macOS Archive

After a long gestation period, Apple has updated its Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system to version 10.5.7. This latest update comes packed with lots of bug fixes for several components of the Mac OS X operating system. Update: Various security updates for Tiger and Safari:Win were also released.

Remember the Mac trojan that we reported about earlier this year? A trojan was found piggybacking on the back of copies of iWork and Photoshop CS4 found on warez sites and networks, and it would install itself after the user had entered his or her administrator password during the software's installation. This trojan didn't seem like much of a threat back then, but as it turns out, it's now in use in the first Macintosh botnet.

More and more rumours and bits of news are making their to the web about Apple's upcoming Snow Leopard operating system. With the date set for Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in early June (as usual), rumours have shifted focus away from features, but towards Snow Leopard's release date. AppleInsider now claims to have the answer.

The omnipresent "people familiar with the matter" have told AppleInsider that Apple's upcoming Snow Leopard operating system will have more to show for itself than "just" under-the-hood changes and improvements. Apparently, Apple is preparing an updated theme for Snow Leopard, to replace the Aqua one.

"A number of folks have asked me what tools and techniques I use to reverse engineer Cocoa executables. I thought it would be worth taking some time out from documenting undocumented APIs to show you how easy it is to do the same thing for yourself. With all these tools in your arsenal, reverse engineering Cocoa executables is actually very simple. In fact, it's a good deal more straightforward than most Windows executables, with the exception of Delphi and .NET where - like Cocoa - a good deal of runtime type information is contained within the executable."

This weekend, we learned that Apple's upcoming Snow Leopard operating system would have a minimal user interface for the QuickTime movie player. Thanks to AppleInsider, we now have more information on the new interface, and it seems like Apple is again - just as with the Safari 4 beta - using some radical interface ideas.

A few days ago, we concluded (yes, we did!) that it was cool to run Windows 3.1 on your Nokia N95 using Qemu. Of course, the Apple world couldn't stay behind, and now we have one of Apple's obsolete operating systems running on the iPhone: System 7, also using Qemu.

Two interface changes coming to Snow Leopard have been revealed by those who have access to the developer releases of Apple's upcoming operating system. The trash gained a feature to directly move files back to their original locations, and the stacks feature has been improved by making directories browseable within the stacks themselves. They join ZFS, on-demand printer drivers, and location awareness as new features for Snow Leopard.

Between all the Windows 7 hubbub, you'd almost forget that that other operating system maker is also hard at work on the next release of its operating system. Even though Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was supposed to be a release that did not focus on end user features, it seems that Apple will still include a number of those in Snow Leopard. The new cat will follow in Windows 7's footsteps by including a location awareness framework, while also allowing programmers to make use of the multitouch trackpads in Apple's laptops.

"In essence, CoreUI is a low-level framework that - ultimately - will be responsible for drawing all the user interface widgets in OS X. Among other things, CoreUI will define the look and feel of the Aqua interface. I say 'will' and 'ultimately' because at the time of writing CoreUI is still something of a work in progress. Some folks have reported that CoreUI isn't used at all in Leopard, unless you change the scale factor from its default value of 1.0, but this is simplistic. By default, CoreUI is used for drawing a number of user interface elements in Leopard."

At the MacWorld Expo today in San Fransisco, Apple announced new versions of iWork and iLife, as well as an updated 17" MacBook Pro, which promises a battery life of 7-8 hours. More interesting, however, is the fact that yesterday was Mac OS X Server's 10th birthday.

MacInTouch reviews the EFI-X kit, a pre-assembled computer equipped with the EFI-X module which allows you to boot Mac OS X on a non-Apple machine without having to resort to hacks. They conclude: "The EFI-X kit offers the ability to run Mac OS X Leopard without hacks, to run Windows without special Boot Camp drivers, and to run nearly any other personal computer operating system from Linux to Solaris to OpenVMS! It's not quite the seamless experience of Apple's Mac computers, but it comes darn close. Its quad-core 3.82-GHz Core 2 Quad, combined with a fast Nvidia 8800 GT video card and 10,000-RPM Western Digital Velociraptor hard drive, leaves even today's quad-core Mac Pro in the dust. For anyone but scientific and engineering users, the EFI-X kit offers even more real-world performance than Apple's high-end, eight-core Mac Pro costing over twice as much."

Apple has released the latest update to Mac OS X Leopard, Mac OS X 10.5.6. It contains a whole list of fixes and improvements, so have fun checking out if your favourite bug has been squashed. As always, it's in Software Update. Feel free to report success or epic fail in the comments.

From MacRumors: "Apple's Director of Engineering of Unix Technologies Jordan Hubbard spoke at LISA '08 last week. This year's conference invited Apple's Jordan Hubbard to speak about the evolution of Mac OS X from large servers to embedded platforms". The presentation slides (PDF), besides generally interesting info on Mac OS X, feature a table that shows a release date of Q1 2009 for OS X 10.6 Leopard.