Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 16 December 2008 01:28
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
After weeks of anticipation, Mac OS X 10.5.6 has arrived to fix a wide-ranging set of issues, including wireless connectivity and multiple security flaws. A corresponding security update for 10.4 Tiger has also been released.
The rumour sites have been crying wolf for some time, but Mac OS X 10.5.6 is really here this time.
According to Apple, the 10.5.6 update fixes affect multiple applications and subsystems, including Address Book, AirPort, DVD Player, graphics, iChat, Mail, MobileMe, networking, printing, Parental Controls, Time Machine, and Safari.
There appears to be just one completely new feature: a Trackpad system preference for portable Macs.
There are several improvements that should go at least some way to satisfying user complaints.
These include improved Address Book synchronisation with other applications and devices (including the iPhone), and more prompt MobileMe syncing ("within a minute") for contacts, calendar items and bookmarks.
AirPort reliability has been improved (you can hear the cheers from here), the graphics subsystem has been improved for games, iChat, Cover Flow, Aperture and iTunes, and there are "fixes for possible graphics distortion issues with certain ATI graphics cards."
Mail's been given plenty of attention, including better handling of junk mail, more reliable printing of PDF attachments, and fixes for bugs that could add a character to attachment filenames or stop Mail from quitting.
Time Machine backups should now be more reliable whether you're using Time Capsule or some other volume as the destination.
The update also includes the latest time zone and daylight saving rules.
What about the security fixes? See
page 2.
