Apple set to begin testing of Mac OS X 10.5.1 Leopard, more...

[AppleInsider]

Mac maker Apple Inc. is moving quickly to squash bugs in the inaugural release of its Mac OS X Leopard operating system. Meanwhile, O2 is bulking up on staff ahead of Friday's iPhone launch in the UK. And the presence of Intel Macs on the web out-shined those of PowerPC Macs for the first time in October.

Mac OS X 10.5.1 Update

Internally, Apple has begun passing around the first pre-release builds of Mac OS X 10.5.1 Update and plans to begin widespread testing of the software as early as this week, people familiar with the matter tell AppleInsider.

The maintenance and security update will tie loose ends left in the shipping version of Leopard and also aim to address several issues experienced by early adopters -- many of which can be found peppered throughout Apple's own Leopard support forums.

O2 boosts staff levels in prep for iPhone launch

Meanwhile, the UK's exclusive iPhone carrier is adding about 1,400 customer service agents to ready itself for the surge of customers for the Apple handset on Friday, the company told the Independent.

Half of the new recruits will fill roles in the wireless provider's Glasgow and Leeds offices, while the remainder will be in place at retail stores across the country. Just 200 of the new staff will be answering support calls, says O2's subscription services head John McGuigan.

The British firm expects as many as 200,000 iPhones to be sold over the holidays, prompting the surge in the workforce.

Intel surpasses PowerPC in web stats report for first time

Web research firm NetApplications notes that its October 2007 study is the first in the company's history to report a greater number of Intel Mac users than their PowerPC counterparts, with the newer platform accounting for 3.41 percent of all visitors to over 40,000 sites while the older systems represented 3.14 percent.

The 6.55 percent total is a slight dip from the 6.61 percent in September but represented a major shift towards the Intel platform.

About 5 percent of all users were running Safari while accessing the sites, indicating that most Mac users are not using Firefox or other alternate browsers.

EVE Online gains Mac, Linux support

EVE Online, CCP Games' highly popular player-driven persistent-world massively multiplayer online game, will be coming to the Mac on Tuesday (Tomorrow) as part of its Revelations 2.3 patch.

The software update will contain a number of fixes, but most importantly containsformal support for Mac OS X and Linux."



The Mac version of EVE Online has been developed by Transgaming using Cider, a translation layer that 'wraps' around Windows based games so that they run on Intel based Macs.
Access to the beta of EVE Online for Mac is currently available on CCP's test server 'Multiplicity' ahead of Tuesday's release.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[josa92]

"About 5 percent of all users were running Safari while accessing the sites, indicating that most Mac users are not using Firefox or other alternate browsers. "

I don't know about anyone else, but Firefox runs horridly slow on my MacBook... I prefer Safari more anyway. But this is off-topic, and i apologize for any grief this has caused anyone.

[Kolchak]

Have .1 releases historically come this quickly? I can't remember how fast 10.4.1 came out. This is so fast that I think I'll wait for 10.5.2 for the real improvements instead of just bug fixes.

[aplnub]

.Mac syncing with iCal has been a pain.

Maybe they FTFFW (fire wall).

10.5.1 will be a welcome sight. I imagine it won't get much better until .5 when they have the problems behind them and they can add that one thing that us Mac users will cling to as the holy grail for 10.5.

Also, I think Tiger was released on April 29 and 10.4.1 came out on May 16th.

[Dr. X]

To AppleInsider Staff, you left out a word in the short description.

The first line should say: Mac maker Apple Inc. is moving quickly to squash bugs in the inaugural release of its Mac OS X Leopard operating system.

[ThinkExpensive]

Originally Posted by josa92

"About 5 percent of all users were running Safari while accessing the sites, indicating that most Mac users are not using Firefox or other alternate browsers. "

I don't know about anyone else, but Firefox runs horridly slow on my MacBook... I prefer Safari more anyway. But this is off-topic, and i apologize for any grief this has caused anyone.

I agree. Firefox used to be faster for me on the old PPC machines...don't know if there's a correlation there, but now I use Safari all the time. Firefox is noticeably slower.

[smee]

Originally Posted by josa92

I don't know about anyone else, but Firefox runs horridly slow on my MacBook... I prefer Safari more anyway. But this is off-topic, and i apologize for any grief this has caused anyone.

I've tried Firefox on my mac, and it runs sluggishly slow, I can't stand it.
Safari is da bomb!

Can't wait for 10.5.1

[bsenka]

I don't believe the Intel vs. PPC story for a second. There is no way in hell that Intel Mac use is even half that of PPC yet.

[CoreyMac]

everyones saying how zippy leopard is. Once its loaded up it runs well....but I think startup is slower than Tiger was. Is it just me?

[EagerDragon]

Really looking forward to 10.5.1, I hope the stupid TM problem with backup of 2nd Mac over the network. Airport disk would also be nice, but shared drive is more important.

Fingers crossed

[aplnub]

Originally Posted by CoreyMac

everyones saying how zippy leopard is. Once its loaded up it runs well....but I think startup is slower than Tiger was. Is it just me?

Hard to say since I didn't time them but I thought 10.4.10 was a little sluggish on the start. My computer restarts faster and more reliably than Tiger did for sure. I think the SyncAgent and mounted disks' caused a lot of problems when rebooting in Tiger.

Maybe that is just me. But I feel Leopard is as fast if not faster.

[EagerDragon]

Originally Posted by CoreyMac

everyones saying how zippy leopard is. Once its loaded up it runs well....but I think startup is slower than Tiger was. Is it just me?

Feels about the same. May want to use sleep instead of rebooting all the time, a lot faster than reboot in either OS.

[backtomac]

Originally Posted by bsenka

I don't believe the Intel vs. PPC story for a second. There is no way in hell that Intel Mac use is even half that of PPC yet.

I believe it. I rarely see ppc portables out in the wild(airports and coffee shops, ect). Almost all are intel Macbooks. See an occasional powerbook, but I even see more MBPs than powerbooks.

[ecking]

I too use safari mostly, firefox is retardedly slow.

[Delfoniq]

Originally Posted by CoreyMac

everyones saying how zippy leopard is. Once its loaded up it runs well....but I think startup is slower than Tiger was. Is it just me?

Same here, IMHO starting up Tiger felt much faster. Leopard feels OK after its loaded up though. As far as the 10.5.1 update goes, wouldn't expect anything else from Apple. Prompt releases of 10.5.1 (and 10.4.11) would attract even more people that are still waiting for SP1 from Microsoft to switch to Mac OS X.

[Bonsai1214]

to be completely honest, i haven't had any problems at all with leopard thus far. but yeah, the bootup process was a lot faster with tiger. i could press the power button on my MB and get up stretch my back, sit down and it'll be at finder.

now i can go get a cup of water, scratch my butt, crack my back, sit back down and it'll still be at the default aurora background..

[NarutoSasuke]

I'm interested in knowing what type of machine you guys are running Leopard on? What about the amount of RAM? That's weird that it's slow, I don't have any of those problems, yet again I don't restart or boot Leopard up often. I usually just put my MacBook Pro to sleep.

[VL-Tone]

There's one thing that I hope that they'll "fix" soon, maybe not in 10.5.1 but hopefully before 10.6.

While Spotlight in 10.5 is much quicker and more powerful thanks to the boolean operators and other new features, there's a big problem in the result windows: you only get the "name", "kind" and "last opened" columns, and there's no way to change that! I assume that they simply didn't have the time to add that functionality before shipping the big cat, but I sure hope that they plan on adding it.

This is really the only thing that bothers me in Leopard, I'm loving everything else.

[wraithofwonder]

Originally Posted by josa92

"About 5 percent of all users were running Safari while accessing the sites, indicating that most Mac users are not using Firefox or other alternate browsers. "

I don't know about anyone else, but Firefox runs horridly slow on my MacBook... I prefer Safari more anyway. But this is off-topic, and i apologize for any grief this has caused anyone.

How much RAM does you MacBook have? I use/love Firefox on mine. Are you using the latest? Safari is the one Apple product that I'm sort of indifferent on.

[wraithofwonder]

Originally Posted by bsenka

I don't believe the Intel vs. PPC story for a second. There is no way in hell that Intel Mac use is even half that of PPC yet.

It is not only that Intel Macs have been selling at an insane rate, but also you may be forgetting the age of most PPC machines and whether or not any of those machines would actually be visiting "modern" sites.

So one, there are probably considerably more Intel Macs than you are imagining and two, those with the newer machines are the most likely to be online visiting the most modern or popular sites while those with older machines may be killed by something as simple as flash, not even have broadband or simply don't go online as often.

I believe the report 100%.

[slicedbread]

Originally Posted by bsenka

I don't believe the Intel vs. PPC story for a second. There is no way in hell that Intel Mac use is even half that of PPC yet.

Why do you say that? In my household, for example, we had two PPC Macs, and now we have two Intel Macs. (We still have the PPC Macs, but we hardly ever use them anymore.)

Also, at the business where I am currently doing a consulting job, senior management has just replaced all their PPC Mac laptops with Intel Mac laptops...

I don't have the exact Intel Mac sales figures, but sales since the transition have been great (record numbers of Macs sold each quarter), so it wouldn't surprise me if Intel Macs really were overtaking PPC Macs on the 'net.

[Bonsai1214]

macbook intel 2.16ghz, 2gb ram

[ascii]

Yay for 10.5.1. Please put the firewall back in Sharing where it belongs.

[Charel]

I do hope they fix the DVD Player in Leopard soon.
It blocks and refuses to play disks properly. It cannot find the subtitles to show, and when you try to open features the pulldown window blocks with a turning fire ball and leaves you no option but to pull the plug and start from scratch.
I wonder if it is my problem or Apple's.

[Walter Slocombe]

Originally Posted by Kolchak

Have .1 releases historically come this quickly? I can't remember how fast 10.4.1 came out. This is so fast that I think I'll wait for 10.5.2 for the real improvements instead of just bug fixes.

Get it out quickly now and work on 10.5.2 for macworld ?? maybe ?? BOOM etc.

[solipsism]

"About 5 percent of all users were running Safari while accessing the sites, indicating that most Mac users are not using Firefox or other alternate browsers."

The above line is whack. Shouldn't it say, "About 5 percent of all users were not running Safari..."

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by CoreyMac

everyones saying how zippy leopard is. Once its loaded up it runs well....but I think startup is slower than Tiger was. Is it just me?

Maybe most people don't start up that often?

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by Bonsai1214

to be completely honest, i haven't had any problems at all with leopard thus far. but yeah, the bootup process was a lot faster with tiger. i could press the power button on my MB and get up stretch my back, sit down and it'll be at finder.

now i can go get a cup of water, scratch my butt, crack my back, sit back down and it'll still be at the default aurora background..

I shaved about 2 seconds off my boot time with Leopard, but my keychain is still broken (which didn't happen while using the developer builds). It's quite annoying and makes me want to go back to the latest developer build.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by bsenka

I don't believe the Intel vs. PPC story for a second. There is no way in hell that Intel Mac use is even half that of PPC yet.

Why? Apple has grown considerably, getting 2.5M Intel units out in the last quarter when Apple was sometimes lucky to push out 1M PPC units out in a quarter.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by josa92

"About 5 percent of all users were running Safari while accessing the sites, indicating that most Mac users are not using Firefox or other alternate browsers. "

I don't know about anyone else, but Firefox runs horridly slow on my MacBook... I prefer Safari more anyway. But this is off-topic, and i apologize for any grief this has caused anyone.

I haven't had any slowness problems, but 2.0.0.8 and newer seem to have a caching problem. After about two day's use, the program needs to be terminated and restarted to work again.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by solipsism

"About 5 percent of all users were running Safari while accessing the sites, indicating that most Mac users are not using Firefox or other alternate browsers."

The above line is whack. Shouldn't it say, "About 5 percent of all users were not running Safari..."

I don't think "all users" means "all Mac users" but rather, "all Web users".

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

I don't think "all users" means "all Mac users" but rather, "all Web users".

Thank you. That does make more sense.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by solipsism

Thank you. That does make more sense.

I wonder if it does. I just realized that the statement doesn't consider the Windows users are running Safari, but maybe they are negligible in numbers.

[Able-X]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

I wonder if it does. I just realized that the statement doesn't consider the Windows users are running Safari, but maybe they are negligible in numbers.

I'd love to use Safari on my work laptop if it's performance can catch up to the mac version. As it is now, it's horribly unstable, very slow, and VERY buggy. Needs ALOT of work still to be fully useable.

[kaiwai]

Originally Posted by ThinkExpensive

I agree. Firefox used to be faster for me on the old PPC machines...don't know if there's a correlation there, but now I use Safari all the time. Firefox is noticeably slower.

When I had my 4 different PowerPC machines, it ran crap on all of them. On Tiger (on Intel) I ran Camino 1.5.x, and it was awesome, 1.5.3 has come a long way since I last ran it (recent Mac -> Windows -> Mac person, last time I used it was 0.9.x days).

Mind you, Safari 3.x has basically improved in all the areas where I had problems, Blogger/Gmail are now supported properly, I no longer need Camino.

[kaiwai]

Originally Posted by backtomac

I believe it. I rarely see ppc portables out in the wild(airports and coffee shops, ect). Almost all are intel Macbooks. See an occasional powerbook, but I even see more MBPs than powerbooks.

True. I still see the occasional PowerBook, Trademe is chocked to the brim with people trying to off load their old iBooks and PowerBooks. I'm tempted to purchase an PowerBook for my brother, who is a university student (like me) for his Christmas present. Pick up a pretty decent one these days for around NZ$300-NZ$400

[Lemon Bon Bon.]

Great to have Eve ONline for teh Mac.

A game born for the Mac. I hope Cryptic use the Cider engine to port City of Heroes as well.

Not that I can't use Boot Camp...but a native version is nice...

Lemon Bon Bon.

[mcarling]

Originally Posted by Walter Slocombe

Get it out quickly now and work on 10.5.2 for macworld ??

I would be very surprised not to see 10.5.2 by MWSF. I expect 10.5.2 to provide support for any new hardware announced at MWSF. 10.5.1 will probably be limited to the most urgent and easy to verify fixes with a release by the end of November.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by aplnub

.Mac syncing with iCal has been a pain.

I don't know about .Mac as I've not got it but they've finally reconnected the sync menu bar icon with iSync again like it used to work in 10.3. Perfect syncing with my two phones (SE T610 and SE P910i) again without having to find iSync first.

[marcfiszman]

New Spaces preference in 10.5.1: Metaview
http://odelbee.com/2007/11/06/new-sp...1051-metaview/