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Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 11:05 am
Apple's second beta of Mac OS X 10.6.7 focuses on Mac App Store [u]
Apple on Tuesday issued the second beta of Mac OS X 10.6.7, its forthcoming maintenance and security update for Snow Leopard, less than a week after the first was released.People familiar with the software say it is known as build 10J846, and the delta update is a 372MB download. Apple has reportedly asked developers to concentrate on the new Mac App Store, as well as previous focus areas of AirPort, Bonjour, SMB and Graphics Drivers.
The latest build comes just days after the first was issued to developers last Thursday. The previous build, 10J842, was a 338.6MB download in its delta form.
As with the previous update, there are said to be no known issues with the pre-release build of Mac OS X 10.6.7.
Also issued Tuesday was a new beta of Mac OS X 10.6.7 Server. The 468.3MB delta update is said to include one known issue, in which clients may fail to NetBoot from NetRestore image of 10.6.6 created with Mac OS X Server 10.6.6.
The current version of Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6.6, was released to the public earlier this month. It included the Mac App Store, a new digital storefront where users can quickly and easily download applications for their Mac.
Further updates to Snow Leopard are likely few, as Apple is hard at work on its next version of the Mac operating system, dubbed Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Lion will add features from iOS like home screens, full-screen applications and auto-saving, and is expected to be released this summer.
Update: a reader has reported that, new to Mac OS X 10.6.7, "both the standard version and the server version are being posted by Apple simultaneously and with the same build date. This differs from past betas of Mac OS X, going back years, when the server version was not available until at least a day after the standard version. This suggests the build process has been streamlined (which is particularly important for addressing security concerns in a timely manner)."
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Previous Comments View All
They better fix the blunder they did with Finder in 10.6.6. Finder now crashes when quickviewing certain image formats (Nikon RAW files, TIFF files sometimes). Also, the cmd+tab app switcher sometimes doesn't show up even though it's registered the keypresses so it actually does switch apps - and even those times it does show up it frequently leaves out the icon for one or two open apps (if I'm lucky they appear on attempt two). There also seem to be some HD-access issues, 'cause several apps, especially Adobe Bridge and Photoshop sometimes fail to save or read a file on the first attempt, but thankfully succeed on the second. There's also an issue that's either affecting Photoshop or the Topaz plugins, or both, that prevent me from running batch jobs without sitting at the computer moving the mouse (currently in a dialoge with someone at Adobe regarding this, and he said Apple managed to introduce some API changes in 10.6.6, obviously without telling developers about it). Chrome has also started freezing once in a while on 10.6.6.
Overall, they have some cleaning up to do...
Can we have an AI post on how the hell they're going to get a 10.7 release out by Sept 21st - 9 months away, if we haven't seen a developer build released out yet?
Is there an inner circle of developers who have seen one, but aren't talking? Or is Apple keeping this very close to their chest.
What we've seen so far, is basically bringing iOS concepts to OS 10.6 - is that what Lion will actually be about - a release dedicated to a grand merging of the two, in a much bigger way than previously (with the effect of changing and updating OS X?).
If there isn't a dev build till WWDC - that's only what, 2-3 months maximum that they have till they've stated it's going Gold Master?!
Snow Leopard was billed as an update to 10.5, whereas Lion is released as a fully packed update (i'm not dissing 10.6 - I think it actually held a hell of a lot of changes, but many were beneath the surface.
So what gives?
Bah - nobody here cares about what's going on... As long as their stock is safe.
Can we have an AI post on how the hell they're going to get a 10.7 release out by Sept 21st - 9 months away, if we haven't seen a developer build released out yet?
Is there an inner circle of developers who have seen one, but aren't talking? Or is Apple keeping this very close to their chest.
What we've seen so far, is basically bringing iOS concepts to OS 10.6 - is that what Lion will actually be about - a release dedicated to a grand merging of the two, in a much bigger way than previously (with the effect of changing and updating OS X?).
If there isn't a dev build till WWDC - that's only what, 2-3 months maximum that they have till they've stated it's going Gold Master?!
Snow Leopard was billed as an update to 10.5, whereas Lion is released as a fully packed update (i'm not dissing 10.6 - I think it actually held a hell of a lot of changes, but many were beneath the surface.
So what gives?
I think what weÂve seen are mainly visual changes, not massive rewrites to the underpinnings like they did when moving from Leopard to Snow Leopard. If this is mainly a Âlook and feel update then I think they can have less developer input than only focusing on the backend or focusing on the entire OS like they did before Snow Leopard.
Jobs stated years ago that Mac OS X updates will slow down as the platform matures. I wonder if the tik-tik method (Ã* la Intel) alternating focus on the backend and front-end is what they are doing.
Several people, including myself, are reporting Bluetooth issues with 10.6.6.
I think it's BootCamp related. The way your keyboard now works on bluetooth in both OS's. There's a bug there.
My personal experience has been if you startup into Mac OS and turn auto-login off, the bluetooth takes some time to kick in so you can type your password. You know when it has kicked in because the green light on your Apple keyboard lights up. I hope they fix this bug. It's quite annoying. I reset Bluetooth, emptied everything and re-added my keyboard, but it didn't fully fix the issue. The delay seems less, but still exists. Before 10.6.6 there was zero delay.
And yes, I reported it.
I'm getting a random bug with the Mac App Store where my purchases don't always appear regardless of whether i'm logged in or out.
And yet it's recognising the App installation from within store. It's been reported so maybe a fix there.
Several people, including myself, are reporting Bluetooth issues with 10.6.6.
I think it's BootCamp related. The way your keyboard now works on bluetooth in both OS's. There's a bug there.
My personal experience has been if you startup into Mac OS and turn auto-login off, the bluetooth takes some time to kick in so you can type your password. You know when it has kicked in because the green light on your Apple keyboard lights up. I hope they fix this bug. It's quite annoying. I reset Bluetooth, emptied everything and re-added my keyboard, but it didn't fully fix the issue. The delay seems less, but still exists. Before 10.6.6 there was zero delay.
And yes, I reported it.
I seem to be having a Bluetooth bug even with the public version of Snow Leopard. Every once in a while, it doesn't recognize my Bluetooth mouse. Sometimes, it's properly because the mouse batteries have died, but even when reinstalling new batteries, the mouse still isn't recognized. Trying to run Bluetooth off in the toolbar takes several tries. Turning it back on still doesn't recognize the mouse. I have to reboot the get the mouse recognized again. I suppose it could be the mouse and not the OS, but it's a royal pain in either case.
Jobs stated years ago that Mac OS X updates will slow down as the platform matures. I wonder if the tik-tik method (Ã* la Intel) alternating focus on the backend and front-end is what they are doing.
You know i can't think of anything that I'd like to see in an OSX update. It's near perfect for me. If I have a beef with Apple it's the way these major OSX releases limit what you can do with older hardware.
For example: my late 2007 MacBook running 10.4.11 won't work with my new 5th gen iPod Touch, meaning I need Snow Leopard. That's two generations of software on a relatively newish computer. No support.
My G4 iBook is still going strong and syncing quite nicely with my iP4. Seems like i've had better value for money with the iBook than my MacBook.
Still that's progress and am not complaining that much. Just a little
Apple is 3-4 years behind the rest of the world with graphics drivers, Snow Leopard if full of bugs, but they want developers to focus on turning the Mac into a walled prison. 
Is Apple set to release a new set of 'think different' posters featuring Stalin, Evil Spock, Atilla the Hun, Ruhollah Khomeini and Hannibal Lecter. 
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I am not terribly excited for lion right now. When I need to launch an app I just press command spacebar. type three letters and hit enter. Otherwise it's on the dock. Space Ship is a good feature, but expose does the job for me quite nicely, and I don't have a magic mouse to make full use of the features anyway. I don't have the mouse because it is not a good fit for my hand, is a bit too low to be usable. App store is already out on Snow Leopard.
One thing I liked was full screen apps, I found with Word 2011 and iWork Pages it is sometimes very useful to put apps into full screen to help focus and concentrate on the task at hand.
I was way more excited about snow leopard with speed improvements, open CL, grand central, being able to drill down folders in the dock. But we will see how I will feel closer to release.