Apple to deploy Mac OS X 10.4.1 for testing

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
The first stable builds of a maintenance and security update to Apple's recently released Tiger operating system are being passed around the company's Cupertino headquarters, AppleInsider has learned.



Anonymous but reliable sources say that after a month in development, Mac OS X 10.4.1 Update, code-named "Atlanta," is ready to be deployed for rigorous and wide-spread testing. Its objective will be to rectify any and all outstanding issues present in the shipping version of Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger," which went on sale over the weekend.



Software builds of the Mac OS X 10.4.1 Update have reportedly been assigned to the 8Bx millstone, with the most recent builds rumored to be Mac OS X 10.4.1 build 8B5, 8B7 and 8B9.



According to various contacts, the update will address issues with over three dozen components of the Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" operating system, with an emphasis on improving general stability and reliability.



Some of the key areas to be targeted by the update include: AFPServer, AddressBook, AppKit, Bluetooth, Carbon, CoreFoundation, CoreGraphics, DashBoard Widgets, DVD Player, Directory Services, Fonts, Help, iCal, iSync, Mail, Preview, Printing, OpenLDAP, Quartz, SecurityAgent, and WebCore.



Insiders also believe that Mac OS X 10.4.1 will include updates to Tiger's .Mac synchronization and notification components and pack a new version of the Mac OS X xnu kernel.



Already, insiders tell AppleInsider that recent builds of the system update have addressed nearly two dozen bugs located in Tiger, including sleep issues with iMacs, random crashes related to the new H.264 video codec, PDF printing problems with Safari and Bluetooth FTP.



Problems with AddressBook, .Mac registration, iPhoto, Pages, iCal, iSync and iDVD have also been rectified, sources said.



Of interest to some users, sources said Mac OS X 10.4.1 will also correct DHCP issues experienced by some Tiger users who own certain D-Link wireless routers.



Mac OS X 10.4.1, which currently weighs in at approximately 35MB, is slated for a mid to late-May release.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 113
    kenaustuskenaustus Posts: 924member
    UPS is delivering my Family Pack today so it's going on the least critical Mac, but I'll wait for 4.1 before loading it on the two used for work. Must say that Apple is responding rather fast now that they are getting consumer feedback.
  • Reply 2 of 113
    hohlecowhohlecow Posts: 50member
    what about write ftp/smb support in Finder (or heck, sftp support)?



    or System Preferences spotlight that works for everybody (doesn't work for me), or a Hardware System Preference that actually works.



    i really hope, as segovius said, that they fix the safari crashing, and get rid of the ridiculous download confirmation (just let me turn it off).



    and maybe Dashboard widgets that don't take up 44MB of RAM (almost 200 virtual). that seems a little exessive.



    Tiger is great, but there are definitely some things that need to be ironed out.
  • Reply 3 of 113
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AppleInsider

    Insiders also believe that Mac OS X 10.4.1 will [..] pack a new version of the Mac OS X xnu kernel.



    Why does Kasper keep bringing this up? Every single update to OS X has so far brought a new kernel. This is no news at all, and shouldn't surprise anyone.
  • Reply 4 of 113
    My Safari has been perfectly stable since installation. I assume you guys aren't using any Safari 'enhancers' or hacks held over from Panther/Jaguar like Pith Helmet or Saft.
  • Reply 5 of 113
    scotty321scotty321 Posts: 313member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by segovius

    It better do something about Safari crashing every five minutes.....



    Huh? I've been running Safari since installing Tiger a week ago and haven't had any problems. Maybe you should try an archive & install, or an erase & install -- and be sure to follow MacFixit's troubleshooting tips before & after installing Tiger, such as running DiskWarrior, repairing permissions, etc.
  • Reply 6 of 113
    boogabooga Posts: 1,082member
    Safari crashing problems appear to be very rare and usually associated with buggy third party software.



    What is commonplace and widespread is iChat AV videoconferencing issues... and I didn't see those referenced in the article
  • Reply 7 of 113
    Excuse my ignorance, but what is "Bluetooth over FTP" anyways?
  • Reply 8 of 113
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by davidswelt

    Excuse my ignorance, but what is "Bluetooth over FTP" anyways?



    It's utter nonsense :-)



    What Kasper means is the Bluetooth FTP profile, which transfers files between Bluetooth devices, e.g. sends ringtones to your cellphone, etc.
  • Reply 9 of 113
    tinktink Posts: 395member
    No third party extensions here. Safari crashes all the time on my 867 Tibook. I have yet to run disc utilities from the DVD though. I'll hold off on Discwarrior for a few until they come out with a 10.4 update.



    Archive and installed, fixed and backed up everything beforehand, ran disc permissions afterwards...



    Safari's in Debug mode, that may have something to do with it.
  • Reply 10 of 113
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by tink

    I'll hold off on Discwarrior for a few until they come out with a 10.4 update.





    Ask, and ye shall receive.
  • Reply 11 of 113
    zenatekzenatek Posts: 203member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Booga

    What is commonplace and widespread is iChat AV videoconferencing issues... and I didn't see those referenced in the article



    YES! Why is iChat not mentioned!?!
  • Reply 12 of 113
    cubistcubist Posts: 954member
    I've also read (but not been able to test yet) that VPC networking is broken, and that there are PPTP problems too. I don't see any mention of those in this update :-/
  • Reply 13 of 113
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mark- Card Carrying FanaticRealist

    My Safari has been perfectly stable since installation. I assume you guys aren't using any Safari 'enhancers' or hacks held over from Panther/Jaguar like Pith Helmet or Saft.



    I use Pith helmet 2.5 and everything is honkey-dorey.
  • Reply 14 of 113
    tinktink Posts: 395member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    Ask, and ye shall receive.



    Nice!



    How bout a large pizza and a beer!
  • Reply 15 of 113
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Sounds good, send 'em over as payment for the link.
  • Reply 16 of 113
    jabohnjabohn Posts: 582member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AppleInsider

    Problems with AddressBook, .Mac registration, iPhoto, Pages, iCal, iSync and iDVD have also been rectified, sources said.



    Re: iPhoto Problems



    I've noticed since installing Tiger that when I do something to a photo (red eye, adjust color etc.) that when I click to a different photo and iPhoto applies the changes, it brightens/washes out the color in that photo.



    Here's hoping this update will fix that.
  • Reply 17 of 113
    rbrrbr Posts: 631member
    I think reasons entirely unrelated to the OS's state of preparedness (or, more accurately, lack of preparedness) influenced the rush to get it out the door.



    It is painfully obvious that Tiger was poorly tested and management was aware of this and shipped it anyway.



    Apple should expend more effort testing and less chasing rumours.



    Shame, shame, shame!
  • Reply 18 of 113
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    This is a big one Kickaha! You see what I meant?
  • Reply 19 of 113
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    There can be a hundred small bugs, but as long as there are no *critical* ones, it's shippable. This doesn't change my opinion one bit, sorry.



    Interesting research article in this month's IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering that addresses this beautifully. It's a study done by the U of Washington Business School in collaboration with (IIRC) UCLA CS dept, on the relative advantages (or lack thereof) in various styles of maintenance scheduling: a) continuous, b) fixed, c) fixed but flexible. c) won out rather conclusively. What this means is that you *stop fixing bugs* at some point, and ship the product, then step back, reassess, and attack the bugs en masse. This provided a *much* better scale of economics than the continuous approach (where you just keep stomping bugs as you run across them).



    You're advocating continuous... just keep stomping bugs until there aren't any. It isn't the most effective. Bugs need to get ranked according to severity, and if not a single critical bug exists, it's shippable. *Then* you rally the troops, and attack the bugs as a concerted effort in a cleanup phase. This provides not only the best economic approach to the company, but also produces the cleanest code in the end, in a more timely manner.



    I haven't seen any critical bugs so far... the worst one I've seen is the apparent bug in Mail 2's importer barfing on certain IMAP boxes. No data loss, however, it just requires a manual import. Unfortunately, some folks are trashing the mail folders in an attempt to 'fix' it, and *are* losing data that way. The rest of the bugs seem to fall into the annoying category, for some value of annoying.



    This is how software development works when it's being done right. You can argue that they shouldn't have released 10.4 until they had finished the cleanup phase, and if it were a product to be released in a vacuum, I'd probably agree with you. Given that it is a strategic piece of a much larger pie, however, I'm sure you can agree that there are probably many other considerations on timing that you and I are not privy to. I'm not going to be arrogant enough to be the armchair CEO and claim that I know better on the business end how they should time their releases.



    I can only address the engineering aspects, and on that front they're doing what they should to deliver the best product in the least amount of time for the least cost.
  • Reply 20 of 113
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha





    There can be a hundred small bugs, but as long as there are no *critical* ones, it's shippable. This doesn't change my opinion one bit, sorry.



    Interesting research article in this month's IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering that addresses this beautifully. It's a study done by the U of Washington Business School in collaboration with (IIRC) UCLA CS dept, on the relative advantages (or lack thereof) in various styles of maintenance scheduling: a) continuous, b) fixed, c) fixed but flexible. c) won out rather conclusively. What this means is that you *stop fixing bugs* at some point, and ship the product, then step back, reassess, and attack the bugs en masse. This provided a *much* better scale of economics than the continuous approach (where you just keep stomping bugs as you run across them).



    You're advocating continuous... just keep stomping bugs until there aren't any. It isn't the most effective. Bugs need to get ranked according to severity, and if not a single critical bug exists, it's shippable. *Then* you rally the troops, and attack the bugs as a concerted effort in a cleanup phase. This provides not only the best economic approach to the company, but also produces the cleanest code in the end, in a more timely manner.



    I haven't seen any critical bugs so far... the worst one I've seen is the apparent bug in Mail 2's importer barfing on certain IMAP boxes. No data loss, however, it just requires a manual import. Unfortunately, some folks are trashing the mail folders in an attempt to 'fix' it, and *are* losing data that way. The rest of the bugs seem to fall into the annoying category, for some value of annoying.



    This is how software development works when it's being done right. You can argue that they shouldn't have released 10.4 until they had finished the cleanup phase, and if it were a product to be released in a vacuum, I'd probably agree with you. Given that it is a strategic piece of a much larger pie, however, I'm sure you can agree that there are probably many other considerations on timing that you and I are not privy to. I'm not going to be arrogant enough to be the armchair CEO and claim that I know better on the business end how they should time their releases.



    I can only address the engineering aspects, and on that front they're doing what they should to deliver the best product in the least amount of time for the least cost.




    It is continuous while they are still in pre-release. That's what pre-release development is. It can't be done any other way.

    But beta testers aren't supposed to see any bugs in the final stage. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is.



    Apple takes a short cut here. Over the years I worked on any number of software projects., as well as beta tested many others. None of these products, including Photoshop, were ever released with KNOWN bugs.



    The better the beta program the more bugs are found and fixed before release. Apple is known to have a poor beta program. They keep it to as small a group as they can. If they spread it out more, the way developers have been asking them to do, then a lot more of these bugs would have been found out earlier and squashed.



    I'm sorry, but making excuses for them doesn't change it. Some of these bugs are more severe than others, but to say that if it isn't a show stopper it's ok for release is just too fanboy.



    Let's admit when Apple screws up. They do, you know.



    If MS comes out with buggy software, our Mac community points, and says how incompetent they are. We sometimes have to point that same finger backwards.



    Yes, they shouldn't have released until they finished the cleanup phase. That's what it's for.



    They did this to get some cash for this quarter that would otherwise go to the next quarter. I hope it's not to cover for some bad news.



    But it wasn't in the interest of their customers. The first adopters, such as myself, would have been happy if it were released at the end of May, or during the conference. No one would have been the wiser. Everyone would still have rejoiced that it came out on time.
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