Mac OS X 10.5.2 to deliver sprawling list of fixes for Leopard

[AppleInsider]

Mac OS X 10.5.2 Update, the next in a year-long series of planned updates to Apple's new Leopard operating system, promises to be one of the most hefty maintenance releases put out by the company for its operating system software in recent years.

According to people familiar with the matter, Tuesday evening gave way to the first test builds of the software update for developers, including a 354MB bare-bones delta build and a 362MB combo updater -- both of which were labeled Mac OS X 10.5.2 build 9C7.

The Cupertino-based Mac maker reportedly asked those developers to focus their testing efforts on an expansive list of components running some 37 items long. Among them were Data Detectors, the Mac OS X Dock, the Finder, grammar checking, iCal, iChat, Mail, Parental Controls, Quick Look, Rosetta, Safari, Time Machine, and Leopard's 802.11 AirPort implementation (which has troubled some MacBook users.)

Meanwhile, the list of fixes and Leopard code corrections already baked into the 10.5.2 release runs even larger at a whopping 76. In particular, Apple appears to have placed an extra emphasis on its implementation of CUPS (Common Unix Printing System), fixing several distinct issues with the modular printing system, such as problems with reverse order printing and print jobs that had been placed on hold. Fixes for AirPort shared printing were also implemented, according to those familiar with the software.

In addition, Apple continues to free its Rosetta PowerPC compatibility layer of memory leaks while also tying loose ends in the new version of its Mail client -- correcting anomalies with mail flags, the display of certain fonts in mail windows, and the way Mail data detectors interface with iCal.

Mac OS X 10.5.2 build 9C7 stands as just the first external distribution of the impending Leopard update, which is not expected for released to end users until early next year. Previous rumors had suggested the software could arrive alongside new hardware at next month's Macworld Expo, which kicks off January 15th.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[ascii]

Cool. I only hope one of the sprawling fixes is: "Took out 10.5 network stack and put 10.4 one back in."

[zanshin]

I wonder if all the people who said they wouldn't touch Leopard until v-dot-2 arrived will run out and get a copy when it lands?

[yama]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Among them were ... the Mac OS X Dock, the Finder, ...

God, I hope they give you the option of switching off Stacks and make the Finder remember icon settings without having to manually edit every window.

[aross99]

Could we please get Time machine over AirDisk back?

...and how about some new Airport Extreme firmware to correct the issue with the AirDisk being disabled if it is mounted when you put your comptuer to sleep.

...and adding (back) an option for browsing nested folders from the dock would be fantastic.

[Cubert]

I want some more new features. How could Apple miss out and not make a Spaces for Dashboard. The analogy is staring them right in the face! It would be awesome if I could have 4 Dashboard spaces.

Come on!

[brianus]

*sigh*. So they're not going to fix what they broke in Front Row 2.0 at all, huh?

[skottichan]

Originally Posted by brianus

*sigh*. So they're not going to fix what they broke in Front Row 2.0 at all, huh?

What's broke in Front Row? It works so much better now, well to me anyway.

[rdas7]

So I guess all those engineers pulled over to work on the iPhone are back at their day job, eh?

[rickag]

Originally Posted by zanshin

I wonder if all the people who said they wouldn't touch Leopard until v-dot-2 arrived will run out and get a copy when it lands?

Looks like I will be in this group and be buying the Family Pack.

[John French]

Originally Posted by brianus

*sigh*. So they're not going to fix what they broke in Front Row 2.0 at all, huh?

What did they break? It runs fine for me.

Agree with Cubert. Ok, so Apple have Expose, Deshboard, and Spaces. Hello....combine dashboard and spaces. Or at least give us the option to do so.

[stompy]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

developers to focus their testing efforts on an expansive list of components running some 37 items long. Among them were Data Detectors, the Mac OS X Dock, the Finder, grammar checking, iCal, iChat, Mail, Parental Controls, Quick Look, Rosetta, Safari, Time Machine, and Leopard's 802.11 AirPort implementation (which has troubled some MacBook users.)

I'll add my fix wishlist -- iChat screen sharing has worked exactly once out of about 100 tries.

Something (Parental Controls?) is trashing my internet connection, after my iMac has been on for a while, I suddenly can't load pages. Requesting Apple.com loads the page footer only.

[xander0985]

Originally Posted by skottichan

What's broke in Front Row? It works so much better now, well to me anyway.

While it generally works better, especially for streaming over a network, one thing in particular that doesn't work anymore is display of album art when using a remote source. I have a Mac Mini hooked up to the TV and if I go to Sources in Front Row and select my PowerBook, I get the library loaded and can browse without incident (which wasn't the case in 10.4), but it will not display ANY album art (iTS, ID3 tag—makes no difference).

[poo]

Originally Posted by skottichan

What's broke in Front Row? It works so much better now, well to me anyway.

What broke in Front Row for me is the "Resume Playing" or "Start From Beginning" choice for movies stored on an external drive that is aliased into the Movies directory. The only work around would be to alias every one of them individually! I often have to pause a movie to do something else and now cannot resume... I have to find where I was manually. This used to work fine.

[skottichan]

Originally Posted by poo

What broke in Front Row for me is the "Resume Playing" or "Start From Beginning" choice for movies stored on an external drive that is aliased into the Movies directory. The only work around would be to alias every one of them individually! I often have to pause a movie to do something else and now cannot resume... I have to find where I was manually. This used to work fine.

Odd, it worked fine for me out of the box.

[bdkennedy1]

And I hope they fix the missing artwork in Front Row when you use a shared iTunes library that me and another dozen people have complained about in the forums.

[Cedric]

I hope they fixed Spaces...
Every time I have something active in spaces, like an FTP uploading a website or any download app, in another space than the one I am working on I get a kernel alert... A friend of mine is experiencing the same...

[StuBeck]

Originally Posted by zanshin

I wonder if all the people who said they wouldn't touch Leopard until v-dot-2 arrived will run out and get a copy when it lands?

I know I probably won't. I only really had time to upgrade to Leopard over the next two weeks, but am having issues deciding what features I'll get from it. With this huge update coming as well, I want to see how well it works first. Looks like March may be upgrade time, but I may wait a bit longer.

[gbdoc]

Cool. But it kind of highlights how many things were broken to begin with. Not to mention the unnecessary newly-designed Leopard bells and whistles which are so much less a joy than Tiger was. My impression is that however much Leopard may be the technical advance it's touted as, someone at Apple isn't really looking after the store.

[crees!]

It would be nice if Mail was fixed so when you delete messages they delete; and when you read messages that when you switch between folders in mail that they don't reappear as unread or never been deleted. Plus there's no status when sending or receiving messages. Sent box is empty.. etc. This was on a MacbookPro and just upgrading. I have a PowerBook and ran a clean install and see none of these issues.

Anyone else having such Mail issues and have you found a way for a fix?

[Akac]

Originally Posted by gbdoc

Cool. But it kind of highlights how many things were broken to begin with. Not to mention the unnecessary newly-designed Leopard bells and whistles which are so much less a joy than Tiger was. My impression is that however much Leopard may be the technical advance it's touted as, someone at Apple isn't really looking after the store.

Not really. You could look at every Apple update from 10.4.x and see the same things. It doesn't mean its all broken to begin with.

[Dreil]

Front Row 2.0, on my grandparent's iMac, doesn't play music as assigned in iTunes, it just plays it locally on the computer instead of using AirTunes to play it over their house. Additionally, it stops playing once you quit it (as it looks like it now plays music directly and doesn't rely on iTunes to do it.

[crees!]

Originally Posted by Dreil

Front Row 2.0, on my grandparent's iMac, doesn't play music as assigned in iTunes, it just plays it locally on the computer instead of using AirTunes to play it over their house. Additionally, it stops playing once you quit it (as it looks like it now plays music directly and doesn't rely on iTunes to do it.

From what I've heard I think AirTunes support is currently not built into FR2.

[BWhaler]

76 bugs fixes?

For Leopard?

At this rate, it'll be 10.5.8 before Leopard is release quality.

I hope that at an absolute minimum the network and mail hanging problems are fixed. After those two, I hope that Apple is listing 76 bug fixes, but they have quietly fixed hundreds and hundreds of bugs.

Leopard is a train wreck right now, which is a shame because it's could have been a nice little upgrade.

[random bob, a.r.c.]

Originally Posted by skottichan

What's broke in Front Row? It works so much better now, well to me anyway.

Front row is supposed to allow me to control my media from my mac, esp. using my remote control.

...Except that I can't use Front Row to stream my music in iTunes to my Stereo....

...And I can't get around that by just using iTunes, because the remote does not operate on the iTunes volume control, but the system volume control...

So pretty much, if I want to use Front Row, ... well I can't. It's currently not feasible to use Front Row to control music properly through AirTunes. Not possible at all. I have a useless remote. I thought Front Row was supposed to EASE access to content. Sure as hell not doing that, as it makes it a lot harder to access it *properly* for me.

Ha. I know why they call it Front Row; you have to be sitting that close to make it work, so you can reach all the controls on your system....

[Flounder]

Originally Posted by crees!

From what I've heard I think AirTunes support is currently not built into FR2.

Yeah, it's not. It's incredibly annoying.

[jahaja]

so what about the UI!?? are they gonna make it consistant, or is it gonna be this ugly mix of different styles everywhere!?? as of now, it looks bad!

I'd love something more clear…*whiteish colour instead of this boring greyish metal.

[Dave Marsh]

I'd also like to see the automatic iDisk syncing setting hanging up Restarts/Shut Downs fixed. I'm currently having to leave my iDisk syncing set to manual to permit me to restart my new iMac. It's a work around, but not very satisfactory. Whenever I add/delete items to my iDisk, I have to manually click on the sync icon in a window to update .Mac.

[Sabon]

I'm wishing that each show would have their own folders if there are multiple episodes.

I also wish you could categorize movies by Genre.

I also wish that AppleTV had a DVD player built in. Yes I could buy the mini but then the price is a lot higher for what it is and I just can't justify it yet.

[MiMiC]

10.5 is quite bugging with hangs and stalls! I have both a G5 and Intel and both have these issues. Sometimes i just site and watch the pinwheel spin and spin. Even coming out of sleep on the Intel takes forever!!

I hope stability and speed are hot on the list

[markaceto]

I initially had difficulty upgrading to 10.5.0, so I tried archiving Tiger and installing Leo; then, ultimately I clean installed it with no trouble. Since then, it's been a far more stable experience than my upgrade to Tiger from Panther. And, as compared to the stable version of Tiger I used prior the install, it's really six of one... In fact, I'm surprised to hear that there are so many bugs to fix!

So, if any of you (especially PowerPC users) truly feel that Leo's a "train wreck" — and I don't mean because you're not happy with Spaces' features or GUI color choices — I recommend backing up your home folder and performing a clean install. The question then would become, now or when the 10.5.2 update's released (and tested)... which only you can answer.

Now, whatever happened to those rumors that Leo would add features to my iPhone? Or that there would be iPhone firmware updates that would add features? And you know all the features I'm referring to... Riddle me this: how come there are To-do's in Mail, a Mail calendar in iCal, and a To-do IMAP folder in my iPhone Mail app with To-do emails... but there aren't To-do's in my iPhone calendar app where they belong!

First Apple told us, no, you don't want Address Book, iCal, and Mail all bundled in the same app (a la Entourage), now they've confused robust with redundant. And the worst thing is that Palm — Palm, people — and The Missing Sync have gotten that one thing right for years. So, I'm forced to use a Web 2.0 app on AT&T's EDGE network... and we all know how well that works.

Thanks, I had to get that off my chest.

[buddha]

Originally Posted by BWhaler

76 bugs fixes?

For Leopard?

At this rate, it'll be 10.5.8 before Leopard is release quality.

I hope that at an absolute minimum the network and mail hanging problems are fixed. After those two, I hope that Apple is listing 76 bug fixes, but they have quietly fixed hundreds and hundreds of bugs.

Leopard is a train wreck right now, which is a shame because it's could have been a nice little upgrade.

can you even name 76 things that need to be fixed lol? thought so.

[rotelle]

Originally Posted by buddha

can you even name 76 things that need to be fixed lol? thought so.

Lot more than 76 items fixed, I hear. I'm also told that the whole Dock/Folders in Dock/Stacks mess now works like it should...

[dagamer34]

Safari crashes A LOT. Please fix!

[Shogun]

I just gotta say that I did a fresh install of Leopard on a PowerBook G4 (!) and Leopard has given me NONE of the issues you all mention above. No strange Mail experiences, no hang-ups, no problems AT ALL. For the record I use a Mac (iMac G5) all day at work and the PowerBook each morning and night.

So, I feel for you all, but as a pretty discerning person who doesn't put up with crap from anyone -- last of all from my computer OS -- I have to say that my Leopard experience has been flawless. Perhaps, as someone else suggested, you need to reinstall.

[Sabon]

Ok, I had one problem that that was Logitech's fault for using APE for their keyboard and mouse drivers. Once that was fixed, zero other problems.

My new mac is one of the white 24" iMacs. I imported my user accounts and programs from my 800mhz G4 iMac lamp. And when Leopard came out I did an archive and installed.

For me it has been great. Zero regrets about getting and installed Leopard. I love TimeMachine, I look QuickLook, I actually don't mind the new dock and the lights or whatever you call the things that show which apps are running. It's been great!

[MacTel]

I have a brand new MacBook and I did notice the keyboard issue, but they fixed that the other day.

So far I haven't noticed anything else hanging, but I actually haven't dug too deep yet.

I just transferred my iTunes content over. I'm not too impressed with FrontRow. Maybe it would be nice to have some special effects displaying when music plays. Shouldn't Core Animation handle that well so FrontRow can get that feature add?

FrontRow's remote navigation isn't quite right. Pressing the left or right side of the control wheel should take you up or down the hierarchy. Why do I have to do this with the menu and center button respectively?

iTunes seems a little buggy on Leopard. Getting album artwork was a bit of a chore.

[doh123]

I've been using Leopard since the day it was released. Did an upgrade on 2 Macbook Pros, and a Mac Pro. Have basically had no issues at all, everything has been great. There were a few 3rd party things that needed updates, but thats all taken care of and working great. As wonderful as Leopard has been, I just cant believe all these people yelling and screaming about problems.... half the time I think it must be Windows zealots trying to cause trouble by making things up.

[Jeremy Brown]

It would be good to have an option to allow the music to continue when you exist front row, as was the case with front row in Tiger.

Also, is it prudent to restore the dock to the standard configuration before upgrading to 10.5.2 (when it comes out)? I have swapped out the dock images (although I still have the originals backed up).

[Multimedia]

Originally Posted by Sabon

Ok, I had one problem that that was Logitech's fault for using APE for their keyboard and mouse drivers. Once that was fixed, zero other problems.

My new mac is one of the white 24" iMacs. I imported my user accounts and programs from my 800mhz G4 iMac lamp. And when Leopard came out I did an archive and installed.

For me it has been great. Zero regrets about getting and installed Leopard. I love TimeMachine, I look QuickLook, I actually don't mind the new dock and the lights or whatever you call the things that show which apps are running. It's been great!

What processor and speed white 24" iMac?

I too have not had any problems with Leopard after new installs on both a Quad G5 and a Quad 2.66 Mac Pro. But I did have bumps in the transition involving having to manually get mail and my address book over to Leopard. Only because I left my old 1.25GHz G4 PB on Tiger did I make the transition with less than a catastrophic loss of my address book and email.

The G5 install appeared to STALL and I shut it down probably sooner than I should have waited much longer. The Mac Pro install was remarkably FAST - less than 30 minutes with no problems at all.

But once past the beginning of the transition, Leopard seems more solid that Tiger ever was. I rarely experience any types of crashes that I did have with Tiger more frequently. I also just added a lot of RAM to both. Quad G5 now has 10GB (4x2+2x1) and the Mac Pro has 12GB (4x2+4x1).