macOS Archive

Developers have received from Apple a 'ZFS on Mac OS X Preview 1.1' package, which offers preliminary support for the ZFS file system, originally developed by Sun Microsystems for their Solaris OS. Currently, the Mac OS is based on the HFS+ file system, but leaked screenshots of earlier versions of Leopard showed options for formatting hard drives for ZFS. Reportedly, this preview allows full read and write capabilities with the latest developer build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple's upcoming version of its OS X operating system.

"Apple has begun preparatory measures for significant announcements to take place during the last full week of October, AppleInsider has been told. While sources have requested that we not go into detail regarding the specific measures being put into place, they say the announcements are likely to arrive any time between the 22nd and 27th of the month. Obviously, such a timeframe would coincide with Apple's self-imposed release schedule for Mac OS X Leopard, which the company - after having delayed the software once - has promised for 'October'." Think Secret thinks the same.

Just weeks ahead of its public launch, Apple has updated the minimum system requirements for its next-generation Leopard operating system to exclude 800MHz PowerPC-based Macs, AppleInsider has learned. Apple has yet to officially announce the hardware requirements to run Leopard, due out in October, but had long stated in developer documentation that the software would require "an Intel processor or a PowerPC G4 (800MHz or faster) or G5 processor." According to people familiar with the matter, engineers for the company recently determined that Leopard installs on 800MHz PowerPC G4 systems ran "too slow". Support for those systems was subsequently pulled from the most recent pre-release copies of Leopard, which inform testers that the software "cannot be installed" on those computers. My take: Assuming this turns out to be true, there are going to be a lot of unhappy G4 owners - including yours truly.

Apple on Friday evening seeded developers with yet another pre-release of its next-generation Leopard operating system, this time a full-blown build that appears as if it could be a candidate for release. Labeled "Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard build 9A559," the new release came just hours after the Cupertino-based company issued two minor updates to the previous full-sized build (9A527), both of which were aimed at testing the system's automated Software Update mechanism.

The most recent pre-release build of Apple's Mac OS X Leopard operating system began making its way into developers' hands this past weekend, carrying with it a number of interface tweaks and a lengthy list of recommended testing suggestions. Screenshots and video clips taken of the new build, labeled Mac OS X Leopard build 9A527, show Apple to have reduced the transparency of the Mac OS menubar from previous builds, making it more opaque. Some developers had argued that level of transparency in previous builds gave the software - and Mac OS desktop in general - a cheaper, more rugged look.

Apple appears to be accelerating seeds of Mac OS X Leopard to developers. After only 5 days since the last seed (9A500n), Apple has issued a new version of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to developers. The latest seed is listed at build 9A527 (client) and 9A528a (server), and reportedly list a number of less significant 'known issues' compared to prior seeds.

Apple has an article on the core elements of Leopard. "The Mach kernel and related core technologies, including Bonjour and the file system, have all been significantly enhanced. Full POSIX compliance and UNIX03 certification means you can move all your critical UNIX applications to Mac OS X quickly and easily. Security, always a strong point of Mac OS X, gets even better with improvements to authorization and certificate management."

"The advent of Vista and Mac OS X, along with the ascension of Linux, add new dimensions to a long-time controversy. Now more than ever before, the Mac OS is the most cost effective operating system of all."

Apple on Tuesday afternoon began informing a select group of developers that it plans at least one more maintenance update to its Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger operating system ahead of October's planned release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Since developers have yet to received the first pre-release seeds of the software update, details outside of the version numbering - Mac OS X 10.4.11 - are few and far between.

A soap opera is playing out on the mailing lists of several security newsgroups this morning, complete with people hiding behind pseudonyms, people "outing" one another and rumors of death threats against the major players. At stake? A possible worm for Apple's Mac OS X operating system.

"So far this year, Apple users have been exposed to the kind of vulnerabilities that are more commonly associated with Windows. The Mac maker has plugged security flaws that could have resulted in OS X customers being 'owned' by basic actions such as visiting a malicious website, watching a video file or opening an email attachment. However, despite all these vulnerabilities, the Mac's resilient platform, its advanced automatic software update tools and the apparent lack of attention from malware authors means Apple users are far safer from attack than users of Windows." On a related note, Apple has released updates to iTunes and QuickTime. The QuickTime update eliminates the need to buy QuickTime Pro in order to play videos full screen.

"The current beta build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, released to developers at WWDC ‚'07, is not as polished as what people have come to expect of Apple's design team - users are still left with at best several disagreeable changes, and at worst a hideous hodgepodge of HIG contradictions. I have broken down 5 onscreen blunders that detract from the user experience and make Leopard the ugliest and most uncharacteristically 'Apple' OS to date." Thanks to MacWereld for pointing this article out.

Apple has released two updates, Audio Update 2007-001 and Mac OS X 10.4.10 Update v1.1 (Intel). "The Audio Update 2007-001 addresses an issue with version 1.0 of the Mac OS X 10.4.10 Update in which a 'popping' sound might be heard with some external speakers on Intel-based Mac. This update is recommended for all Intel-based Macs running Mac OS X 10.4.10."

Another turn in the Apple-ZFS saga. Apple has made available a developer preview of ZFS for Mac OS X with read/write capability. The preview is available to all ADC members. From the readme file: "ZFS is a new filesystem from Sun Microsystems which has been ported by Apple to Mac OS X. The initial (10.5.0) release of Leopard will restrict ZFS to read-only, so no ZFS pools or filesystems can be modified or created. This Developer Preview will enable full read/write capability, which includes the creation/destruction of ZFS pools and filesystems." Update: Will it ever end? The release has been pulled from ADC by Apple.