macOS Archive

Apple is distributing a new pre-release version of its next-generation server operating system software that packs significant boosts to flexibility and stability, but also carries enough problems to put off any expectations of a near-term release. Testers experienced with this latest version said that its changes are more substantial than those of its mainstream sibling and revolve around substantial reworkings of the workgroup import process and Server Admin utilities, amongst other enhancements.

Apple seeded developers with a new build of Mac OS X Leopard Thursday night, the first in more than a month. Leopard 9A343 is 22 builds newer than the previous seed, 9A321, and marks the 102nd build since Apple first distributed seeds of Leopard to developers at its Worldwide Developers Conference in August last year.

Some more information about the Apple iPhone is keep hitting the web: the ARM CPU is apparently made by Samsung, applications will only be developed by third party companies that have a license agreement with Apple and make sure they follow specific guidelines (and possibly the apps will only be available by iTunes) while other sources say that the iPhone indeed runs a modified version of Darwin with a few OSX components (incorrectly reported by Slashdot today that it's not). Desktop OSX apps won't run on the iPhone of course. David Pogue also has two FAQs on the product (1,2).

Amit Singh has just announced that Google is releasing MacFUSE, a FUSE compliant file system implementation mechanism for Mac OS X, which makes a plethora of file systems already working on Linux easily available to Mac OS X users as well. Some of the tested file systems include full read-write NTFS by NTFS-3G, transparent encryptions by CryptoFS and EncFS, SSHFS, GmailFS, and more.

The Mac Macintosh Business Unit announced its intent to deliver the first Universal version of Office for Mac for PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs - Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac. Scheduled to be available in the second half of 2007, Office 2008 for Mac will allow Mac users to work smarter and more efficiently with new and enhanced tools that are simple, intuitive and easily discovered.

"TUAW talks about the growing swell of upcoming apps which will use Leopard APIs, and therefore, will require Leopard to run. I'm sure some users are wondering why developers are doing this, and some developers are wondering if they should do the same. Many early adopter end-users are planning to upgrade to Leopard regardless, but some might want to wait for various reasons. From the casual observer's perspective, the obvious thing to do is support older versions of Mac OS X in order to have access to a larger market. In a sense, that's true. But there's more to the story."

The first Apple bug (Apple Quicktime rtsp URL Handler Stack-based Buffer Overflow) of Month Of Apple Bugs has been unveiled - as promised - by LMH and Kevin Finisterre. This bug is the first in a month long series.

"Well, it was a long time coming, but I've been through the trenches and come up, sucking chest wound and all, with the Ars review of font management programs. I've also succeeded in not completely losing my mind while the developers updated the apps, nullifying half my criticisms in the process. Giving a lot of time to these programs in a production setting is crucial to seeing how they perform on a daily basis, and I am confident I've thrown enough varied scenarios at each to find out where they succeed and fail."

"The IndieHIG Wiki is a place where developers and UI designers can come together to create a new set of Human Interface Guidelines to supplement Apple's guidelines. Apple has neglected to update their HIG with modern UI designs and controls, so developers have been forced to replicate these UI elements on their own to keep their applications from looking dated. Since each developer has slightly different implementations of these elements, it has resulted in a fairly inconsistent look and feel for Mac OS users." Meanwhile, for the first time in over three months, Apple is asking its developer community to begin testing and providing feedback on a forthcoming update to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

Not too long ago Apple released a new build of Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard, to select testers. AeroXP now has some screenshots of this new build. They report, for one thing, that even though it is available, ZFS is not actually working in this build. Update: ThinkSecret has more screenshots and an overview.

A French user has discovered that ZFS is now 'officially' supported in Leopard , while testing the latest build of Apple's upcoming operating system. Indeed it is now possible to create disk images or partitions formated in ZFS (screen capture included). However, it seems that it is not possible yet to install the OS on a ZFS partition.

"There are probably a lot of features and functions that Apple could -- and probably will -- add to OS X. But we're not pointing out missing features; we're focusing on 15 of the little things already in OS X that need refinement or rethinking based on our everyday use of Macs." More here.

Apple website Apple Gazette is reporting rumouring that Leopard will come with an all-new interface, supposedly with lots of black glossy things (similar to Vista, indeed): "Apple Gazette has received a tip from an apple insider that the Mac OS Aqua User Interface will be replaced with a new UI named Illuminous. The source goes on to say that we will see a demonstration of Illuminous at Macworld 2007." I have never heard of this website, so I cannot make an assessment of its reliability, but suffices to say that it is highly debatable. Interesting nonetheless. Update: More info.

Apple yesterday seeded a new version of Leopard (build 9A326) to internal Apple employees. Apple continues to gloss over the interface, refining it even more and there is an overly presence of black gloss. Among the new features, Safari 3 has the ability to view videocasts and listen to podcasts in browser while TextEdit can now export and open new Word 2007 documents.