macOS Archive

"While the Apple hype machine and its fanatical followers would have you believe that Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard' is a major upgrade to the company's venerable operating system, nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, Leopard is yet another evolutionary upgrade in a long line of evolutionary OS X upgrades, all of which date back to the original OS X release in 2001. But let me get one huge misunderstanding out of the way immediately: That's not a dig at Leopard at all. Indeed, if anything, Apple is in an enviable position: OS X is so solid, so secure, and so functionally excellent that it must be getting difficult figuring out how to massage another USD 129 out even the most ardent fans. Folks, Leopard is good stuff. But then that's been true of Mac OS X for quite a while now." Additionally, Apple acknowledges installation problems caused by Unsanity's APE, while others are complaining about problems with Java, or visual oddities. Additionally, there are hacks that restore the black dock triangles, opacify the menubar, and to enable Time Machine on Airport disks. Update: It appears the Leopard firewall has a dent in its armour.

The Ars review of Leopard concludes: "What a long, strange trip it's been. Leopard turned out very differently than I imagined it would only a year ago. Despite some big disappointments near the end of its development process - the new Dock, the menu bar, more Finder floundering - the foundation is stronger than it's ever been."

Today, Apple is unleashing Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard onto the world. It's already available to people in Australia and New Zealand (you liking it, Kaiwai?), and Europe and the US will follow later today. There's an article on what's new for Ruby developers, while others want to figure out what Leopard means to the 'enterprise' (I love those silly business terms). Update by AS: My copy of Leopard was slated for a 10AM delivery, but didn't arrive. I called FedEx and a CSR told me that an internal memo was just released; Apple has apparently waved the shipping deadline for all packages today and requested delivery be rescheduled at the end of the business day. Update 2 by AS: Ok, we've received our copy. How about you other US'ers?

"What's new in Leopard? A lot. From the unified interface (goodbye, brushed aluminum) to major under-the-hood changes, to wholly new apps, Leopard is a substantial, albeit evolutionary, advance for Mac OS X that builds on a solid foundation and adds a modicum of eye candy to reinforce the notion that this is something new and improved. It's also fast - especially impressive given the new graphics sprinkled throughout the OS."

At the last minute, Apple has changed the appearance of the Dock in Mac OS X Leopard when it is placed on the sides of the screen. If so, the dock will lose its much-criticised 3D appearance in favour of a more traditional 2D look. When placed at the bottom, the dock does retain its 3D appearance; however, a smart hacker has already found out that via a single command in the terminal, you can give the bottom dock the same 2D appearance. In other words, everybody who criticised the new dock (including yours truly): rejoice!

Apple posted a Leopard guided tour video, in the same format as the earlier iPhone and iPod Touch guided tours. It mentions the new Finder, stacks, Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, and so on. In Quicktime, of course.

"The Dock in Mac OS X is unique in comparison to the user interface of Windows, most Linux distros that emulate the Windows desktop, and previous versions of the Classic Mac OS. Apple has significantly updated the Dock in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Here's a look at what's new and different in our 3-page report."

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.

In a move that's sure to be welcomed by customers of both parties, HP is reported to be working with Apple to allow users of Mac OS X Leopard to instantly receive the the latest versions of HP's printer drivers over Leopard's built-in Software Update mechanism. In seeding Leopard build 9A559 to its developer community last week, Apple listed only two known issues with the software, one of which instructed testers with HP printers connected to their system to perform a custom install of the next-gen operating system and de-select the HP printer drivers in the installer. "The HP printer drivers will be delivered post-install via Software Update", the company told testers.

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 recently seeded developers with yet another build of Mac OS X 10.4.11, destined to be the final update to Tiger. Builds 8S155 (PowerPC) and 8S2155 (Intel) deliver an additional number of bug fixes, including remedies to issues with the BSD Kernel and interlock timeouts, ASR and scanning and restoring, CoreText Layout, and a bug with ImageCapture that creates problems downloading images from an iPhone when the phone has a large number of saved photos.

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, which last week asked that developers provide feedback on their experiences using pre-released builds of Mac OS Leopard, has followed up by seeding a significant stability update to the next-generation system software. The latest seed, labeled Mac OS X Leopard 9A500n, arrived via Leopard's Software Update mechanism as a 'recommended' update for all developers running Mac OS X Leopard build 9A499.

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."