macOS Archive

The yes-no-yes-no saga concerning ZFS in Leopard continues as Apple has released a new statement concerning the availability of ZFS in Leopard. So, let's recap: in April 2006, Apple expresses its interest in Sun's ZFS for the first time. After a first hint, the first screenshot popped up which showed ZFS on Leopard, followed by the definitive proof Leopard could create ZFS disk images. Fast forward six months, and Sun's Jonathan Schwartz announces that ZFS would be Leopard's default filesystem; a statement contradicted by an Apple official yesterday. In fact, this Apple official said ZFS would not be in Leopard at all. Then we arrive at today, and we have Apple stating that ZFS will in fact be included as a limited option in Leopard, only from the command line, read-only. Let's see what tomorrow will bring.

An Apple official on Monday said Sun's open-source file system would not be in the next version of the Mac operating system, contradicting statements made last week by Sun's chief executive. During an interview with InformationWeek, Brian Croll, senior director of product marketing for the Mac OS, said, "ZFS is not happening," when asked whether Sun's Zettabyte File System would be in Leopard. Instead, Leopard would use Apple's current hierarchical file system, called HFS+. The Apple file system was first introduced in 1998 in Mac OS 8.0.

Perhaps overcome with excitement (and forgetting that Apple doesn't like such pre-emptive disclosures), Sun's Jonathan Schwartz announced today at Sun event in D.C. that Apple would be making ZFS 'the file system' in OSX 10.5 Leopard. "In fact, this week you'll see that Apple is announcing at their Worldwide Developer Conference that ZFS has become the file system in Mac OS X."

The first alpha release of the native version of OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X (no X11 needed) has been released. "This is an alpha test version so that developers and users can find out what works and not, and make comments on how to improve it. There are a number of things that do not work in this version."

Tired of waiting for Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard'? Make the wait easier with tools that add power, pizazz and some Leopard-like features to OS X 10.4 'Tiger' in this 4-page article at ComputerWorld.

"With the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard pushed back to October, Apple has bought itself more time to tie loose ends in the current Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger operating system and will put forth those fixes via its first 'dot ten' software update in quite some time, AppleInsider has learned. According to those people familiar with the matter, the first pre-release builds of Mac OS X 10.4.10 began making the rounds in Cupertino earlier this month."

"Since its introduction iChat has become the de facto Instant Messaging client on Mac OS X, allowing users to communicate using text, audio, and even video chat. The new version of iChat in Leopard opens up these capabilities to other applications on the system, allowing those applications to provide content through an iChat session." My take: Now, if Apple would implement support for MSN and other protocols for those of us (especially in Europe) who do not use AIM/ICQ, this could be a whole lot more interesting.

Macaulay, a software engineer, was able to hack into a MacBook through a zero-day security hole in Apple's Safari browser. The computer was one of two offered as a prize in the 'PWN to Own' hack-a-Mac contest at the CanSecWest conference. The successful attack on the second and final day of the contest required a conference organizer to surf to a malicious Web site using Safari on the MacBook - a type of attack familiar to Windows users.

An enhancement to the Mac OS X operating system under development by Apple looks to pave the way for active desktop pictures, or desktop backgrounds that can include motion graphics and alter themselves based on user actions or the time of the day.

"In case you missed it, there's a virus for the iPod. Yep, that's right, your MP3 player is a veritable hotbed of virus activity - but only if you're running the iPod Linux distribution, and only if you take great pains to make the virus function, since it doesn't really work. We can argue about whether or not this code actually constitutes a virus, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. The point here is that if it has a CPU, hackers will try to break it, and virus writers will try to write a virus for it. Given that there are probably only a few hundred - maybe a thousand - iPods running Linux out there, the fact that someone took the time to write this virus, or malicious code is an example of why Apple detractors clamoring that Macs aren't a target due to the lower market share are all wet."

"Sunrise Browser is an open source Web browser for Mac OS X intended for use as a Web developer's tool. It is not a groundbreaking achievement in that regard, but it is worth checking out due to its innovative and often unusual user interface choices."

Apple Inc. has developed an enhancement to its Mac OS X Finder user interface that will allow for different-sized icons within the same window as a means of representing their importance, a recent patent application has revealed.

"There have been a lot of rumors lately from 'unconfirmed' sources about Leopard's expected ship date. For a while, everyone was sure it was going to ship mid-to-late March. Then mysteriously, the ship date (according to these anonymous sources) got shifted to mid-April - perhaps because we are already in late March. Oops. Developers who work closely with Apple have been dying to tell the world how very, very wrong we all are. We have always maintained an air of skepticism regarding the early release speculations, but confirmation of these suspicions have been bombarding us lately. Our sources have told Ars that there is very little chance ('and that would be pushing it') for Leopard to ship in late April - that is, if Apple wants to ship with a halfway stable operating system."

"One thing that I've been playing with off and on for some time is a small efficient little solution for handling basic Bluetooth proximity detection, specifically for being able to perform certain actions when a cell phone or other Bluetooth device is in range of my Powerbook." More here.