More details on Mac OS X 10.6.1 fixes and enhancements

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
The first maintenance release for Apple's new Snow Leopard operating system will deliver a number of fixes and tweaks focusing on Mail, networking, Bluetooth, Flash and more, according to additional details obtained by AppleInsider.



The first external pre-release beta of the software, labeled Mac OS X 10.6.1 build 10B503, began making its way to Apple's broad Apple Developer Connection community Thursday evening in the form of a 74.1MB delta image.



Although the update does not provide any new features or sweeping changes, it does address some problem areas with fixes that will likely be welcomed by users. Among the core focus areas for the first round of tests are Bluetooth, the Dock, Mail, printing services, Software Update, and System Preferences.



Once released, Mac OS X 10.6.1 should allow users to delete manually-entered DNS values for DHCP configurations via the system's Network Diagnostics, people familiar with the software say. Meanwhile, a couple of SMTP-related tweaks to Mail.app will tackle issues with blank server responses and upgrades on email accounts that require authentication.



Also planned are a number of printer-related enhancements. For example, local Bluetooth printers should properly connect to Snow Leopard-based Macs on startup. Additionally, printer drivers for both Bonjour and USB printers will be delivered over Software Update, while generic drivers should become visible from printer driver list.



Following this week's news that the retail version of Mac OS X 10.6 bundled an older, less secure version of Adobe Flash, those familiar with with the first builds of 10.6.1 say the update will bump the plug-in to version 10.0.32.18.



Other focal areas of Mac OS X 10.6.1 include graphics drivers, wireless WAN cards and the DVD player. In all, 11 specific issues with Mac OS X 10.6 have been addressed thus far by 10.6.1. Only one know issue, related to log entries, was reportedly noted in documentation accompanying the beta software.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 38
    I wonder if the graphic driver work includes support for cards other than the 9400M to use hardware-accelerated H.264 playback...because that would be fantastic.
  • Reply 2 of 38
    Hey guys,



    I don't find the new Expose as useful as before.



    I dislike the thick blue glow highlight, and the name of the window underneath



    I miss the old Expose where each window would be at the respective size when minimize, and makes easier to spot, and whenever I want to know what the application windows is, I'll just hover my mouse over and it'll highlight like being under a spotlight with the name of the window over.



    I know this new Expose has the intension as many would like to see an Table Mac... But can't we have the option to turn it off, or turn it back the way, people are used to...?



    Also, I have put my application folder on the dock, and as stack, is find for me... not perfect, but on the Snow Leopard, the size of the icon are freaking huge, Apple, seriously, I"m not blind, and I believe you made it big, also for the intension of a Table Mac, but c'mon... can't you give people the choice of sizing the icons? Like the way you do, with the icons on the dock?



    Another thing I've notice that Expose and Space doesn't work as smooth as it was on Leopard, and the Safari actually crash more than it was before, and the Top Site sometimes opens like MOSAIC, there's something wrong with the new graphic engine in Snow Leopard.



    I look forward to someone share the scripts to tweak SL...



    Otherwise, I might consider downgrading to Leopard...
  • Reply 3 of 38
    It's good to see that, despite launching Snow Leopard last Friday, Apple's team is hard at work on 10.6.1 already.
  • Reply 4 of 38
    "Once released, Mac OS X 10.6.1 should allow users to delete manually-entered DNS values for DHCP configurations via the system's Network Diagnostics...."



    Are you SURE this shouldn't read "...should allow users to manually delete DNS values for DHCP configurations..."?
  • Reply 5 of 38
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by georgetang View Post


    Hey guys,



    I don't find the new Expose as useful as before.



    Otherwise, I might consider downgrading to Leopard...



    You need to contact the Safari 4.x "put the tabs back on top" crowd. They can fill you in on how they're doing with that project. Stay on 10.5 forever. No one cares.
  • Reply 6 of 38
    haggarhaggar Posts: 1,568member
    How about real support for uninstalling applications and all the components that are placed in several different folders on the hard drive? Even Apple's own applications install things in several different locations on the hard drive. So "just drag the application to the trash" does not really remove everything.



    What about the ability to use Time Machine with FileVault enabled, without having to log out first?



    The Finder automatically remembering view settings for each window?
  • Reply 7 of 38
    mactelmactel Posts: 1,275member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by vandil View Post


    It's good to see that, despite launching Snow Leopard last Friday, Apple's team is hard at work on 10.6.1 already.



    I'd bet once SL went golden they started work on 10.6.1.



    Either way, 10.6.1 will be much welcomed with stability and printer driver issues addressed. This is what we should expect though with the RTM version.
  • Reply 8 of 38
    cmf2cmf2 Posts: 1,427member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Haggar View Post


    How about real support for uninstalling applications and all the components that are placed in several different folders on the hard drive? Even Apple's own applications install things in several different locations on the hard drive. So "just drag the application to the trash" does not really remove everything.



    What about the ability to use Time Machine with FileVault enabled, without having to log out first?



    The Finder automatically remembering view settings for each window?



    I think bug fixes come first. While an uninstaller would be nice, leaving those files on the computer won't really hurt anything and there are plenty of third party unistallers available.
  • Reply 9 of 38
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Haggar View Post


    How about real support for uninstalling applications and all the components that are placed in several different folders on the hard drive? Even Apple's own applications install things in several different locations on the hard drive. So "just drag the application to the trash" does not really remove everything.



    What's left behind is mostly just preference files so you can get your settings should you decide to reinstall the program. These take pretty much no space so it's not like they'll clog the system. It would be nice if Apple provided an option to delete these. I like how AppTrap asks you if you want to delete the leftover files as well.



    Hopefully they'll fix the slight performance issues with Spaces etc.
  • Reply 10 of 38
    cmf2cmf2 Posts: 1,427member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post


    You need to contact the Safari 4.x "put the tabs back on top" crowd. They can fill you in on how they're doing with that project. Stay on 10.5 forever. No one cares.



    Actually a lot of people care, and I'm sure Apple is watching to see how people react to the new expose look. I'm still undecided on the change, expose making certain programs bigger is really confusing. I'm kind of hoping that Apple offers a choice of Expose style. The Safari tabs on top was only in one beta while expose has been around for a long time, and many people did like the old style. No need to be rude and say "no one cares" especially when you only mean "I don't care and only my opinion matters".
  • Reply 11 of 38
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Haggar View Post


    How about real support for uninstalling applications and all the components that are placed in several different folders on the hard drive? Even Apple's own applications install things in several different locations on the hard drive. So "just drag the application to the trash" does not really remove everything.



    What about the ability to use Time Machine with FileVault enabled, without having to log out first?



    The Finder automatically remembering view settings for each window?



    Uninstall: use AppZapper or the like. Most programs -- anything that's just a drag-and-drop into /Applications, actually -- don't put stuff all over the place, other than the stray plist (and AppZapper finds those easily).



    TimeMachine with FileVault: Disregarding the underlying "I want" syndrome here, if you want to understand why this simply isn't possible you should read up on it. Trying to do a backup of a FileVault directory while it's in use is like trying to change a flat tire on a moving vehicle when you can't see what you're doing. The only alternative is to copy the data unencrypted to the Time Machine disk and, presumably, you don't want that. Additionally, since FileVault doesn't use a sparsebundle, but a sparseimage, Time Machine would have to back up your entire home directory every time a single bit of data or metadata changed -- not good.



    In lieu of FileVault, I'd recommend you check out Espionage. It allows encryption of individual folders and supports the new "sparse bundles" so Time Machine only backs up the "bands" that have changed, unlike sparse images where the entire image file is backed up when one byte changes. Don't worry, it doesn't use any proprietary encryption schemes; you can mount the Espionage-created images on any OS X machine (probably within some limitations, but they have nothing to do with Espionage itself), even when the image uses encryption higher than what OS X normally uses. Presumably, you don't really need your entire home directory encrypted but instead only pieces of it.
  • Reply 12 of 38
    pokepoke Posts: 506member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cmf2 View Post


    Actually a lot of people care, and I'm sure Apple is watching to see how people react to the new expose look. I'm still undecided on the change, expose making certain programs bigger is really confusing. I'm kind of hoping that Apple offers a choice of Expose style. The Safari tabs on top was only in one beta while expose has been around for a long time, and many people did like the old style. No need to be rude and say "no one cares" especially when you only mean "I don't care and only my opinion matters".



    I love the new Expose. The old version was next to useless because the window organization was so unpredictable. Oragnizing the windows and including minimized windows has made window management on OS X much easier (albeit still not perfect).
  • Reply 13 of 38
    pxtpxt Posts: 683member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Haggar View Post


    How about real support for uninstalling applications and all the components that are placed in several different folders on the hard drive? Even Apple's own applications install things in several different locations on the hard drive. So "just drag the application to the trash" does not really remove everything.



    What about the ability to use Time Machine with FileVault enabled, without having to log out first?



    The Finder automatically remembering view settings for each window?



    Absolutely agree that all three of those are desirable.



    The one about a proper uninstaller would help with Mac-rot which does exist and, besides, the OS should be in charge of its Apps at all times anyway. If I ask my OS to make an app disappear, it should disappear.
  • Reply 14 of 38
    apple also fucked up my mbp 2,33 c2d superdrive about 1 1/2 years ago with a firmware update...

    2days later this update was offline and apple deleted every trace that had to do with this update... since then I can't even burn 1 stupid audio cd or a standard dvd!



    Now after installing Snow Leopard I can't even insert any cd or dvd because my MBP ejects it about 10 seconds after it was inserted... this is the case for EVERY kind of compact disc (originals & burned discs)





    My Drive is a:

    MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857D:



    Firmware-VersiontKCVB

    VerbindungstyptATAPI

    Brennen möglichtJa (Laufwerk von Apple geliefert)

    Cachet2048 KB

    DVD lesentJa

    Beschreibbare CDt-R, -RW

    Beschreibbare DVDt-R, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW

    SchreibstrategientCD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO

    MedientUm die verfügbaren Brenngeschwindigkeiten anzuzeigen, legen Sie ein Medium ein und wählen dann ?Darstellung? > ?Aktualisieren?.



    HELP!
  • Reply 15 of 38
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PXT View Post


    ... the OS should be in charge of its Apps at all times anyway. If I ask my OS to make an app disappear, it should disappear.



    Six ways to Sunday, no; you don't know it, but you do not want the OS to be "in charge of" its 3rd-party apps. You end up with a POS like the Windows registry which, if there ever was one, is a bag of hurt.



    Responsibility, if there is to be any at all, for proper uninstallation should lie with the individual application. Any given application should know better than anything else what file(s) it manages (user-created data notwithstanding) and ought to have an uninstaller of its own of some sort. The fact that most apps don't have an uninstaller at all is pure and simple poor decision-making on the part of the developer (yes, it may increase development costs initially, but it's largely reusable code so it's not like you're reinventing the wheel for each app you create).



    Even if an app just has a menu item called "Uninstall" that results in a pop-up that says, "Just drag me, and <this plist file>, to the trash; thanks for playing." it'd be better than leaving the average (former Windows-) user guessing how it's done.



    Saying "it's just a handful of plist files hanging around" is a cop-out. There's no reason at all that uninstalling an app, and all of its attendant files, should be any more difficult than installing it. Especially for programs that use a pkg or mpkg (drag-and-drop installs are a bit more troublesome to clean up after automatically, although AppZapper does a decent job) and therefore have a Receipt file they can use to remove every file they initially installed.
  • Reply 16 of 38
    Can't come some enough. The stacks enhancements haven't worked at all so far.
  • Reply 17 of 38
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tschunde View Post


    apple also fucked up my mbp 2,33 c2d superdrive about 1 1/2 years ago with a firmware update...

    2days later this update was offline and apple deleted every trace that had to do with this update... since then I can't even burn 1 stupid audio cd or a standard dvd!



    Now after installing Snow Leopard I can't even insert any cd or dvd because my MBP ejects it about 10 seconds after it was inserted... this is the case for EVERY kind of compact disc (originals & burned discs)





    My Drive is a:

    MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857D:



    Firmware-VersiontKCVB

    VerbindungstyptATAPI

    Brennen möglichtJa (Laufwerk von Apple geliefert)

    Cachet2048 KB

    DVD lesentJa

    Beschreibbare CDt-R, -RW

    Beschreibbare DVDt-R, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW

    SchreibstrategientCD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO

    MedientUm die verfügbaren Brenngeschwindigkeiten anzuzeigen, legen Sie ein Medium ein und wählen dann „Darstellung“ > „Aktualisieren“.



    HELP!



    That fix has been out for a long time, look here
  • Reply 18 of 38
    Maybe the fix that will make it so displays set to the darkest level don't revert to the brightest level on reboot will come in 10.6.2? This has been a problem in 10.5.8 also.
  • Reply 19 of 38
    I like Snow Leopard's Exposé even better than the previous versions. Bigger windows. Titles. Shows the minimized windows nicely, too.
  • Reply 20 of 38
    This has been one of the more painful upgrades for me. Where my USB-attached HP Color Laserjet 1500L worked under Leopard, I can't find a driver nor get it to work under any of the other drivers with Snow Leopard. HP doesn't show this printer as either "supported" or "unsupported" for Snow Leopard. Rosetta has crashed me back to a relaunch of the Finder on several occasions with Microsoft Office v.X, and I can recreate the crash consistently using HP's ImageZone software for my Officejet 7110. My Mac now always reboots with the sound level set to "off" - not a huge thing, but annoying. Unsanity's FruitMenu and Windowshade don't work, and I've read where others are having problems with Logitech's Control Center software (which seems to work fine for me).
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