World of Apple

Following its initial release in June of this year, Apple has seeded the second build of Windows and Mac OS X web browser Safari 4.

The latest version of Safari is likely to include many of the features of Webkit and has reportedly included SquirrelFish technology which provides JavaScript speed ups.

It is currently unknown as to when Apple intends to release Safari 4 to the public.

In what appears to be an effort to both clarify and reassure developers who applied for early participation in the iPhone Developer Program and were seemingly rejected via email last week.

Last week developers who applied for entry into the iPhone SDK program recieved the following email:

Dear Registered iPhone Developer,

iPhone Developer Program

Initially this email was taken as a “you’ve been rejected email” but Apple today sent out another email clarifying the status and offering some helpful development links:

“We have many more requests than we can serve during this initial beta period,” states the email, “so we must limit the Program at this time. We plan to expand it during the beta period, and we will contact you regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time. We appreciate your patience.”

The email also offers links to getting Started videos, documents as well as sample code and how to’s.

Apple has recently posted three new builds of Safari onto its developer website. The builds are labelled 9B021 for Leopard, 8S021 for Tiger and 31A15 for Windows.

Apple describes the downloads as:

Experience the web, Apple style, with Safari: the fastest, easiest-to-use web browser in the world. This Build has significant improvements in performance, stability and compatibility. Please review the seed notes for details.

The seed notes list the following improvements in these builds:

• Huge plain text pastes are now much faster
• Photo uploading to auction websites now works
• Safari now logs unsafe javascript to system log
• Writing direction shortcuts now implemented

Just last month Apple seeded builds of Safari containing major updates from WebKit.

In the last few days Apple has released “ZFS on Mac OS X Preview 1.1″ as well as support documentation to developers. Within the documentation Apple acknowledged that it has single handily ported ZFS to Mac OS X Leopard.

Apple also confirmed that although this developer preview enables writing capabilities the final release of Leopard will be restricted to a read-only implementation.

Developers receiving the latest ZFS preview, however, are granted access to full read and write capabilities under Leopard, including the ability to create and destruct ZFS pools and filesystems.

World of Apple uncovered Apple’s implementation of ZFS in December 2006.

Over the last few days Apple has been busy updating builds and seeding them to developers. Earlier in the week Apple seeded a new build of Mac OS X 10.5.

Mac OS X 10.4.11 New Builds

Apple has seeded builds 8S146 and S2146 of Mac OS X 10.4.11 to developers.

The previous outstanding issue with 10.4.11 was the system hanging on shutdown, this issue appears to have been resolved. Meanwhile, a new bug preventing Mighty Mouse users from configuring their mouse has popped up, while AFP sharing with PowerPC systems running 8S146 appears to have gained some bugs.

The quick turn around of this seed suggests a possible release of this update in the coming weeks.

Xcode 2.5

Apple has released build 9M2540a of Xcode 2.5 to developers. The idea of Xcode 2.5 is to fill the gap between 2.4.1 on Tiger and 3.0 on Leopard and thus ease the transition.

No further details were available on this Xcode update.

Mac Rumors points out that Apple had released another seed of Mac OS X 10.4.11 to developers.

The seed reportedly lists only one known issue which is the system hanging during shutdown.

Fixes reportedly address the following areas; USB modem, modem driver, CoreAudio and m4a files, WebCore Editing, VPN and Rosetta.

Apple last updated Mac OS X 10.4 on June 20th.

New Leopard Seed in Wild

Yesterday Apple released a new seed of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard available to ADC members via its ADC portal.

The newest seed (9A499) is said to be very unstable but noticeably snappy compared to the previous build (9A466).

The following is a list of known issues that accompany the seed:

• Any main executables (not dylibs) built for 10.5 (but not 10.4 or earlier) won’t run on Leopard seeds older than the WWDC seed. Older Leopard binaries will still run on this latest seed, but not the other way around.
• Upgrades from previous releases and archive installs are not working. Please perform a clean install and migrate your settings if needed.
• Users with ATI graphics cards may see corruption in Terminal when scrolling.
• Unable to log in after enabling FileVault. Enabling the root user to login should work around this, but FileVault is not recommended in this seed.
• Non-default AirPort preferences are not fully functional and modifying the Airport settings in the Network Preference Pane may lead to a crash.
• PowerPC systems with more than 1GB of RAM may experience panics when using AirPort.
• Users with a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M graphics card may experience graphics related sluggishness, mouse cursor corruption, and possible problems waking a machine from sleep.
• DirectoryService may hang and cause your system fan to spin or slow down. Workaround is to run “sudo killall DirectoryService” in Terminal.
• Videos purchased from the iTunes Store will not play in iTunes.
• Mail hangs when using the Photo Browser.
• If you migrate your system settings after installing, clicking the items in the Dock may attempt to launch the previous versions which could fail. Workaround is to remove the failing item from your Dock and re-add the latest version.
• Software Update may crash in certain situations. Create a “/Library/Printers/” directory to work around this.
• QuickTime for Java is no longer accessible from either unsigned Java applets or from unsigned WebStart applications.
• Installing Parallels will make your machine unusable. It’s sometimes possible to workaround this by booting into another volume and running “sudo chmod 1775 /Volumes/” in Terminal.
• Adobe CS2 fails to install if you don’t install any printer drivers.
• Unable to install Final Cut Studio & Final Cut Pro 6.0.

Apple is said to be on track for a late-October release of Leopard to the public.

Apple Entices ADC Members to Leopard Starter Kit

Apple has sent an email out to ADC members enticing them to sign up for “Premier” or “Select” accounts, both of which now offer exclusive access to Leopard betas.

The ADC accounts also offer members access to the Leopard development centre as well as the ability to view educational videos and lessons on coding.

Apple has finally released the WWDC build of Mac OS X Leopard (Build 9A466) to normal paying ADC members who didn’t attend WWDC this year.

The build is said to be exactly the same as the one distributed at WWDC on DVD.