macOS Archive

Apple Guru Combats Month of Bugs

Thom Holwerda 2007-01-03 macOS 32 Comments

An attempt is being made to quickly patch flaws in Apple software that are announced by vulnerability researchers Kevin Finisterre and LMH this month. The researchers' 'Month of Apple Bugs' project, launched on Monday, promises to feature a new Apple software bug for each day in January. However, a senior open-source developer with extensive experience working for Apple says he is attempting to offer fixes for each flaw found.

Submitted by odnomzagi 2007-01-02 macOS 70 Comments

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.

The Mac OS X Font Managers Review

Thom Holwerda 2006-12-28 macOS 16 Comments

"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."

Submitted by Hakime 2006-12-22 macOS 26 Comments

More evidence: "Mac OS X Leopard (Build 9a321) features support for ZFS. The rumors were true, you can create disk images with a ZFS filesystem, well at least in theory, because Build 9a321 is far away from being stable. The DiskUtility itself crashes again and again. Trying to create an actual ZFS image produces kernel panics. There is no pool support to create stripes, mirrors or even RaidZ in DiskUtility yet. It seems that all the other rumor sites stopped right there, which is why we had to set up this website to show you how well ZFS is already implemented. We show you what works and what doesn't. After reading you will know what the deal is, with ZFS and the upcoming Mac OS."

IndieHIG Aims to Update Apple’s HIG

Submitted by bababooie 2006-12-22 macOS 29 Comments

"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.

New Leopard Screenshots

Submitted by Arcenius 2006-12-20 macOS 25 Comments

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.

Man Boots Mac OS X on Asus UMPC, Shoots Video

Thom Holwerda 2006-12-19 macOS 34 Comments

Apple's Mac OS X has been successfully used to boot up an Asus R2H ultra-mobile PC, which runs the operating system slowly but surely. To minimise claims that all the still photography is faked, the start-up process has been captured on video.

Screenshot: ZFS in Leopard

Submitted by Hakime 2006-12-16 macOS 96 Comments

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.

15 Things Apple Should Change in Mac OS X

Eugenia Loli 2006-12-15 macOS 65 Comments

"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 Offers Developers New Build of Leopard

Thom Holwerda 2006-12-13 macOS 14 Comments

Apple on Tuesday evening released to developers a new pre-release build of its Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system, AppleInsider has learned. The new distribution, labeled Mac OS X 10.5 build 9A321, includes only minor changes and enhancements from build 9A303, which was released last month. Instant update: Apparently, this new build features iChat with an answering machine.

Aqua To Be Replaced with Illuminous?

Thom Holwerda 2006-12-11 macOS 66 Comments

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 Seeds Leopard 9A326 Internally

Eugenia Loli 2006-12-09 macOS 31 Comments

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.

Gartner: OS X More Appealing Than Desktop Linux

Thom Holwerda 2006-12-08 macOS 103 Comments

OS X is more appealing to enterprises as a desktop operating system than ever before and although it is unlikely to take market share away from Windows, the Mac could reduce the number of Linux-based desktops, according to research group Gartner. In a report published by Gartner this week titled Enterprise Mac Clients Remain Limited, but Apple's Appeal is Growing, analysts Michael Silver, Neil MacDonald, Ray Wagner and Brian Prentice, said that administrators will most likely have to prepare for more Mac systems in their environment even though OS X is "not a suitable enterprise wide platform". Ars weighs in on the issue as well.

Leopard’s Application Technologies Overview

Eugenia Loli 2006-12-08 macOS 6 Comments

The third installment in the Leopard Technology Series for Developers provides an overview of Leopard's application technologies: Time Machine, iChat Theater, the Instant Message Framework, the Calendar Store, the Ruby and Python Cocoa bridges, the new Scripting Bridge, Core Animation and 64-bit GUIs.

Submitted by Ralf. 2006-12-07 macOS 33 Comments

"Recently, I had a chance to sit down with a few folks from Apple who gave me a guided tour of Apple's upcoming server operating system, which is slated for release sometime in the spring of 2007. Mac OS X Server 10.5, or Leopard, will be the seventh release of the server operating system since 2000 and the second version to run natively on Intel processors."

Apple Reiterates: No Interest in Virtualization for Leopard

Thom Holwerda 2006-12-03 macOS 10 Comments

Speaking to an analyst this month, executives for Apple Computer maintained that the company has no plans to incorporate virtualization technology into the final version of its Boot Camp software that will ship as part of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard next spring. "Apple indicated that it is very pleased with Parallels software and didn't feel the need to compete with its own version of embedded virtualization," Bear Stearns analyst Andy Neff wrote in a research note to clients this week.

Parallels Desktop for Mac Build 3036 Beta Released

Submitted by Mac 2006-12-02 macOS 57 Comments

Parallels has released a new beta of its virtualisation product for Mac OS X. This new release includes one major new feature, something Parallels calls Coherency: "Shows Windows applications as if they were Mac ones. Try it and enjoy best of both worlds truly at the same time. No more switching between Windows to Mac OS." Screenshot.

Using the ImageIO Framework with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

Submitted by Hakime 2006-11-30 macOS 6 Comments

"The ImageIO framework, introduced in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, allows applications to read and write popular image file formats. ImageIO works in conjunction with Quartz and is designed for maximum performance, convienient metadata access, and color management. As the definitive way to access image data on Mac OS X, you should consider using ImageIO in your application as a high-performance substitute for Image Importers or other image handling libraries. This article gets you started working with ImageIO, shows how to read and write data to and from Quartz, and points to some of the capabilities in working with Core Image that you can explore further on your own."

Apple Patches 22 Security Holes in Mac OS X

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-29 macOS 85 Comments

A new security update released by Apple on Tuesday patches several exploits recently discovered in its Mac OS X operating system, including one widely publicized issue with its disk image software. Of the twenty two vulnerabilities fixed by the updated - which is labeled Security Update 2006-007 - twelve are related to flaws that could lead to arbitrary code execution.

Submitted by hamster 2006-11-24 macOS 23 Comments

On Thursday, antivirus firm F-Secure published a brief analysis of a proof-of-concept adware program for the Mac OS X that could theoretically hook into any application to run attacker-specified code. The program, dubbed IAdware by F-Secure, could be silently installed in a user's account without requiring administrator rights. "We won't disclose the exact technique used here - it's a feature not a bug - but let's just say that installing a System Library shouldn't be allowed without prompting the user," stated F-Secure in the blog post. "Especially as it only requires copy permissions." My take: I'd say, hand over the code, then we'll talk.