OS X 10.3.7 Development Underway?

[maya]

it has been so all along with panther - jaguar updates used to be good (with one exception), but i too have always been cautious with panther upgrades. so far only the retail version and 10.3.4 have worked nicely in my systems. i think i won't update panther anymore (if it ain't broke too bad, don't break it anymore).

it's as if apple had two separate development teams during the osx ramp-up: like the primary team having prepared 10.0, jaguar and tiger, and the secondary team releasing 10.1 and panther. jaguar was totally on a different level, reliablity-wise. i really hope tiger gets there too, and if this two-team development is in fact true, i would guess apple is going to join the teams into one now that osx is "ready". jobs said that the next major release after tiger would "take a longer time", which would support what i just said. maybe, who knows.

as for panther, it has been a disappointment. terrible firewire issues with audio systems, and very unreliable networking. all this was reliable and stable in jaguar, and i cannot see why the situation has changed so much.

Once can be quite sure that Apple indeed has 2 development teams working on the OS. Considering the amount of features and goodies they keep giving us all

I would not be surprised that the jaguar team has already started ground work or pre-alpha work on 10.5 for the matter at that it might be called 'Lion" since 10.5 will seem to try and dominate many platforms and exceed in ways that are unthinkable at current.

10.5 will take sometime that is a given since versions leading to 10.4 have been paving the way a little at a time. 10.4 is bringing in 64-bit and will look into converting and porting many enterprises applications to that with and after 10.4

This is all good news, it seems that 10.4 ---> 10.5 will be a big push in which can be compared to a race and there after once in the lead it can result to refinements at a slower and quality base structure. I am not at all surprised that there are many bugs that are developing along the way and some that are long in the tooth.

Though I really feel that Apple should have built iSync into the OS rather than have it as one of the 150 new features with panther and then trashing the iSync name and application and then re-packaging the name and now building it AGAIN into the OS (which they should have done first) and calling it as one of the 150 new features included with Tiger.


And when will Apple start to include menu bar icons for the iApp family it is so much more convenient than having to have a 3rd party application or running to the dock. <-- though it is getting really weird how Windows had the Messenger in its task bar and now OS X having the iChat icon in the menu bar.

 

[maya]

Does anyone else ever wonder about similarities between the cats?

I always get the feeling that Panther has a lot of the clunkiness that Puma had. I'm kind of hoping that Tiger has the same base feel as Jaguar had.

If this sounds confusing I think I mean maybe Panther was built on the guts of Puma and maybe Tiger is being developed on the guts of Jaguar, like an over lapping period.

just a feeling I get sometimes, prolly very irrational.

I believe that is because the PUMA team started work on Panther long before Jaguar was released.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

I just read in the AppleInsider article that Mac OS X 10.3.6 has "widely thought to have reintroduced data loss bugs concerning external FireWire drives". It goes on to say that 10.3.7 doesn't appear to offer a fix.

This has worried me.

I have updated to 10.3.6 but have yet to connect my external hard drive to it since the update. Now I'm worried that if I reconnect it I will lose my data. I can't afford to lose this data and I have no other means of backing it up or accessing the drive. It's a LaCie Porsche 250GB FireWire drive. Anyone know of any problems with it under 10.3.6?

 

[maya]

I just read in the AppleInsider article that Mac OS X 10.3.6 has "widely thought to have reintroduced data loss bugs concerning external FireWire drives". It goes on to say that 10.3.7 doesn't appear to offer a fix.

This has worried me.

I have updated to 10.3.6 but have yet to connect my external hard drive to it since the update. Now I'm worried that if I reconnect it I will lose my data. I can't afford to lose this data and I have no other means of backing it up or accessing the drive. It's a LaCie Porsche 250GB FireWire drive. Anyone know of any problems with it under 10.3.6?

Well I could have used this information a lot earlier.

I have a LaCie external FW HDD and it worked dine under X.3.5 and when I updated to X.3.6 it would not mount at all.

Now I believe it killed the HDD, so I replaced the internal HDD works dine now. *fingers crossed*

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Well I could have used this information a lot earlier.

I have a LaCie external FW HDD and it worked dine under X.3.5 and when I updated to X.3.6 it would not mount at all.

Now I believe it killed the HDD, so I replaced the internal HDD works dine now. *fingers crossed*

Hmm interesting m a y a. Both of my external FireWire drives functioned fine under 10.3.5 and continue to do so under 10.3.6.

 

[maya]

Hmm interesting m a y a. Both of my external FireWire drives functioned fine under 10.3.5 and continue to do so under 10.3.6.

It's maya no space, my name was taken.

Weird however mine was a LaCie, could have been a defective drive, or maybe not. Anyhow count yourself lucky since many people have reported that when Panther was released they external FW HDD had failed however I was lucky well that luck ran out.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

It's maya no space, my name was taken.

Weird however mine was a LaCie, could have been a defective drive, or maybe not. Anyhow count yourself lucky since many people have reported that when Panther was released they external FW HDD had failed however I was lucky well that luck ran out.

Both of my FW drives are LaCie's. One's a 160 GB drive; the other one is a 250 GB drive. My iMac's internal hard drive is 80 GB, so it made the most sense to use the 80 GB internal for primary storage, switch the 160 GB from backup to secondary storage, and partition the 250 GB to backup the other two.

 

[bousozoku]

Does anyone else ever wonder about similarities between the cats?

I always get the feeling that Panther has a lot of the clunkiness that Puma had. I'm kind of hoping that Tiger has the same base feel as Jaguar had.

If this sounds confusing I think I mean maybe Panther was built on the guts of Puma and maybe Tiger is being developed on the guts of Jaguar, like an over lapping period.

just a feeling I get sometimes, prolly very irrational.

I understand what you're saying but it didn't happen that way. It would be nice if they were constantly making forward progress. How's it go? Two steps forward, one step back.

 

[ipodmann]

I really hope that 10.3.7 fixes all the problems I'm having with 10.3.6.

I would say that 10.3.6 has been the worst upgrade I've ever had with any OS X upgrade...by far!!

I used to eagerly upgrade and not have a problem, but I'll definitively be more cautious from now on.

Agreed.

After reading many of the issues with 10.3.6 I am starting to understand why my system is suddenly less responsive. Even my blank CDs have a hard time being mounted. My burner is no longer working on my eMac. I am ready to take it in, but now I will wait for the next update.

This is one update I wish I had not installed.

 

[maya]

Both of my FW drives are LaCie's. One's a 160 GB drive; the other one is a 250 GB drive. My iMac's internal hard drive is 80 GB, so it made the most sense to use the 80 GB internal for primary storage, switch the 160 GB from backup to secondary storage, and partition the 250 GB to backup the other two.

Sadly my external HDD was a backup and that failed and I was in the process of going to burn to optical. What timing and rotten luck.

Time to sue Apple and LaCie <-- good thing I had an optical backup a year back not much added that I cannot re-rip again, though all that wasted time.

 

[Zaty]

Uhh...Zaty? Don't you mean "so Apple has to make sure no major bugs remain in Panther"?

Yes, of course, it's Apple we're talking about, not MS

 

[maya]

Agreed.

After reading many of the issues with 10.3.6 I am starting to understand why my system is suddenly less responsive. Even my blank CDs have a hard time being mounted. My burner is no longer working on my eMac. I am ready to take it in, but now I will wait for the next update.

This is one update I wish I had not installed.

Oddly enough my iPod, and Optical Discs blank an otherwise take time to also mount. All this on a new iMac G5

And I am also lucky enough to have the power adapter (PSU) be faulty.

I am going to talk to the Apple Tech about this some more.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Sadly my external HDD was a backup and that failed and I was in the process of going to burn to optical. What timing and rotten luck.

Time to sue Apple and LaCie <-- good thing I had an optical backup a year back not much added that I cannot re-rip again, though all that wasted time.

That stroke of bad luck couldn't have happened at a worse time, it seems. Actually, my 160 GB external is dedicated to my iTunes library, since I've been ripping everything to Apple Lossless, and I've exceeded 5 GB already (in just Apple Lossless files - my total library is around 8 GB). I've got plenty more to rip though, and it's a slow but steady process, since I have to convert the files to Apple Lossless first, then tag them manually since they aren't in CDDB.

 

[wdlove]

At least Apple is still trying to make Panther the best that it can. Wonder if there will be a 10.3.8 and 10.3.9?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

At least Apple is still trying to make Panther the best that it can. Wonder if there will be a 10.3.8 and 10.3.9?

I'd say that depends on bug reports that come in after the release of 10.3.7. If significant issues still exist in 10.3.7, 10.3.8 will be released to fix them. Should 10.3.8 still not be good enough for the vast majority of Mac users, we'll see 10.3.9. If necessary, Apple will release 10.3.10 and beyond too.

 

[wdlove]

I'd say that depends on bug reports that come in after the release of 10.3.7. If significant issues still exist in 10.3.7, 10.3.8 will be released to fix them. Should 10.3.8 still not be good enough for the vast majority of Mac users, we'll see 10.3.9. If necessary, Apple will release 10.3.10 and beyond too.

My thought on 10.3.9 is that it would lead into 10.4 and Tiger. A very natural type of transition. Mac OS 9 certainly didn't have that many releases.

 

[gopher]

The Firewire bug on 10.3.6 is different than the 10.3.0 - 10.3.5 bug, but has similar symptoms. I've updated my FAQ regarding the bug:

http://www.macmaps.com/firewirebug2.html

And the news about 10.3.7 does say "Firewire Audio" from the initial post of this thread. Actually I was hoping that's a typo meaning Firewire, Audio. Because both have apparantly suffered from 10.3.6. Only time will tell if it was a typo or not.

10.3.6 also has remnants of the 10.3.0 to 10.3.5 bug as well. That really needs to be fixed by the vendors who haven't upgraded their firmware.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

I don't really understand all that stuff about the FireWire Panther bug (and the link in the above post) but all I know is that I've only had my FireWire drive when I've been operating 10.3.5 as it was a recent purchase and I've had no problems.

As I said, I haven't used it yet under Mac OS X 10.3.6 and am a bit cautious, even though wrldwzrd89 has the same drive and has reported no such problems with 10.3.6.

I did use my Mac as a FireWire hard drive (target disk mode) to update a few things on my brother's new iBook (the one with the stuck key) and we had no data loss problems (although I can't remember if he had updated from the stock 10.3.5 by that point).

Maybe I'll just hold off until more word on 10.3.7 to be on the safe side. I haven't done much video editing recently anyhow..

 

[joeboy_45101]

There are no apparent problems with 10.3.6 for me. My little iBook G4 933 just keeps humming right along. But I think the engineers over at Apple should take their time with 10.3.7, there are some things that have been mentioned early on in other OS updates that never make it into the final release. Maybe it's a good time to mop up a lot of those past and current problems and incorporate them into 10.3.7

 

[joeboy_45101]

Once can be quite sure that Apple indeed has 2 development teams working on the OS. Considering the amount of features and goodies they keep giving us all

I would not be surprised that the jaguar team has already started ground work or pre-alpha work on 10.5 for the matter at that it might be called 'Lion" since 10.5 will seem to try and dominate many platforms and exceed in ways that are unthinkable at current.

10.5 will take sometime that is a given since versions leading to 10.4 have been paving the way a little at a time. 10.4 is bringing in 64-bit and will look into converting and porting many enterprises applications to that with and after 10.4

This is all good news, it seems that 10.4 ---> 10.5 will be a big push in which can be compared to a race and there after once in the lead it can result to refinements at a slower and quality base structure. I am not at all surprised that there are many bugs that are developing along the way and some that are long in the tooth.

Though I really feel that Apple should have built iSync into the OS rather than have it as one of the 150 new features with panther and then trashing the iSync name and application and then re-packaging the name and now building it AGAIN into the OS (which they should have done first) and calling it as one of the 150 new features included with Tiger.


And when will Apple start to include menu bar icons for the iApp family it is so much more convenient than having to have a 3rd party application or running to the dock. <-- though it is getting really weird how Windows had the Messenger in its task bar and now OS X having the iChat icon in the menu bar.

From what I've read 10.4 will be the last significant OS upgrade for a good while. Maybe you're right about two development teams leap-frogging the OS. I'd probably see both teams coming together after the release of 10.4 and working on 10.5.

 

[JJTiger1]

Last 10.3.x?

Would have to guess that this would be the last update before 10.4.

Could be, but don't count on it.

10.2 went to 10.2.8, and then very quickly to a newer 10.2.8 because of problems with the first 10.2.8.

Many people refer to the last 10.2.8 as 10.2.8.1.
=-=
And as several people have pointed out, a new model of computer sometimes comes with a new OS sub revision.

What was the OS 10.2.x that came with the initial G5's? 10.2.7? I believe that no one (except developers) could updater to 10.2.7.

I'm betting that OS 10.4.0 will be announced in the spring at the convention.
I'm betting that OS 10.4 will come on a new computer model that will be announced in the spring at the convention.

Maybe 10.4 will be released along with that G5 laptop that the whiners are crying for so that they can organize their recipes for ice and boiling water.
=-=
JJ

 

[myapplseedshurt]

that will never happen:

Makes you wonder if there could ever be an update where they say, "All is fixed all is well" and never update again. It seems to me that no matter how hard they try there are bugs old or new. If they could get it completely right that would make me happy. (I know a bit to idealistic but still something to wish for).

as someone who works on code and computer guts, I can say that will never happen. There are too many rules and too many people working from that set of rules, but inevitably, the rules get broken in ways that are hard to find. plus it helps keep some jobs around the US a little longer.

and computer guts are messy and smelly. Ya ever see Alien?

 

[The Lamprey]

10.3.7?

Hey- They should stop development and start FIXING The previous problems with firewire and with safari, before even persuing any advanced features. What use is new features and small updates if all the other stuff is broken and not working properly??

Any why is 10.3.6 Causing more firewire problems??

Those guys over there at apple should stop tinkering around with set standards and use stuff that works so they should not pissoff their users.

And why the hell is G5's burning up hubs for??!! geez, Stop Tinkering! Obey the standards! I've stopped upgrading so all my previous work on my HD's are not in jeopardy of being corrupted.

Notice to all-- read,read,read before upgrading to the next update, or else you might lose out on precious data!!!!!

 

[appleface]

audio

i'm not up on all the latest mac OS builds. i was just browsing the rumors, and i saw that two audio modifications are slated for the next build. are these programs dealing with audio in or audio out? are they more likely dealing with proBand or the macTV (the imac is all but cable-ready)?

 

[Rincewind42]

I've got plenty more to rip though, and it's a slow but steady process, since I have to convert the files to Apple Lossless first, then tag them manually since they aren't in CDDB.

You do know you can fill in the track info on the CD first, then rip the CD right? And you can even submit the tracks to the CDDB database so that others like you won't have to face that problem in the future .