Mac OS X 10.5.5: the end is in sight!

Stephen Withers
Friday, 15 August 2008 04:01

Business IT - Technology

Apple has provided developers with another pre-release build of Mac OS X 10.5.5, this time containing no known issues. The Mac OS X 10.5.5 update will reportedly fix more than 100 bugs in Leopard.

Leopard has had more than its fair share of bugs, though most of them have been relatively minor. The first update came around two weeks after the new operating system arrived in October 2007.

Address Book, Dashboard, the Finder, graphics drivers, iCal, iChat, Mail, networking, Safari, Time Machine are among the components said to be updated in 10.5.5.

According to MacRumors and AppleInsider, build 9F13 of Mac OS X has no known issues - usually a sign that Apple's team considers its work almost complete and that subsequent changes will only be made in response to feedback from developers.

The first developer build of Mac OS X 10.5.5 was released on June 30, with two more following at roughly weekly intervals.

This pace, combined with the absence of known issues in build 9F13, suggests that the release of 10.5.5 may happen by the end of the month. The final developer release of 10.5.4 occurred on June 13, and the OS update was released to users on June 30.

Updates to Mac OS X 10.5 have come at a rapid pace since Leopard was released at the end of October 2007. 10.5.1 arrived in mid November 2007, 10.5.2 in February 2008, 10.5.3 in May 2008, and 10.5.4 at the end of June 2008.

There have also been multiple security updates over the same period. A recent report from IBM claimed Apple disclosed more vulnerabilities than any other vendor during the first half of 2008.