macOS Archive

"Apple's BSD-based MacOS X 10.3 Panther offers 64-bit processor support and new features wrapped in the latest version of a GUI that has its roots in the NeXT desktop. While Panther sets a new standard for ease of use and interface look and feel, it still lacks features that Linux users have long enjoyed." Read the article at NewsForge by C. Gulker. Update: SunSpot has a review too: "One more cool cat".

MacSlash reports that when a file is accessed on Panther, a check is made to see if it is fragmented. If so, and if it is less than 20 MB in size, the filesystem will copy the file over to a contiguous area on the HD that will hold the file in it's entirety in concurrent sectors, and then free up the HD space the fragmented version used to occupy. There are cases though, where a third party defrag utility will be required for best results.

The latest OS X upgrade isn't a huge improvement, but it's faster and loaded with small enhancements that'll make your Mac purr, says BusinessWeek. In the meantime, Internet security company @Stake has warned of newly discovered vulnerabilities affecting Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system. UPDATE: Apple Computer's latest version of its Mac OS X operating system, Panther (fourth release in 2.5 years), patches security flaws that affect previous versions of the operating system, leaving security experts wondering if users will have to pay the $129 upgrade fee to be secure.

Despite the company's deep connections to Apple, Pixar Animation Studios only completed moving its computer infrastructure to Mac OS X eight months ago. More on the O'Reilly Conference at MacSlash.

Just a few days after the report that Mandrake 9.2 can fry some LG cdroms (workaround has being issued in the Linux kernel in the meantime), now users complain that Mac OS X Panther renders unusable/fried firewire hard drives, mostly some LaCie models and models that are both USB and FW. In the meantime, MacSlash has posted a collection of bugs found on Panther here and here, while backwards compatibility with Jaguar seems to not be great either. Hopefully 10.3.1 is not too far away!

Here is a review of Mac OS X Panther 10.3, the new offering by Apple, only a few days after its release.

O'Reilly posted four interesting Mac dev articles on MacDevCenter: "Ten Things I Dig About Xcode", "Creating Easy-to-Deploy Unix Applications for OS X", "Start Me Up: Writing and Understanding OS X StartupItems" and "Programming REALbasic, Part 1: Syntax of the Language".

Panther will be released tonight and people already started the queues outside the Apple Stores in US. OSNews will be present tonight at Palo Alto's store reporting, as we did last year. Many sites online present Panther today: "A Developer's Look at Panther", "Xcode: The future of Mac development tools", "Take a Peek at Panther: See what Apple's latest OS can do for you", "New OS to go on sale tonight; fourth upgrade in 2.5 years", "Panther Server: 'Open source made easy'", "Panther: A look at the new Mac OS", while XvsXP has being updated shooting out WinXP and OSX. Update: Two more: "Apple Panther Aims at Enterprise Compatibility" and "Apple's Panther OS: Is This the One?"

I was able to try out and preview Mac OS X Panther 10.3 for the past few months after WWDC and for the last few days I am running a latest version. So, what to expect from Mac OS X when it comes out on the evening of October 24th? Come in and have a look in this preview article. Update: screenshots removed at request of Apple.

After years of backing only one format in the recordable DVD format war, Apple Computer is adding limited support of a rival format into its operating system.

Apple has posted a countdown timer on its web site to a release date of October 24, 8pm.

Apple yesterday seeded a new build of the Mac OS X 10.2.8 update, providing build 6R73 to developers. "This build addresses some issues found in the last seed," Apple told testers. 10.2.8 was released last month but was pulled quickly due to some problems it introduced to some users. Update: The new build is now available via Software Update.

It seems that the release of Panther is not far away. The latest seeded build does not have the Pre-Release status in the About box. Additionally, Apple looks poised to refresh its famous logo.

BlogD features a preview article of the upcoming Mac OS X Panther 10.3. Elsewhere, PathFinder 3.0 was released. PathFinder is a very interesting and innovative alternative to OSX Finder file manager.