2011-07-20 macOS 9 Comments

Introduction not necessary. Read it.

Mac OS X Lion Golden Master Seeded to Developers

Thom Holwerda 2011-07-01 macOS 12 Comments

"Apple has seeded the golden master version of OS X Lion to developers ahead of its public release sometime this month (July). The golden master download is available from Apple's Mac Developer website. The build number is 11A511. In addition, Apple has seeded Developer Preview 7 of Xcode 4.1." You'll now also be allowed to virtualise several instances of Mac OS X inside Mac OS X.

Submitted by Jennimc 2011-06-29 macOS 5 Comments

"One item of interest regarding last week's Mac OS X 10.6.8 update reveals that Apple has enabled TRIM support retroactively for solid state hard drives shipped in Apple-produced configurations. TRIM is a feature that allows solid state drives (SSDs) to automatically handle garbage collection, cleaning up unused blocks of data and preparing them for rewriting, thereby preventing slowdowns that would otherwise occur over time as garbage data accumulates."

OS X – Safe, Yet Horribly Insecure

Submitted by John 2011-06-25 macOS 86 Comments

"Using a Mac may certainly be a safer choice for a lot of people as despite being vulnerable they are not targeted. However this is not the same as Macs being secure, something Eric Schmidt erroneously advised recently. I may be able to browse impervious to malware on a Mac at the moment, however I personally would not be comfortable using a platform so easily compromised if someone had the motivation to do so. In this article I address just why OS X is so insecure including the technical shortcomings of OS X as well as Apples policies as a company that contribute to the situation."

Mac OS X 10.6.8 Released

Thom Holwerda 2011-06-23 macOS 33 Comments

"Apple has now released Mac OS X 10.6.8, the eighth maintenance update for Snow Leopard, via Software Update. The update offers a number of fixes implemented since the release of Mac OS X 10.6.7 in late March."

Mac Defender Security Update Thwarted Few Hours After Release

Neolander 2011-06-02 macOS 19 Comments

Looks like Apple might have changed their mind and rushed a security update against Mac Defender a bit too quickly. "Hours after Apple released update and the initial set of definitions, a new variation of Mac Defender is in the wild. This one has a new name, Mdinstall.pkg, and it has been specifically formulated to skate past Apple's malware-blocking code." Update: And one day later, Apple has updated its malware definitions to detect the new version. MD's turn.

Amazon Launches Mac Software, Game Download Store

Thom Holwerda 2011-05-26 macOS 4 Comments

It seems that the fight between Amazon and Apple has just entered into a new phase. The two companies are already in the world's silliest tussle over the trademark for the term 'app store', and now Amazon has kicked it up a notch by launching a competitor to the Mac App Store. While not nearly as large as the Mac App Store, it contains a number of big-name titles which are not available through Apple's offering - such as Microsoft Office.

Submitted by kaiwai 2011-05-25 macOS 67 Comments

Well, it took them long enough. Apple has finally acknowledged the existence of the MAC Defender trojan, and has offered removal instructions. The company has also promised a security update to Mac OS X that will block MAC Defender and its variants from working. All this information was published in the form of a support document on Apple's website. Update: Well, that was fast. A new variant of the trojan, called Mac Guard, has been discovered. Unlike previous variants, this one does not require users to enter their administrative password.

Submitted by poundsmack 2011-05-16 macOS 4 Comments

"Per MacStories, Apple has released a new Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 3 to its developers this evening as well as Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 5. Apple last updated Lion for developers in late April. That version contained several UI changes presumably based on feedback from developers."

Here’s to the Crazy Ones: a Decade of Mac OS X Reviews

Thom Holwerda 2011-05-13 macOS 8 Comments

"Ars Technica's John Siracusa looks back with a decade's hindsight at his early reviews of Mac OS X. He talks about what went right, what went wrong, and what he's still waiting on." I've read them all over the years, and Siracusa is by far the best reviewer on the web. His Mac OS X reviews are worth it for the technical details of the inner workings of Mac OS X alone - even if you don't use or like Apple's operating system.

Submitted by poundsmack 2011-05-04 macOS 41 Comments

"With the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion this summer, Apple will make the switch to a new kind of digital distribution for its operating system upgrades by releasing the software first through its new Mac App Store, AppleInsider has learned. The Mac App Store, available to all users running the most recent version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, will become the de facto method for obtaining the Lion upgrade, people familiar with the matter have revealed. Users will be able to upgrade instantly without the need for physical media by purchasing Lion through the Mac App Store." The old-fashioned regular disc version (and hopefully, on a USB drive for Air owners such as myself) will still be available.

Apple Ditches SAMBA in Favour of Homegrown Replacement

Thom Holwerda 2011-03-26 macOS 160 Comments

When you run smbd -V on your Snow Leopard installation, you'll see it's running SAMBA version 3.0.28a-apple. While I'm not sure how much difference the "-apple" makes, version 3.0.28a is old. Very old. In other words, it's riddled with bugs. Apple hasn't updated SAMBA in 3 years, and for Lion, they're dumping it altogether for something homegrown. The reason? SAMBA is now GPLv3.

Mac OS X Turns Ten

Thom Holwerda 2011-03-24 macOS 52 Comments

Ten years ago, to the day. March 24, 2001, the first official released version of Mac OS X went on sale, for USD 129. It was a massive step up and a massive step down from MacOS 9 at the same time - technically way more advanced, but clearly still in its infancy and pretty much unusable. Kernel panics, crashes, incredibly slow, and lacking many key features. It was so bad, in fact, that Mac OS X 10.1 was released as a free upgrade. Of course, we geeks know that Mac OS X is technically a lot older, but alas, let's just celebrate these 10 years. Maybe Lion will finally bring a usable non-crashing Finder!

Z-410: How ZFS Is Slowly Making Its Way to Mac OS X

Thom Holwerda 2011-03-19 macOS 31 Comments

"A commercial ZFS solution is (still) coming to Mac OS X, thanks to former Apple filesystem and OS engineer Don Brady (who previously worked on the abandoned internal Apple project to port ZFS). Brady and his company, Ten's Complement, just launched a limited private beta in hopes to have the software polished and ready for a summer launch this year. Ars spoke with Brady, who has a long history engineering filesystems for Mac OS and Mac OS X, to find out a little about his previous work with ZFS at Apple, and what Mac users can expect to gain from Ten's Complement's port of ZFS."

Early Benchmarks of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

Guest post by Michael 2011-03-02 macOS 13 Comments

"By now you have likely read all about the features announced for Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" thus far along with seeing plenty of screenshots and videos showing off Launchpad, Mission Control, Versions, the improved mail client, and much more. But how does Apple's next-generation operating system perform? Well, here is a look at the performance of Mac OS X 10.7, including what are likely the first public benchmarks of Mac OS X Lion."

Supposed Mac OS X Trojan Another Piece of Linkbait

Thom Holwerda 2011-03-01 macOS 60 Comments

It's sad to see that even after all these years, we still have to write articles like this one. It's all over the web right now: a new backdoor Mac OS X trojan discovered! Code execution! Indicative of rise in Mac malware! Until, of course, you actually take a look at what's going on, and see that not only is it not in the wild, it can't really do anything because it's a beta.

Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview Sports Host of New Features

Thom Holwerda 2011-02-27 macOS 88 Comments

Earlier this week, Apple released the first developer preview of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. At the same time, Apple listed a number of new features we hadn't yet heard about, which are quite interesting. There are two themes: bringing iOS to Mac OS X, and adding features other operating systems have had for ages - except in such a way that you can actually use them. Update: Fixed that scrolling thing. It's the other way around of course.

Apple Releases Developer Preview of Mac OS X Lion

Guest post by HAL2001 2011-02-24 macOS 40 Comments

Apple today released a developer preview of Mac OS X Lion, available to Mac Developer Program members through the Mac App Store today, and the final version of Lion will ship to customers this summer. Mac OS X Lion which features Mission Control, an new view of everything running on your Mac; Launchpad, a new home for all your Mac apps; full screen apps that use the entire Mac display; and new Multi-Touch gestures. Lion also includes the Mac App Store, a place to discover, install and automatically update Mac apps.

Although Not Supported, You Can Remove the Mac App Store

Thom Holwerda 2011-01-10 macOS 82 Comments

Now that the Mac App Store has been ~~snuck~~ installed onto your machine alongside Mac OS X 10.6.6, you might be wondering - is there some way to remove that monstrosity of an application from my Mac? While it's not officially supported, it does seem like Apple has taken this scenario into account.