Mac OS X 10.4.6 (Build 8I1102) Seeded to Developers

[MacRumors]

ThinkSecret notes that Apple has seeded Mac OS X 10.4.6 to developers one week following the official release of Mac OS X 10.4.5.

The update currently delivers about 50 documented improvements, including several OpenGL-related fixes, improvements to CoreImage and CoreGraphics, and other bug corrections for iSync, AppleScript, and other components. Known issues with the update include certain AppleScripts not running correctly and Safari hanging in some situations

The update comes in both PowerPC and Intel flavors.

 

[G5Unit]

Wow, they're just rolling out those updates.

 

[Glenn Wolsey]

Yeah, but you just watch it slowdown when it comes to 10.4.7 and 10.4.8. I want a Leopard preview...

 

[yankeefan24]

at this rate they will run out of 10.4.x's to keep adding them. WE WILL HAVE 10.5 EARLY!!! THE ONE MORE THING AT WWDC WILL BE, "Oh I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT IT IS AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC." seriously, i doubt that but it would be cool.

 

[TMA]

Crikey, another update already on its way!

I'm guessing that 10.4.5 and 10.4.6 are more important for intel/rosetta issues.

 

[dansgil]

Well, if they run out of numbers for updates, they could always do 10.4.9.1, 10.4.9.2, etc.

I really want to see 10.5 though.

 

[commonpeople]

at this rate they will run out of 10.4.x's to keep adding them. WE WILL HAVE 10.5 EARLY!!! THE ONE MORE THING AT WWDC WILL BE, "Oh I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT IT IS AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC." seriously, i doubt that but it would be cool.

Can I explain for the 10000th time that the incremented version of 10.4.9 is 10.4.10, which goes to 10.4.11 etc. Those dots are not decimal points- they can't be since there are two of them in one number.

 

[TMA]

Can I explain for the 10000th time that the incremented version of 10.4.9 is 10.4.10, which goes to 10.4.11 etc. Those dots are not decimal points- they can't be since there are two of them in one number.

Yes it could do, but Apple have never followed that convention before so why should they now?

 

[SFNE Freak]

Yes it could do, but Apple have never followed that convention before so why should they now?

They've never had to. But they will if they are forced to.

 

[bankshot]

Yes it could do, but Apple have never followed that convention before so why should they now?

Umm, because they've also never not followed it?

It's mere coincidence that past OS versions never went higher than a .9 revision, and that fact proves nothing either way about what the convention really is. I guarantee that Apple didn't reach 10.3.9 and suddenly decide not to release any more updates to Panther because they ran out of revision numbers. It just happened to be that there were no new major changes required for Panther before Tiger came out.

I'd bet a week's pay that the 10th revision of the OS, should Apple ever get up that high, would be a .10 revision. Makes much more sense that way! I wouldn't be surprised to see that in Tiger since the development cycle for Leopard was supposed to slow down anyway. More time = more potential updates in between.

Can we please put this "issue" to bed?

(of course, I know it'll never die because nobody pays attention to me anyway... )

 

[kretzy]

Wow, another one already. I've had very few problems with 10.4, but the more they improve it the better!

 

[Doctor Q]

I see no mention of security changes.

 

[Chundles]

130MB.

That's much better. That 6.4MB 10.4.5 update was hardly an update. Apple should have just listed it "6.4MB of stuff you should download" rather than an official OS X update.

Graphics driver = good news for me, maybe I'll be able to output to a TV again? Oh I hope so, 10.4.2 lost that ability for me and it hasn't been back since.

 

[Stridder44]

Oh please for the love of cheese and rice do NOT start up that " can't go past 10.x.9/will have to go 10.x.9.10 yadda yadda" debate/argument/crap again!!!

MOVING ON...

Yes I image since they release updates for both PPC and Intel versions at the same time, there are alot of Intel-side bug fixes (or at least this is what seems to be the pattern so far...)

 

[ifjake]

actually i'm kinda glad. the 6 megabyte 10.4.5 update for my powerbook somehow manages to lock up my computer every now and then. it's gotten better somehow, but it's still a pain. it's just made me slightly concerned at how well Apple will really continue to support non-intel machines. this thing is only 8 months old.

 

[plinkoman]

i for one am glad to see all these updates. it shows that apple actually gives a damn about the quality of their os, unlike certain other companies. i'm just glad 10.4.5 finally fixed the sound loop/echo problem on the newest powerbooks, that was really starting to bug me. hey, maybe 10.4.6 will allow my superdrive to burn all 8x dvd's and not just tdk and verbatims

 

[p0intblank]

Either this early release was already planned or Apple is speeding it up because it will have a fix for the recent Terminal vulnerabilities.

 

[LimeiBook86]

Good! I've noticed Safari hanging a LOT on my Intel iMac and on my PowerBook G4 since the last update, hopefully this will fix things.

Wow it seems like Apple's running out of updates....10.5 here we come...yeah I know it's a long ways off but,

 

[Rocksaurus]

Is it just me or does anyone else want Apple to slow down with updates? Certainly I love new OSes but I hate having to upgrade to be assured that I'm able to use the latest software all the time. Plus if you recall Tiger was fairly rushed. Needed a decent amount of work after they released it. I for one would really like Apple to take some extra time to add even more cool features and enhancements to give us more bang for the buck as well as a completely polished product. Maybe it's just me though.

 

[JQW]

Umm, because they've also never not followed it?

I'd bet a week's pay that the 10th revision of the OS, should Apple ever get up that high, would be a .10 revision. Makes much more sense that way! I wouldn't be surprised to see that in Tiger since the development cycle for Leopard was supposed to slow down anyway. More time = more potential updates in between.

Can we please put this "issue" to bed?

(of course, I know it'll never die because nobody pays attention to me anyway... )

I presume that there is an API call for returning the version number. Is that restricted in any way?

I used to work with another long dead OS that used a 16-bit integer to store the current version number, and used the decimal of that as the actual version number, hence version 4.00.10 would be represented by the value 40010. The final pair of digits only went up to 49 on production releases, due to extra handling for beta version numbers, and the major version number was restricted to 6.

Is there a similar restriction on Mac OS version numbers? I don't have a copy of XCode to hand to check the versioning API calls.

 

[bwintx]

Can I explain for the 10000th time that the incremented version of 10.4.9 is 10.4.10, which goes to 10.4.11 etc. Those dots are not decimal points- they can't be since there are two of them in one number.

Those who don't get that explanation should just start thinking of them with "understood zeroes": e.g., the current version is 10.04.05. When you look at it that way, you see that there's a lot of revisions theoretically possible.

 

[robbieduncan]

130MB.

That's much better. That 6.4MB 10.4.5 update was hardly an update. Apple should have just listed it "6.4MB of stuff you should download" rather than an official OS X update.

Is 130Mb not for the combo updater (i.e. it contains all the changes from 10.4.0). The delta updater should be a lot smaller than that.

 

[Thomas Harte]

I presume that there is an API call for returning the version number. Is that restricted in any way?

There are several! Following this prehistoric Cocoa Dev Central article.

The method carried over from the Classic OS in Carbon is a gestalt call. That returns the version number in four digit hexadecimal (i.e. a 16bit int), 0xabcd where the OS version is taken to be ab.c.d. Since OS X 10.4.5 (for example) returns 0x1045 and not 0x0a45 the question of whether the .d digit could be in the region a to f isn't particularly clear - especially as documentation of this method seems not to be present with XCode 2.2.

From the BSD layer, sysctl can be used to get the kernel version number but it is returned as an ASCII string so no conclusions can be taken from that. The commandline tool sw_vers -productVersion used commonly by shell scripts similarly returns a string so could return more or less anything.

I can't seem to find anything much on a Core Foundation path to getting the system version, but I've never found XCode's help system to be particularly good for searching.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

That 6.4MB 10.4.5 update was hardly an update. Apple should have just listed it "6.4MB of stuff you should download" rather than an official OS X update.

http://loop.worldofapple.com/ is reporting that the only reason that apple released 10.4.5 was because maxxus released a patch for 10.4.4 or something.

Speculation has begun on whether the majority of the bug fixes were going to be included with 10.4.5, released just last week but recent issues with the Intel iMac and hacking attempts forced Apple to release it early, for this reason sources expect the development time of 10.4.6 to be relatively short.

 

[LeviSnuts]

excellent, my safari has been freezing up for about a minute or so every couple of days... i'm excited to see this fixed