Apple Updates Retail Leopard to 10.5.1

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Besides offering the latest Mac OS X 10.5.1 update with all CPUs, Apple is now shipping the latest update of Mac OS X 10.5.1 incorporated into its retail Leopard Mac OS X installation disks. Previously, purchasers of Leopard required an over-the-internet Software Update to bring their Mac OS X 10.5.0 installation up to the latest version (10.5.1). Apple notified retailers of the change on Friday.

Apple launched (http://www.macrumors.com/2007/10/26/mac-os-x-leopard-launch-events/) Leopard on October 26th 2007 but quickly released (http://www.macrumors.com/2007/11/15/apple-releases-first-leopard-update-10-5-1/) the Mac OS X 10.5.1 update on November 15th, 2007. The 10.5.1 addressed a number of stability and compatibility issues with the original 10.5.0 installs.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2007/12/17/apple-updates-retail-leopard-to-10-5-1/)

[thejadedmonkey]

I guess 10.5.2 won't be out for a while then..:(

[WildCowboy]

I guess 10.5.2 won't be out for a while then..:(

Not necessarily...I'm sure there's a fair amount of lead time to get a new version pressed and into the stores, so this decision was likely made very soon after 10.5.1 was released, if not before then. 10.5.0 must have been buggy enough that they want to limit the number of people who might be running it.

10.5.2 will come when it's ready, and that could be sooner or later. But the important thing was to keep 10.5.0 from ending up in more people's hands.

[Wayfarer]

Weren't there rumors that 10.5.2 is going to be released at Macworld next month. :confused:

[jMc]

Do Apple normally do this? I usually wait at least 6 months before upgrading to the next version of OSX, but I don't recall ever getting anything other than a .0 version in the box and having to do all the updates manually.

jx

[Blue Velvet]

Do Apple normally do this? I usually wait at least 6 months before upgrading to the next version of OSX, but I don't recall ever getting anything other than a .0 version in the box and having to do all the updates manually.

Our G5 PowerMacs for work shipped with 10.4.6, won't boot on anything lower, and some brand-new Tiger retail discs I purchased recently were 10.4.6 as well... must have been a key release or something.

[WildCowboy]

I know that Tiger retail copies existed with 10.4.3 and 10.4.6, and I think ones with 10.4.9 may have existed as well.

[jMc]

Fair enough then. I guess I'm either remembering incorrectly (it's a been a couple of years since I bought Tiger) or I've always just been 'unlucky' to get an older box still in stock. Not a big deal in any case...

jx

[lofight]

Fair enough then. I guess I'm either remembering incorrectly (it's a been a couple of years since I bought Tiger) or I've always just been 'unlucky' to get an older box still in stock. Not a big deal in any case...

jx

Not a big deal to you, but people who would maybe buy an apple for the first time, and don't have alot of computer skills might be dissapointed if they got a buggy OS, bad reputation for apple then.

[jMc]

Not a big deal to you, but people who would maybe buy an apple for the first time, and don't have alot of computer skills might be dissapointed if they got a buggy OS, bad reputation for apple then.

Quite true. But those customers would be buying a new mac preinstalled with the latest and greatest, not a Leopard retail box (which is only going to be bought by people upgrading). It makes sense for Apple to update the version in the retail box, I was just commenting that as far as I can remember I've only ever received a 10.x.0 version when buying a retail box, even when buying 6 months or more after release.

jx

[arn]

Yep.

From what I've been told, Tiger didn't see a retail upgrade until 10.4.3.

But presumably Leopard 10.5.0 may have had bugs that were serious enough with standard installs that could have accelerated the process.

arn

[twoodcc]

yeah, i think this is due to the bugs in 10.5.0, not due to the fact that 10.5.2 isn't coming next month

[thejadedmonkey]

Yep.

From what I've been told, Tiger didn't see a retail upgrade until 10.4.3.

But presumably Leopard 10.5.0 may have had bugs that were serious enough with standard installs that could have accelerated the process.

arn

Oh, ok. I like this explanation better :)

[yamabushi]

Good news. I hope Apple releases updates to the retail box more often.

[lofight]

Yep.

From what I've been told, Tiger didn't see a retail upgrade until 10.4.3.

But presumably Leopard 10.5.0 may have had bugs that were serious enough with standard installs that could have accelerated the process.

arn
Wasn't there also a bug in 10.5.0 that the firewall was turned off?

[macinfojunkie]

Yep.

From what I've been told, Tiger didn't see a retail upgrade until 10.4.3.

But presumably Leopard 10.5.0 may have had bugs that were serious enough with standard installs that could have accelerated the process.

arn

I think all those people who reported their machines being hosed by the upgrade might have had something to do with it. I remember the Apple support discussion boards being flooded with "my machine is stuck during boot up after upgrade" type issues. There were some serious issues with the Installer on the original release. 2/3 of the machines I upgraded had some sort of issue directly related to the install mechanism used during the upgrade. None of the issues were beyond repair and I'm now very happy running Leopard, but this update process was not as reliable as past apple attempts IMHO. Certainly did not match the Apple is easy peasy and just works public image Apple like to spin.

PS: When's the next update on when SJ takes a dump?

[twoodcc]

Wasn't there also a bug in 10.5.0 that the firewall was turned off?

i think it's always turned off by default. isn't it?

[Eidorian]

I'll keep waiting for my campus to have newer discs.

[thomasp]

We bought a brand new 2.8GHz 24" iMac yesterday from an Apple store in the UK - not built to order or anything fancy like that, just a stock machine. It still had Tiger on it and a "drop in" disk for Leopard.

I'd have thought by now, all the machines would have Leopard on them when they left the factory.

[aprilfools]

The last retail versions available for OSX were:

Jaguar 10.2.3
Panther 10.3.5
Tiger 10.4.6

Any of the above versions are going to be more stable installs than the original install disc releases (10.2.0, 10.3.0,10.4.0). The incremental patches along the way fix things for sure, but....... it is better to own tiger 10.4.6 as an install disc or even 10.5.1. For example 10.4.6 has 1.5 years of development that 10.4.0 does not have. It is ALWAYS better to wait until the retail versions are up to .2 or .3. As a Mac consultant, I do not suggest anyone ever buy the initial release of an OS! Big mistake.

[Doctor Q]

From what I've been told, Tiger didn't see a retail upgrade until 10.4.3.

But presumably Leopard 10.5.0 may have had bugs that were serious enough with standard installs that could have accelerated the process.Or Apple was simply more efficient at updating the shipping O.S.

[lofight]

i think it's always turned off by default. isn't it?

Doesn't that mean that everything can come through so that other people can execute malicious codes on your computer?? I read this on the article of 15 worst tech things of 2007 from PC world i think.. i Could be wrong :p

[JFreak]

Good to know. 10.5.1 is the one that should have been declared GM, but even Apple has schedules so what can you do. Too bad I already bought the dot-zero release, I would have happily taken the dot-one version instead.

[FoxyKaye]

Good to know. 10.5.1 is the one that should have been declared GM, but even Apple has schedules so what can you do. Too bad I already bought the dot-zero release, I would have happily taken the dot-one version instead.
It does have me wondering if I can take back my 10.5.0 installer that shipped via Up-to-Date and exchange it for a 10.5.1 DVD. There's a pretty good argument to be made that it's defective and should be covered under AppleCare for the systems I purchased in October, and the "Genius Bar" employees are usually dumb enough that it might work. Of course, I could luck out and actually get a sincerely intelligent and reasonable "Genius Bar" employee, but why buck the trend?

[Anonymous Freak]

The last retail versions available for OSX were:

Jaguar 10.2.3
Panther 10.3.5
Tiger 10.4.6

Don't forget 10.1.3. It also had the "bonus" that iPhoto 1.0 was included in the box.

[tiiim]

It does have me wondering if I can take back my 10.5.0 installer that shipped via Up-to-Date and exchange it for a 10.5.1 DVD. There's a pretty good argument to be made that it's defective and should be covered under AppleCare for the systems I purchased in October, and the "Genius Bar" employees are usually dumb enough that it might work. Of course, I could luck out and actually get a sincerely intelligent and reasonable "Genius Bar" employee, but why buck the trend?

But they might just say "has 10.5.0 broken anything?" if the answer is no then your argument would collapse. However every OS has upgrades and that is the price of every new system..

But 10.5.1 should have been the GM, 10.5.0 was clearly rushed out the door to save another delayed embarrassment.

[mcnaugha]

I've been puzzling over this myself as it costs Apple a lot of money to rev the retail product. It's only done when pretty urgent. Tiger did actually see a DVD rev with 10.4.2 and 10.4.3 as previously mentioned. Panther only got it's first DVD rev with 10.3.5. The first Tiger rev was important as it added extra repair capabilities to Disk Utility. It wasn't a showstopper though. I think the Leopard upgrade firewall switch off could be serious enough.

The firewall bug only affects upgrades. It's not about it being off by default. Apparently the 9A548 install will switch off the firewall, that the user had switched on, during an upgrade. It should not do that. That's technically a pretty big security risk. Ok... so we know it's not really at this time, but we don't know the day when something big happens like what happened to Windows pre-XP SP2.

Doh! on the title of this post. It should have said "it" not "I". I am not the firewall bug. lol.

[Morris]

I've been puzzling over this myself as it costs Apple a lot of money to rev the retail product. It's only done when pretty urgent. Tiger did actually see a DVD rev with 10.4.2 and 10.4.3 as previously mentioned.

I don't see it as a big deal at all. It is standard procedure for Apple to regularly update the retail versions. With the last OS they did it at .2, now they did it with .1. It doesn't have to be that expensive, they are not recalling all 10.5.0 disks. From a certain moment the DVD factory will just be churning out 10.5.1 disks instead of 10.5.0 disks and slowly they will replace the older ones in the retail channel.

We will probably see this at least two more times in Leopard's life so expect to buy a 10.5.6 or 10.5.7 as retail in about 14 months...

[mcnaugha]

I don't see it as a big deal at all. It is standard procedure for Apple to regularly update the retail versions. With the last OS they did it at .2, now they did it with .1. It doesn't have to be that expensive, they are not recalling all 10.5.0 disks. From a certain moment the DVD factory will just be churning out 10.5.1 disks instead of 10.5.0 disks and slowly they will replace the older ones in the retail channel.

It's not standard procedure at all I'm afraid. I work very closely with Apple and have done for over ten years now. Standard procedure is to update the retail product generally half way through it's life cycle. Apple only changes the DVDs sooner when a significant issue is introduced. I heard about the 10.5.1 DVD in mid Nov from Apple employees as it had already been decided as vital. They did not state at the time what the reason was behind it, but hinted that it was serious.

The only reason we got a 10.4.2 is because of the overlapping files issue which was then fixable by Disk Utility in the 10.4.2 DVD. We then got a 10.4.3 and 10.4.6 DVDs. 10.4.6 was the planned final release for retail.

Apple isn't recalling 10.5 discs but is disposing of those presently in the channel. It costs quite a bit. Not to mention having to change product codes and packaging, etc.

[seashellz2]

I will gladly wait for a retail 10.5.2 box-which is probably when it should really have been released anyway. Tried 10.5 via erase and install, no perifs, and just photoshop...
and went back to 10.4.10 faster than Steve could say "Gotcha!"

[JFreak]

It does have me wondering if I can take back my 10.5.0 installer that shipped via Up-to-Date and exchange it for a 10.5.1 DVD. There's a pretty good argument to be made that it's defective and should be covered under AppleCare

No, that's definetely zero chance. You up-to-date installer is supposed to upgrade your system from 10.4.x to 10.5 and it does that job perfectly. Then, after you've upgraded to Leopard, you can upgrade your system via software update.

[JFreak]

I will gladly wait for a retail 10.5.2 box

You can wait forever and never have it. The reason why Apple updated retail installers to 10.5.1 is because that's apparently the version they initially planned to ship! They will likely update retail Leopard installer once or twice more, but the next update will *not* be 10.5.2 for sure.

[Ninja Dom]

Got my copy of Leopard from The Apple Store in Regents Street on Thursday December 20th.

Yep, it's a 10.5.1 version disc.

[Eidorian]

After hearing about 10.5.2, I'm definitely waiting for it.

[yamabushi]

No, that's definetely zero chance. You up-to-date installer is supposed to upgrade your system from 10.4.x to 10.5 and it does that job perfectly. Then, after you've upgraded to Leopard, you can upgrade your system via software update.

Not defective to be sure. However, many users do not have broadband internet available. Downloading over 100MB of updates on dial-up or ISDN would be painful. This could give a very bad initial impression of the product. It might be in Apple's best interest to update the retail box more often to minimize this potential problem. Having a very fast install time for OS X isn't very impressive if you then have to wait hours for software updates.