Mac OS X 10.5.2: Optional Translucent Menubar, DVD/CD Sharing

[seashellz2]

oh, Goodie!
Apple are finally releasing the Grand Master Final finished product (hopefully) of 10.5 only 3 months late.....what a disaster 10.5 is.

The way it is worded, it almost sounds like they rebuilt it from the ground up.

Word up!

I expect Ill break down and buy the 10.5.2 retail box when its out in a month

 

[milo]

Surely you can just plug it into the usb on the computer and instead of the airport extreme just get a wireless router?

Wireless back up isn't going to be fast!

That's not convenient for something like a laptop. And while it may not be fast, once the first backup is done, it's just incremental after that. Won't take too long, especially with N wireless.

All the little GUI enhancements are nice and all, but I'd prefer the deal with the under-the-hood issues first.

Considering there are reportedly over 100 fixes in 10.5.2, there will be under the hood fixes as well as GUI fixes. I don't see why the two are mutually exclusive, or why one would need to wait for the other.

Um, no. The fact that the update is at 400 megs and growing is an indication that Leopard was released in a rush and incomplete, despite having six extra months to complete it.

Either that, or they are just picking up the pace of updates. I'm sure if you randomly picked any release of OSX, windows, or linux, there are probably at least that many things that could be fixed...the difference is that in most cases it takes years for all those fixes to happen, not months.

 

[futureswitcher]

great update!

kind of ironic, actually...as soon as leopard came out, I hated the translucent menu bar, but now that i can change it, i've grown to like it!

great to have the choice, anyway! Thanks, :

 

[GoaTrancer]

Wow it's great to hear that Apple is listening to the criticisms of of users/reviewers (arstechnica wrote a great one).
They realized that style was getting in the way of productivity with some of the new features, and are making the appropriate corrections.
I hope this continues.
If Apple can refrain from become to enamored with its own design skills and focus on usefulness first and keep its unique eye for style in its rightful place of icing on the cake, it will continue to slowly but surely grow its market share.

 

[Phazer80s]

Wow it's great to hear that Apple is listening to the criticisms of of users/reviewers (arstechnica wrote a great one).
They realized that style was getting in the way of productivity with some of the new features, and are making the appropriate corrections.
I hope this continues.
If Apple can refrain from become to enamored with its own design skills and focus on usefulness first and keep its unique eye for style in its rightful place of icing on the cake, it will continue to slowly but surely grow its market share.

Well put.

I'll be glad when it becomes an option. The essence of the idea -- that is, to keep the menubar out of the user's way, is a good one. The execution was poor, IMO. The menubar is such a constant, and takes up such little space on screen, it's never distracting. The way Leopard adds a dull frost to any colour beneath made for distraction. Now it seems to be an option -- a simple way to fulfill the preferences of either opinion.

Now if only we could get them to increase legibility by lightening the grey used in the iconbars of the new apps...

 

[cms2]

I'm glad the menu bar will be an option. I think I'll keep my big cat the way it is - vaseline smear and all, according to arstechnica - but choice is generally a good thing.

 

[HLdan]

the 1st good thing that has done in months & months
i really hope this is true. stacks with list view & no transparent menu bar would be KILLER!!!!! the 2 worst things they did to leopard

now fix the graphics issues & maybe i'd be able to use it finally

Somehow I doubt it, based on your response you like many others will never be satisfied even if Apple gave you the moon.

 

[HLdan]

I have two accessibility issues, which is odd as that is touted as a big feature in 10.5:
-The sidebar's text should be resizable like other OSX apps
-The large mouse pointer sizes should not be pixelated

Agreed, stuff like this makes sense over an option to change the translucent bar. I use my iMac as my living room TV/Entertainment/Workspace and from a short distance the sidebar text is too small to read even if I change the resolution.

 

[gr8tfly]

Translucent Menubar is now optional? Thank you! It's good to know Apple is listening to user feedback.

+1

Good job Apple - thanks for listening!

 

[Quillz]

If you understand the difference between "driven by design" and "driven by profit" you will agree with me...both orientations seek profit, but while the former drives demand with innovation, the other just attempts to maximize profit with minor consideration for customer requests and industrial design, or at least until its ordinary model requires a little change here and there...Apple rules in this regard, and that's why its market value is gonna surpass MS is no time...

Wake me when Apple has 90% of the PC market, a foothold in the tablet PC market, a strong grip within the video game market, etc. I highly doubt Apple will ever surpass Microsoft in market value.

 

[Cloudane]

I don't think they want to. Why would they want to just become yet another PC manufacturer with ultra low profit margins, it's just not Apple's style. As awesome as they are, I doubt they could compete in that area well enough to get a decent chunk of the market. Most of the "Joe Sixpack" types just want the cheapest computer they can get hold of, which is difficult to do unless your business (not just manufacturing) is Chinese and sacrifices all elements of quality and service.

That's why they're always destined to be a niche, IMO. Nothing wrong with that, some of the best ways for a "Western world" business to survive these days is on niches and/or quality, which Apple do both of, as it's impossible to compete on price these days due to cheaper and cheaper stuff being produced from all around the world.

 

[Porchland]

I love how people think Apple just does things to piss people off, or for no good reason.

Even if it was related to a marketing concept that they wanted to fully realize with a new product line... So be it.

Exactly. Isn't it just as likely that Apple was designing that feature with Time Capsule in mind?

 

[Porchland]

Wake me when Apple has 90% of the PC market, a foothold in the tablet PC market, a strong grip within the video game market, etc. I highly doubt Apple will ever surpass Microsoft in market value.

Apple market cap: $136B.
Microsoft market cap: $299B.

Apple's market cap is about 45 percent of Microsoft's, and Apple's revenues and gross earnings have been growing at a much faster rate the past few years than Microsoft's. As Mac/OS X continues to edge Microsoft/Windows in virtually every market share measure, iPhone continues to grow, Apple TV takes off, and Microsoft continues to rely more and more on Windows, why is it so crazy to think Apple will eventually overtake Microsoft in market cap?

I would say it is likely that Apple will eventually overtake Microsoft if the two companies continue down their current paths.

 

[ingenious]

Apart from all other fixes, I hope they have spell checked the localized versions as well. In one place in Finder Preferences of the Swedish version of 10.5.1, it says (translated) "Hard Dis" instead of "Hard Disk"....

In another thread, I posted a question regarding Finder not remembering the position of the scroll bars. If you have scrolled down in a window, open a folder and then go back, you will find yourself scrolled back to the top of that window. Anybody knows if this has been fixed?

kind of like the Library folder being named Libería (bookstore) instead of Biblioteca (library) in the Spanish localization?

gotta love those false cognates!

Is that intentional? It bugs me.

 

[veeco3110]

about time for the toolbar...

 

[Ludde]

But we can never bring back roundies.

Try Displaperture http://www.manytricks.com/displaperture/

 

[em500]

Apple market cap: $136B.
Microsoft market cap: $299B.

Apple's market cap is about 45 percent of Microsoft's, and Apple's revenues and gross earnings have been growing at a much faster rate the past few years than Microsoft's. As Mac/OS X continues to edge Microsoft/Windows in virtually every market share measure, iPhone continues to grow, Apple TV takes off, and Microsoft continues to rely more and more on Windows, why is it so crazy to think Apple will eventually overtake Microsoft in market cap?

I would say it is likely that Apple will eventually overtake Microsoft if the two companies continue down their current paths.

And if Apple's market cap continues to grow at the pace the past years for another 5 years, it will be the biggest company on the planet. Another 10 years, and it will account for half the US GDP. You see the problem with extrapolating exponential growth?

 

[kps]

The time is neigh.

I've just laughed myself horse.

Are you trying to stirrup trouble?

 

[faumble]

Hope this new build brings stability or fix the multiple new macpro issues!

 

[propropro]

Apart from all the little appearance changes does anyone know if the update will make the most of the new Penryn processors. There was a rumor in another thread building up to the new Mac Pro release that 10.5.2 should be able to run quicker due to something about SSE4 ( excuse my technical ignorance).

It seems nobody knows anything about rumored penryn optimizations That would be really great for Mac Pro owners and maybe future MBP-Penryn buyers

 

[drdocument]

Please, please no.

I know we are all excited to receive Leopard the way it should have shipped in the first place without these terrible UI decisions and bugs, bugs, bugs.

But releasing something before it is ready is what got us in this place to begin with.

Sure, I want 10.5.2 as soon as possible as something on Leopard crashes daily for me. But after suffering through Leopard for the past few months, I would rather Apple take the time now and get Leopard to be worthy of the Apple name.

If something is crashing daily I'd be looking into other causes. We're running 3 copies of 10.5.1 in our house with virtually no issues, including Office 2004 and 2008, Adobe CS3 and iLife and iWork apps.

 

[DMann]

Leopard

If something is crashing daily I'd be looking into other causes. We're running 3 copies of 10.5.1 in our house with virtually no issues, including Office 2004 and 2008, Adobe CS3 and iLife and iWork apps.

Same here..... virtually zero app crashes.... with an occasional Safari quit. I would look into deleting old preferences and cache in Library and Application Support. Leopard is solid, snappy, and consistently responsive.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

If something is crashing daily I'd be looking into other causes. We're running 3 copies of 10.5.1 in our house with virtually no issues, including Office 2004 and 2008, Adobe CS3 and iLife and iWork apps.

Same here..... virtually zero app crashes.... with an occasional Safari quit. I would look into deleting old preferences and cache in Library and Application Support. Leopard is solid, snappy, and consistently responsive.

I would have to say the same. When I first got Leopard (10.5.0), I did experience a slow-down on my 12" G4 PB compared with Tiger, plus I had some issues with Mail and Safari - oh and Photoshop Elements 2.0 (which still won't run??)

But it got a lot better after the 10.5.1 update and I for some reason it even feels much faster now. Overall, I'm finding it very stable and going back to Tiger would just be weird.

Still, I agree with BWhaler, that maybe Leopard was a little rushed, and someone in the UI department must have had a bad hair day to come up with the silly stacks implementation. Nice to see that Apple has listened.

I would imagine 10.5.2 to arrive any day now, as it must come pre-installed on the MB Air, which is shipping this week.

 

[mikebook pro]

I wish I could compare more but I jumped on the Mac boat when leopard came ut so my MBP shipped with it.

However, from 10.5.0 to 10.5.1 I felt a difference.

Yes, I've had safari quit about 4 or 5 times total on me.

Nothing like my PC tough

And I'm just physched for 10.5.2 but I don't understand why everyone hates on the translucent menu bar? I like it!

 

[drdocument]

I wish I could compare more but I jumped on the Mac boat when leopard came ut so my MBP shipped with it.

However, from 10.5.0 to 10.5.1 I felt a difference.

Yes, I've had safari quit about 4 or 5 times total on me.

Nothing like my PC tough

And I'm just physched for 10.5.2 but I don't understand why everyone hates on the translucent menu bar? I like it!

There seem to be a few unresolved issues with web apps that run inside pages displayed in Safari, and plug-ins, but they appear to be resolving as they are identified.