Mac OS X 10.5.3 moving along, on course with iPhone 2.0?

[AppleInsider]

Apple continues to plug away at the next maintenance and service update to Mac OS X Leopard, which may be on track for a release around the same time as the company's iPhone software v2.0, according to one tipster.

People familiar with ongoing tests of Mac OS X 10.5.3 say a new build was released privately to developers on Wednesday carrying build number 9D32 and packing a half dozen more code corrections.

Among those improvements are tweaks to the performance of certain graphics drivers and fixes to parental controls, wireless certificates, and screen sharing, those people say. The latest additions bring the running total of fixes expected as part of the release to a staggering 220.

For the second time in as many weeks, Apple is also reported to have slightly expanded the focus area for developers by asking that they aggressively test Leopard's Spotlight search feature in addition to the 14 other core components listed alongside build 9D29 last Wednesday.

Again, the Mac maker lists no known issues with the 416MB update, as has been the case for several weeks.

While previous expectations would have software nearing a formal release by next week, a rumor sent to AppleInsider and other Apple news sites suggests that Apple may have placed Mac OS X 10.5.3 on a development course similar to iPhone Software v2.0, which is due at the end of June.

The unconfirmed tip goes on assert that the two pieces of software would be released within a week of each other and also include some contingencies on .Mac, which would reportedly be offered at a discount early adopters of the company's upcoming 3G iPhone. Again, the tip is unconfirmed.

Meanwhile, Apple is simultaneously working on Mac OS X 10.5.3 Server, which upon last check had reach build 9D28. The release currently bundles just over four dozen fixes and maintains a core focus area of 20 components.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[strask]

In so many ways, Leopard is just a big mess. Talking with a senior support person at Apple, I gather that some folks have few or no problems at all and some systems are simply plagued by bugs. My computer falls into the latter category.

What I wonder is, with problems at this level, can't some of these fixes be delivered ahead of the major release? Or can't 10.5.3 be broken into two releases so those of us who have not experienced this kind of buggy behavior with our Macs since the dawn of OSX can have a little relief?

[PG4G]

I'd say they could do so but there are complications. Each OS upgrade would need to be tested separately, delaying when the full build could come out. This is because they have to create 10.5.3 (the first installment you suggested), and then test it separately, and then build the 10.5.4 on top of that build instead of building them together and testing them together.

That, and as it is being written as an update, they are easier to integrate all known bugs together, to avoid coding errors (the changes can both be applied to 10.5.2 instead of changing 10.5.2 to 10.5.3 and then 10.5.4 changing that code again)


Basically, change the code as rarely as possible that way each bug fix and change can work off the same platform and cutdown production time.

[naphtali]

I think I'd very much prefer that they tested everything properly before rolling out the updates - there have been some nasty updates leading to data loss, Airport problems etc. After one updater irreversibly hosed Airport on my older Mac, I'm still hesitant to install any of the recent Airport updates.

Piecemeal updates can also intimidating and annoying - e.g. Windows XP fresh install seeing 89+ updates (before the service packs), Office 2004 requiring 11+ individual updaters. (Not picking on Microsoft; these are just issues that come to mind)


Also, I was thinking - what if the new .Mac service was offered free with every iPhone?

[PG4G]

Originally Posted by naphtali

I think I'd very much prefer that they tested everything properly before rolling out the updates - there have been some nasty updates leading to data loss, Airport problems etc. After one updater irreversibly hosed Airport on my older Mac, I'm still hesitant to install any of the recent Airport updates.

Piecemeal updates can also intimidating and annoying - e.g. Windows XP fresh install seeing 89+ updates (before the service packs), Office 2004 requiring 11+ individual updaters. (Not picking on Microsoft; these are just issues that come to mind)


Also, I was thinking - what if the new .Mac service was offered free with every iPhone?

I doubt they would do it for free, but a major subsidy, yeah. More integration with .mac offered free would be a tempting idea for apple. Get people onto iPhone, and then offer them a good feature really subsidized, and then that feature works best on macs. Makes sense to do it, tempt people to macs

Piecemeal updating realy doesn't work. The less updates the better.

Its like slowly renovating a house and adding on levels, and building out, until the top is bigger than the bottom. It gets structurally unsound. Some bugs are hidden by other bugs, and so if they wipe out a bug, it may expose 10 more bugs. Better to deal with them all together than doing it separately.

Apple seems to plan one update to the OS per quarter or so, for the first year and then slightly slower from then on. They stick to a plan!

That and people have winged so much about 10.5.2 so much it seems 10.5.3 is being tested far more completely. We barely got word of 10.5.2 before its release, as it was so close to 10.5.1.

[CREB]

Leopard has become a bit of a juggernaut as Apple tries to encompass its entire business model into its OS. There are a lot of balls in the air...let's hope they stay there.

[eAi]

Originally Posted by PG4G

We barely got word of 10.5.2 before its release, as it was so close to 10.5.1.

10.5.2 Came out almost 3 months are 10.5.1 and we had endless coverage here of it...

http://www.appleinsider.com/topics/Mac_OS_X_10.5.2.html

[PG4G]

Oh, sorry, I was not aware of it... I upgraded a little later.

[echosonic]

Originally Posted by naphtali

I think I'd very much prefer that they tested everything properly before rolling out the updates - there have been some nasty updates leading to data loss, Airport problems etc. After one updater irreversibly hosed Airport on my older Mac, I'm still hesitant to install any of the recent Airport updates.

Piecemeal updates can also intimidating and annoying - e.g. Windows XP fresh install seeing 89+ updates (before the service packs), Office 2004 requiring 11+ individual updaters. (Not picking on Microsoft; these are just issues that come to mind)


Also, I was thinking - what if the new .Mac service was offered free with every iPhone?

I would agree. Usually Apple hits it pretty hard on the head after the x.3 update anyway, its just their modus operandi.

By 10.3.4 and 10.4.4 the lab where I work was confident enough in OSX that we were able to image a single Mac Hard disk and roll it out to over 20 different mac machines without issue, including mac book pros, imacs, etc...

That says a LOT for Apple, I think, because you sure as hell could not image a single windows computer and then re-image that drive on any old windows machine and even expect it to boot, necessarily.

[zinfella]

Some Leopard issues only affect small segments of people, but if you're one of them it doesn't really matter who else is plagued.

[dr_lha]

Would be nice to get this rolled out to Servers at least, the inability of the current Leopard Server to serve files over AFP for more than a few hours without the AFP server needing to be restarted has to be one of the bigger Apple bugs I've experienced recently.

On the desktop Leopard is pretty decent IMHO, but I don't have any WiFi issues (actually Leopard cured my WiFi issues on an Intel Mac mini).

EDIT: Agree with the poster above, the 10.x.3 release is usually the point at which upgrading becomes a no-brainer. It was certainly true with Panter and Tiger (a lot of people have forgotten, or didn't experience, how terrible Tiger was in the 10.4 - 10.4.2 iterations).

[wizard69]

For those of you that follow Apple and BSD kernel issues I have to wonder if they will have fixed that 25 year old kernel bug in BSD? It is actually impressive that the bug has stayed around as long as it has given how simple it was. If Apple fixes this it will be a good sign that they are keeping core kernel issues under control in a timely manner.

Dave

[PG4G]

I didn't know of this issue.

Send an email off to them, and tell them about it.

[zinfella]

Originally Posted by PG4G

I didn't know of this issue.

Send an email off to them, and tell them about it.

Don't bother, it's been fixed. It was largely affecting Windows file sharing, according to my source, thus fixing it wasn't a high priority.

[gregarious119]

Originally Posted by CREB

There are a lot of balls in the air...let's hope they stay there.

TWSS ;-)

[dagamer34]

How about syncing NOTES FFS!

[DayLight]

one the of the main things that keeps bugging me with Mac OS 10.5.2 is the bloody wireless certificates.. i'd have to switch locations acouple of times as well as turning airport on and off a couple of times before it would let me log in at my university network. and despite the fact that i've accepted saved the certificate at my Uni. it keeps on asking me for the password each time it lets me connect.

this happens everytime i put the laptop to sleep "closing the lid even for a second" and the waking up. i just lose the connection and takes acouple of minutes trying to get it to connect, for it to work.

it gets embarrassing at times when you're showing your friends your latest macbook pro laptop and it can't do what their old windows laptop can do without a sweat.

hope they bloody fix this soon.
that and the screen dimming problem.

for ref. i have a MacBook Pro 2.5GHz the last rev.

[macFanDave]

Maybe I am alone here, but does Spotlight under Leopard suck compared to the Tiger implementation?

I always found things more accurately with Tiger and the Find... option in the Finder was better overall.

Is it just me?

[ktappe]

I have 98 new iMacs I cannot deploy because we need the AD fixes in 10.5.3 for the iMacs to be able to connect to our infrastructure. Every 10.5.3 delay delays our deployment and gets me in even more hot water with my employer because it looks like it's me who's not getting his job done. Apple, we need 10.5.3. Please do not keep bloating it up--release what you have and save the rest for 10.5.4. PLEASE.

[retiarius]

Originally Posted by wizard69

For those of you that follow Apple and BSD kernel issues I have to wonder if they will have fixed that 25 year old kernel bug in BSD? It is actually impressive that the bug has stayed around as long as it has given how simple it was. If Apple fixes this it will be a good sign that they are keeping core kernel issues under control in a timely manner.

Dave

I'll date myself by saying I have code in several BSD/GNU Unix utilities still sitting around
/usr/bin on all shipping Macs -- one is 25 years old, one is 24, and one is 18 (though derived
from a 22-year-old effort.) It's amazing that anyone would still use this stuff, let alone want to
fix known bugs therein. Nonetheless, it was big fun to show my much younger kids
my name in the copyright credits on every iPhone/iPod touch and AppleTV though!

Because non-kernel code is rather easier to workaround/replace, I'd have to do some
archaeology to see if my bugs still exist, especially one nasty in that quarter-century old
hack which shall remain nameless right now. When I worked at another systems house
(Sun Microsystems), I knew it still remained, but no-one ever reported it, and I guess
they didn't pay me enough to fix it! I'm bad, but the original code was free ...

[zinfella]

Originally Posted by DayLight

one the of the main things that keeps bugging me with Mac OS 10.5.2 is the bloody wireless certificates.. i'd have to switch locations acouple of times as well as turning airport on and off a couple of times before it would let me log in at my university network. and despite the fact that i've accepted saved the certificate at my Uni. it keeps on asking me for the password each time it lets me connect.

this happens everytime i put the laptop to sleep "closing the lid even for a second" and the waking up. i just lose the connection and takes acouple of minutes trying to get it to connect, for it to work.

it gets embarrassing at times when you're showing your friends your latest macbook pro laptop and it can't do what their old windows laptop can do without a sweat.

hope they bloody fix this soon.
that and the screen dimming problem.

for ref. i have a MacBook Pro 2.5GHz the last rev.

I have, use, and like, 1Password, a great piece of software. It will, if you like, generate fabulous passwords, or you can use your own. Then it remembers the passwords to every place that needs them. It also has a digital wallet, where you can fill in credit card info, and it will then use that info whenever you like. It puts an icon between the address window and the window for adding a bookmark. When you click on it, then it offers various services

One of the best things it does is for online forms. Put your cursor in the first box, hold down control-option-command-1, and all of the boxes are filled in with your info.

[columbus]

Don't panic Ktappe! It's not your responsibility to manage other peoples expectations. As long as you know you are doing your job then that's all matters.

I preferred the way you could view results by category in 10.4 and the way the search results window was organised generally. When you choose “Show all results…” in 10.5 it is pretty much meaningless. All you get is one big folder of icons.

Nevertheless there are things that are improvements:
[1] Speed — quick enough to use as app launcher
[2] Dictionary and Calculator, which are really handy and I personally used a lot.
[3] Search contents of recently viewed webpages (in Safari) — stick your AI username into spotlight and see what comes back!
[4] Network search.

[physguy]

Originally Posted by macFanDave

Maybe I am alone here, but does Spotlight under Leopard suck compared to the Tiger implementation?

I always found things more accurately with Tiger and the Find... option in the Finder was better overall.

Is it just me?

There was a major bug in spotlight (or the file system depending on your POV) in 10.5 that was fixed in 10.5.2. I reported it and worked with Apple engineers in getting them information. The reported UID and GID of a file was different under sudo than under the user and this caused Spotlight to miss files consistently during the initial indexing. If you, for example, renamed a file and named it back - which generate an FSEvent - then spotlight picked it up and was ok until you reindexed (sudo mdutil -E /).

This was extremely consistent behavior. I fixed my disk with a script which fixed all GID and UID's but its also been fixed undo 10.5.2.

[philipm]

Originally Posted by strask

In so many ways, Leopard is just a big mess. Talking with a senior support person at Apple, I gather that some folks have few or no problems at all and some systems are simply plagued by bugs. My computer falls into the latter category.

What I wonder is, with problems at this level, can't some of these fixes be delivered ahead of the major release? Or can't 10.5.3 be broken into two releases so those of us who have not experienced this kind of buggy behavior with our Macs since the dawn of OSX can have a little relief?

When I first installed 10.4 on my iMac G5, I had a ridiculous number of crashes. Eventually it turned out that the machine had a hardware fault (as I recall, it had new RAM and a new logic board before it became stable).

A major new release may have the effect of causing crashes by exposing a hardware fault that the previous system happened by luck not to exercise. If you are having a ridiculous number of crashes, I recommend doing some hardware diagnostics (assuming you've already eliminated the other causes by doing a clean install, no non-standard add-ons, etc.).

[naphtali]

Originally Posted by DayLight

one the of the main things that keeps bugging me with Mac OS 10.5.2 is the bloody wireless certificates.. i'd have to switch locations acouple of times as well as turning airport on and off a couple of times before it would let me log in at my university network. and despite the fact that i've accepted saved the certificate at my Uni. it keeps on asking me for the password each time it lets me connect.

this happens everytime i put the laptop to sleep "closing the lid even for a second" and the waking up. i just lose the connection and takes acouple of minutes trying to get it to connect, for it to work.

it gets embarrassing at times when you're showing your friends your latest macbook pro laptop and it can't do what their old windows laptop can do without a sweat.

hope they bloody fix this soon.
that and the screen dimming problem.

for ref. i have a MacBook Pro 2.5GHz the last rev.

That's strange - I'm usually the only one in the group with working WLAN The other Windows users would usually fumble around for a few minutes figuring out what's wrong.

It works so well I don't dare install the AirPort updates yet. That's probably one of the hits/misses that affect certain people, like my old machine completely staying offline.

For the certificate issue, I think you could edit something in Keychain Access such that it's always accepted.


Are you on a 15" MBP? I upgraded from a 17" PowerBook to a 15" MBP and found the 15"'s ambient light sensor to be way too sensitive. It caused the frequent dimming so I just disabled it. I think it's just too close to the keyboard

[nvidia2008]

Originally Posted by strask

In so many ways, Leopard is just a big mess. Talking with a senior support person at Apple, I gather that some folks have few or no problems at all and some systems are simply plagued by bugs. My computer falls into the latter category.

What I wonder is, with problems at this level, can't some of these fixes be delivered ahead of the major release? Or can't 10.5.3 be broken into two releases so those of us who have not experienced this kind of buggy behavior with our Macs since the dawn of OSX can have a little relief?

Sorry to hear about your predicament. Have you narrowed down where the bugginess is? Is it a PowerPC machine?

Originally Posted by CREB

Leopard has become a bit of a juggernaut as Apple tries to encompass its entire business model into its OS. There are a lot of balls in the air...let's hope they stay there.

For the most part, Leopard IMO is pretty impressive.

Originally Posted by echosonic

...By 10.3.4 and 10.4.4 the lab where I work was confident enough in OSX that we were able to image a single Mac Hard disk and roll it out to over 20 different mac machines without issue, including mac book pros, imacs, etc...

I've been doing 10.5.1 and 10.5.2 NetBoot/ NetInstall over 3 or so retail stores with average of 10 demo Macs at each store. Frickin' fast and pretty flawless. A technology that most people using Windows (especially in this sad third-world country) can't even grasp at this stage. Not to say I'm hella great but within a country and across the world, the "intelligence (however you want to define it) divide" is pretty massive. Not to mention poverty, healthcare, food supply, etc. challenges.

[nvidia2008]

Originally Posted by naphtali

That's strange - I'm usually the only one in the group with working WLAN The other Windows users would usually fumble around for a few minutes figuring out what's wrong...

You know, given 802.11n is still "draft", and we're dealing with radio signals, I'm generally not always happy with all parties involved. Apple and otherwise

[BWhaler]

Interesting to read some of the comments here.

While I too am suffering through the disgraceful bugginess of Leopard, at this point, I actually would like one, massive update and get Leopard to be commercial quality. I don't want to wait until 10.5.8 to finally get a good OS.

Yes, I am anxious for the next release, especially since it appears Apple is hammering out tons of bugs. But I'd rather wait at this point and get a rock solid Leopard in the next release. Sure, there will be still be bugs, but hopefully Leopard will finally be worthy of the Apple name.

[mcarling]

I would prefer that Apple release the fixes they already have rather than delaying 10.5.3 to add more.

[ksec]

Originally Posted by mcarling

I would prefer that Apple release the fixes they already have rather than delaying 10.5.3 to add more.

I would rather apple test the release thoughtfully and add more bug fix to it then hurry the release.

[PB]

Originally Posted by mcarling

I would prefer that Apple release the fixes they already have rather than delaying 10.5.3 to add more.

No matter what you or we or I prefer, doing what you suggest only adds complexity to the development and testing, and we know how complex they already are. This way bugs slip more easily in the final release.

[Redback]

Originally Posted by echosonic

I would agree. Usually Apple hits it pretty hard on the head after the x.3 update anyway, its just their modus operandi.

By 10.3.4 and 10.4.4 the lab where I work was confident enough in OSX that we were able to image a single Mac Hard disk and roll it out to over 20 different mac machines without issue, including mac book pros, imacs, etc...

That says a LOT for Apple, I think, because you sure as hell could not image a single windows computer and then re-image that drive on any old windows machine and even expect it to boot, necessarily.

One should really stick with what one knows , rather than off blowing stream !!
Ingorance is ya undoing with anything too do with NT architecture given ya statement with reguards too reimaging NT architecture itself. Ever heard of SYSPREP !!! read it !

Cheers

[PG4G]

Originally Posted by BWhaler

Interesting to read some of the comments here.

While I too am suffering through the disgraceful bugginess of Leopard, at this point, I actually would like one, massive update and get Leopard to be commercial quality. I don't want to wait until 10.5.8 to finally get a good OS.

Yes, I am anxious for the next release, especially since it appears Apple is hammering out tons of bugs. But I'd rather wait at this point and get a rock solid Leopard in the next release. Sure, there will be still be bugs, but hopefully Leopard will finally be worthy of the Apple name.

Oh, wat a great idea. Stick with the bugs now, and get 10.5.3 released in 2 years time bug-free? Nup. Either way, 10.5.8 will come out within 2 months of planned. You can choose whether you want all the bugs fixed as much as they can now, or you can wait.

In principle, major major updates are fine, and best. Less tampering with the OS. Everything is streamlined and designed for the ultrastable OS build you have. Programs won't be covering bugs, and the workarounds won't be there so it will be faster (yes, there are bugs apple does know about but won't fix at that minute as they take too much time, so programs just get around them - same as the iPhone OS betas at the moment)

There's one problem. While they get all the kinks out, you are stuck with your buggy OS. Its not a legitimate way to do business. Its just like service pack 3 for XP. It took 4 or so years to get out. Thats horrific. Its pretty darn stable, but its just way too long.

People will go "It took till 10.5.3 to work out this many bugs!", and then my reply will be "would you rather they release it now, a year after release, and you had to live for 9 months with ALL the bugs?" - people will say "No way!"

[MartiNZ]

Quite. The concept of '10.5.8' only means what it means to us from the history of the OS. Apple could change things up with more frequent point point updates fixing fewer bugs each and 10.5.8 could hit within a month.

Okay, maybe that makes it more likely that more bugs will be introduced with releases, but in turn it also means they again will get fixed quicker, rather than us just living with them for months and months.

Personally I'm tending towards a preference for change.

[backtomac]

Originally Posted by macFanDave

Maybe I am alone here, but does Spotlight under Leopard suck compared to the Tiger implementation?

I always found things more accurately with Tiger and the Find... option in the Finder was better overall.

Is it just me?

I find spotlight in Leopard to be just as accurate as in Tiger but its much faster in Leopard. I also like the dictionary function. Quite handy for me.

My 2 cents.

[wraithofwonder]

Originally Posted by naphtali

That's strange - I'm usually the only one in the group with working WLAN The other Windows users would usually fumble around for a few minutes figuring out what's wrong.

It works so well I don't dare install the AirPort updates yet. That's probably one of the hits/misses that affect certain people, like my old machine completely staying offline.

For the certificate issue, I think you could edit something in Keychain Access such that it's always accepted.


Are you on a 15" MBP? I upgraded from a 17" PowerBook to a 15" MBP and found the 15"'s ambient light sensor to be way too sensitive. It caused the frequent dimming so I just disabled it. I think it's just too close to the keyboard

I sometimes have the issue he describes, with my MacBook under 10.5.2.

[wraithofwonder]

Originally Posted by Redback

One should really stick with what one knows , rather than off blowing stream !!
Ingorance is ya undoing with anything too do with NT architecture given ya statement with reguards too reimaging NT architecture itself. Ever heard of SYSPREP !!! read it !

Cheers

Redback = obvious anon no-nothing troll.

[sc_markt]

Originally Posted by macFanDave

Maybe I am alone here, but does Spotlight under Leopard suck compared to the Tiger implementation?

I always found things more accurately with Tiger and the Find... option in the Finder was better overall.

Is it just me?

Speaking of spotlight, it would be nice to be able to set the results window to something each user prefers. I hate that I always have to move, resize, etc. And why do I have to get safari history results?

[PG4G]

Originally Posted by MartiNZ

Quite. The concept of '10.5.8' only means what it means to us from the history of the OS. Apple could change things up with more frequent point point updates fixing fewer bugs each and 10.5.8 could hit within a month.

Okay, maybe that makes it more likely that more bugs will be introduced with releases, but in turn it also means they again will get fixed quicker, rather than us just living with them for months and months.

Personally I'm tending towards a preference for change.

Hmm... I don't agree with 8 point releases in a moth

As you say, more bugs will be programmed into it.

Apple has found good balance. If you release too often, the bug builds will alter the architecture too much so that it is actually different to how it was planned, and no testing time will be allowed.

A bug workaround, when a bug is fixed, can actually turn into a bug itself, or ten bugs possibly. Now, if they do point releases that often, it may actually take them longer to fix those issues, as testing must occur, and they will get reports of all the bugs - they will combat from first to last. Minor bugs created by eliminating more major ones may be far more prevalent, but they probably wouldn't fix them straight away. In the current system, almost always, when the bugs are removed, the programs are altered so they don't sidestep the bug.

Releasing Mega-Bug Hell in an attempt to eradicate bugs is just pointless. Work on each bug, and compile a half -decent update with it. Never leave more bugs than when you started...

that approach wastes time.

[gastroboy]

Originally Posted by BWhaler

Interesting to read some of the comments here.

While I too am suffering through the disgraceful bugginess of Leopard, at this point, I actually would like one, massive update and get Leopard to be commercial quality. I don't want to wait until 10.5.8 to finally get a good OS.

Yes, I am anxious for the next release, especially since it appears Apple is hammering out tons of bugs. But I'd rather wait at this point and get a rock solid Leopard in the next release. Sure, there will be still be bugs, but hopefully Leopard will finally be worthy of the Apple name.

All I am hoping for is a fix to the FireWire bug that is plaguing me and many other users on older hardware.

Why does Apple screw up its own technology (for the 2nd time now on FW) whilst leaving USB to look the much safer option.

As a graphic designer I do enjoy the advantages of CoverFlow and the way Leopard freely displays previews of graphics and fonts in many different and useful ways, but wow does it come at a cost! I have 6 external FireWire hard drives and devices now inaccessible from my iMac G5 since I upgraded.