Saturday, February 26, 2005, 09:00 am

Apple seeds Mac OS X 10.3.9 7W72

By Katie Marsal

Apple has seeded the latest beta and maintenance release to its Panther OS, which will pack over 30 bug fixes and improvements.

As previously anticipated, Apple on Friday seeded its developers with the first build of Mac OS X 10.3.9, the next in a series of maintenance releases to its Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" operating system.

The system update is being distributed as a 29.5MB image and is currently at build 7W72.

In a seed note accompanying the latest build, Apple reportedly told developers to focus their testing efforts in the following areas: Bluetooth, DVD Player, FireWire devices, Modems (both internal and external), Networking, Printing, Safari, Terminal and USB devices. The company also asked that developers assess the 'general system usability and reliability.'

Apple also listed approximately 30 areas of change and enhancement that are already reflected in build 7W72. Some of these improvements include various video driver fixes, improved Directory Services performance, Java garbage collection optimization, 'wake from sleep' performance improvements, and a new version of the Mac OS X kernel (7.9.0).

Mac OS X 10.3.9 will also usher in bug fixes to the following components: Automounter, Object Exchange over Bluetooth, Fax and modem, FireWire OHCI software, Password server slapd, SmartcardServices compatibility, setkey command line tool, Navigation Services, USB FHCI, and USB 2.0 hard drive mounting.

Sources tell AppleInsider that Mac OS X 10.3.9 is slated for a release in late March or early April.