Apple plants two more Mac OS X 10.5.3 seeds

[AppleInsider]

Apple over the past few days has provided its developer community with two more builds of its upcoming maintenance and security update for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Builds 9D19 and 9D20 of Mac OS X 10.5.3 arrived on Friday and Tuesday, respectively, according to people familiar with the ongoing evaluation process.

Both builds delivered a handful of new fixes, brining the total number of code corrections expected as part of the operating system update to approximately 150.

With Build 9D20, Apple is also reported to have relaxed the number of core focus areas from about two dozen to just 17.

Among them, and new to the latest builds, is a request that developers test the performance of Adobe Flash media play within the Safari web browser.

Mac OS X 10.5.3 is also rumored to include a fix for graphics issues that have plagued a number of Intel-based Macs, particularly the latest versions of the MacBook and MacBook Pro.

People familiar with the impending Leopard update say the latest build includes just two known issues. One has to do with the need to possibly reset VPN settings following installation, while the other simply notes that localization support of Mac OS X 10.5.3 has not yet been completed.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[shawnathan]

i have the newest 2.5ghz penryn MBP, watch video, do graphics editing all the time, haven't experienced a single glitch..

[mcarling]

I hope we see 10.5.3 soon. In my experience, 10.5.2 is not nearly as stable as 10.4.11.

[backtomac]

Originally Posted by mcarling

I hope we see 10.5.3 soon. In my experience, 10.5.2 is not nearly as stable as 10.4.11.

10.5.2 has been stable on my MBP 2.16 ghz C2D machine but I've noticed the spinning beach ball more often.

No crashes but just the beach ball opening some apps, switching between tabs in Safari and at start up.

I don't know if 10.5.3 will do anything about that or not.

[MacTel]

Originally Posted by backtomac

10.5.2 has been stable on my MBP 2.16 ghz C2D machine but I've noticed the spinning beach ball more often.

No crashes but just the beach ball opening some apps, switching between tabs in Safari and at start up.

I don't know if 10.5.3 will do anything about that or not.

I've just had Mail crash a few times on me when trying to attach from my downloads folder(bizzar I know). So I'm looking forward to any and all Mail fixes. A few value-adds would be good too.

[jabohn]

Let's hope this update also resolves standing issues with some Adobe CS3 programs, specifically InDesign which often refuses to hide and sometimes refuses to come out from hiding!

[riversky]

Safari 3.1 actually crashes quite a bit in 10.5.2 for me! It also freezes and I get the beach ball then it works but slower. Driving me nuts!

[Tailpipe]

Just thank the Lord that you're not using Vista. I had three crashes today on a Sony VAIO SZ5 and that was a good day.

[MartiNZ]

I really hope it fixes the graphics issues that cause Excel to lock up my whole machine (and many other people's), caused by the Leopard Graphics Update a month or two back. In the meantime it's hard to get work done without restarting into Vista, which has been rock solid and not had any issues, graphics or otherwise, in the month I've been using it.

I would also love to see the menu-bar respond correctly to switching apps, reliably, and the iTunes Dashboard widget to work at all for the first time in its history. Stacks could use some serious speeding up, especially in list view, which was way way faster even back in Puma.

On feature requests, sort options for icon view in open/save dialogs, and more for list view, and links properly highlighting and NOT highlighting in the sidebar of said. While they sound minor, those would be top of my list - I've given up on things like iCal for the moment.

Some fix for time zone remembering with using boot camp would be nice, or even just actually updating from the website as Leopard says it does, on startup - another thing that Vista manages every time.

This is the first time in six years using OS X that I actually need a point point update to fix things, and stop me thinking about restarting into Vista !

[hdasmith]

Originally Posted by backtomac

10.5.2 has been stable on my MBP 2.16 ghz C2D machine but I've noticed the spinning beach ball more often.

No crashes but just the beach ball opening some apps, switching between tabs in Safari and at start up.

I don't know if 10.5.3 will do anything about that or not.

My computer was acting very slowly, and wouldn't always shut-down. I bought an external HD, made good use of Time Machine, and did a complete wipe and install of Leopard. My old iMac G5 is running so beautifully! When I switch it on, it's now decided it takes too long to load the loading image on the blue background and can't be ar***. It now just goes from the grey start-up screen to a very brief blue screen and then straight to my desktop picture. I've never seen such a speed increase!

[i386]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Among them, and new to the latest builds, is a request that developers test the performance of Adobe Flash media play within the Safari web browser.

Because its a piece crap - Flash that is. Locks up Safari all the time, Firefox 3 Beta is a bit better but still Flash manages to beachball a perfectly good machine. Flex isn't 100% compatible yet either.

[fraklinc]

I bet the next patch will included a hidden patch to check for license Macs thow serial#s??? that Psystar, lol,dumb ass

[backtomac]

Originally Posted by hdasmith

My computer was acting very slowly, and wouldn't always shut-down. I bought an external HD, made good use of Time Machine, and did a complete wipe and install of Leopard. My old iMac G5 is running so beautifully! When I switch it on, it's now decided it takes too long to load the loading image on the blue background and can't be ar***. It now just goes from the grey start-up screen to a very brief blue screen and then straight to my desktop picture. I've never seen such a speed increase!

I did an archive and install from Tiger to Leopard. I waited until .1 before upgrading to Leopard.

Initially Leopard felt more responsive than Tiger. Now I'm not sure that's the case. Its just an impression but since 10.5.2 Leopard feels about the same as Tiger did before the upgrade.

YMMV.

[Rknight]

The few comments people have made about Safari, I completely agree with. There are times when I'll open a couple tabs at once and I'll get a beachball for 10-15 secs not allowing me to click anything.

Also I use FireVault on my MBP 2,2, and when you set a file association so a particular app will open a particular file format, the setting doesn't persist after logout or reboot. Apparently it's been a "known issue" but its been this way since .0 so I'm crossing my fingers for good 'ole .3

Except for that stuff, and a few other minor issues. I've been extremely pleased with Leopard as a whole.

If it doesn't fix things, I was thinking about a format and clean install once .3 came out anyway. That always help to clear up little oddities from time to time.

[Phlake]

Originally Posted by backtomac

I did an archive and install from Tiger to Leopard. I waited until .1 before upgrading to Leopard.

Initially Leopard felt more responsive than Tiger. Now I'm not sure that's the case. Its just an impression but since 10.5.2 Leopard feels about the same as Tiger did before the upgrade.

YMMV.

That seems to be fairly common. Many, myself included, saw a somewhat noticeable slowdown upgrading from .1 to .2.

[EagerDragon]

Cool, Open Mac brick-ing software will be out very soon, LOL.

[backtomac]

Originally Posted by Phlake

That seems to be fairly common. Many, myself included, saw a somewhat noticeable slowdown upgrading from .1 to .2.

I wondered if it was just me. Glad it wasn't.


Hopefully .3 will get me back to where I was with .1, which was quite speedy on my machine.

[netbanshee]

Originally Posted by backtomac

I wondered if it was just me. Glad it wasn't.

Hopefully .3 will get me back to where I was with .1, which was quite speedy on my machine.

I noted quite a speed increase and better stability after doing a clean install of 10.5.2, but it hasn't been as smooth as I had hoped.

I had originally updated Tiger but the dock was crashing quite a bit and there were problems restarting and shutting down. Safari, VLC and a few others were having problems too.

Seems like 10.5.3 will be a good outing, if current reports offer some indication.

[lkrupp]

Originally Posted by mcarling

I hope we see 10.5.3 soon. In my experience, 10.5.2 is not nearly as stable as 10.4.11.

My experience is the exact opposite. The difference in stability between 10.4.11 and 10.5.2 is astounding. I haven't had a single application crash on me since moving to Leopard. Under. 10.4.11 I had infrequent Mail and Safari crashes but crashes none the less. According to crashreporter logs the last thing to crash under 10.4.11 was Safari on March 17,2008, the day before I upgraded to Leopard and 10.5.2. That was a month ago. Not a single crash of ANYTHING since then under Leopard. Nothing, nada, zilch.

So I hope to see 10.5.3 too but not because I have problems. It can only get better.

[MartiNZ]

It's getting a bit concerning the widely varying reports on the state of the OS. One of Apple's advantages has always been that they know all of the machine configurations that are running their OS, and have far fewer to test everything on than Microsoft. Now there are acknowledged problems that seem to be related to configurations, and they're having trouble pinpointing the problems.

To add to my earlier list, the inability to reconnect to SMB shares on wake from sleep is pretty annoying, among various other issues with sleep.

Other issues, for instance with Safari, seem to be specific to PPC machines. On my old 1.5GHz PBG4, 10.4.11 was definitely far more stable and swift.

[a Martin]

It's funny to first read:

"Just thank the Lord that you're not using Vista. I had three crashes today on a Sony VAIO SZ5 and that was a good day."

Then the next post after that:

"In the meantime it's hard to get work done without restarting into Vista, which has been rock solid and not had any issues, graphics or otherwise, in the month I've been using it."



"I would also love to see the menu-bar respond correctly to switching apps,"

Totally agree in this one!
It is quite rare for me, but I don't recall this happening at all in Tiger.

[MartiNZ]

Originally Posted by a Martin

It's funny to first read:

"Just thank the Lord that you're not using Vista. I had three crashes today on a Sony VAIO SZ5 and that was a good day."

Then the next post after that:

"In the meantime it's hard to get work done without restarting into Vista, which has been rock solid and not had any issues, graphics or otherwise, in the month I've been using it."

Ahh, touché .

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by backtomac

10.5.2 has been stable on my MBP 2.16 ghz C2D machine but I've noticed the spinning beach ball more often.

No crashes but just the beach ball opening some apps, switching between tabs in Safari and at start up.

I don't know if 10.5.3 will do anything about that or not.

Check out THE XLAB Spinning Beach Ball of Death. http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by MartiNZ

It's getting a bit concerning the widely varying reports on the state of the OS. One of Apple's advantages has always been that they know all of the machine configurations that are running their OS, and have far fewer to test everything on than Microsoft. Now there are acknowledged problems that seem to be related to configurations, and they're having trouble pinpointing the problems.

To add to my earlier list, the inability to reconnect to SMB shares on wake from sleep is pretty annoying, among various other issues with sleep.

Other issues, for instance with Safari, seem to be specific to PPC machines. On my old 1.5GHz PBG4, 10.4.11 was definitely far more stable and swift.

As Apple states, "Performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection, and other factors."

Makes perfect sense.

One would expect that every iteration is going to be better on the latest configuration. Or why introduce either. We have 5 Macs in the house alone. One is a G4. It can't in the world keep up to our latest Pros. To expect Apple or any software developer to base a new release on the weakest link would be ludicrous.

[MartiNZ]

Keeping up ≠ working without bugs on machines well ahead of the requirements for running the OS. In any case, I actually have more 'bugs' currently on my brand-new MBP; the G4 comment was merely to add to my list.

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by MartiNZ

Keeping up ≠ working without bugs on machines well ahead of the requirements for running the OS. In any case, I actually have more 'bugs' currently on my brand-new MBP; the G4 comment was merely to add to my list.

Sure.

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by MartiNZ

To add to my earlier list, the inability to reconnect to SMB shares on wake from sleep is pretty annoying, among various other issues with sleep.

Perhaps this will help you:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...80328110504281

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...30625104447795

[MartiNZ]

Originally Posted by Abster2core

Perhaps this will help you:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...80328110504281

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...30625104447795

Interestingly, I've already randomly tried what the first link suggests, without having specifically read it. The second is interesting, but I would only want them to load on login when I'm at work, and I can imagine it complaining that the links are unavailable when I'm not; I'll give it a go. Cheers.