Mac OS X 10.5.8 update is out

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

Apple released an update to its operating system Wednesday, version 10.5.8.

The update is said to fix issues related to compatibility and reliability when trying to connect a Mac to an AirPort network, as well as restore Display System Preferences, and Bluetooth reliability. The latter will likely bring a sigh of relief to users who have complained of their Bluetooth keyboard or mouse periodically disconnecting from their Macs.

Also included in the update: an upgrade to Safari 4.0.2, with improved accuracy of search history; a fix for importing large photo and movie files from cameras; better iCal, iDisk, MobileMe, AFP, Managed Client, Sync Service reliability; more support for RAW images from third-party cameras; and improved compatibility for external USB drives.

My colleague Elinor Mills has a separate post on the security updates contained in 10.5.8.

As always, let us know if you have any problems with this update.

[Perry_Clease]

There is also an update to Tiger

[ewestby]

@black jelly bean, are you playing some kind of drinking game in which you use as many inane clichés as possible in an article comment? Comparing industry executives to Hitler, check ... understating by an order of magnitude the installed base of the platform you loathe, check ... dismissing a product because a tiny portion of it is based on a mature codebase, check! Plus the usual misspellings, name-calling, and bizarrely misplaced anger. This is like a textbook example of what Internet postings should not be. Well done!

[Vegaman_Dan]

@ewestby:

Wait... what? I think you got your comments misplaced someplace there. Perry only mentioned there was an update to Tiger.

[ckh1272]

@Vegaman_Dan--There was one comment that black jelly bean had left Wednesday that apparently got deleted. It was the type of stuff one would expect from someone like "Websterphreaky". Pure ignorance.

[Seaspray0]

@cnet. Thank you for deleting the stupidity before I had to read it.

[goodspeed8701]

This is nothing but security patches. No updates here.

[ckh1272]

And nothing but ignorance from the peanut gallery. No updates here either.

[eswinson]

They fixed the ATI driver issue.. I can now use 3D Acceleration in VMware Fusion

[odubtaig]

I was hoping for that.

[myles taylor]

They are wrapping up Leopard to make it stable for all the PPC users and people who aren't going to upgrade to Snow Leopard. That's all they're going to do and that's really all I expect.

[bbabadu]

I hope the Safari upgrade will somehow fix my browser from crashing within the first few minutes of use....Otherwise, I've been happy with 10.5 so far.

[Dalkorian]

Safari 4.0.2 used all day here, never seems to crash on me. I wonder if you have a corrupted preference file or something.

[Mr. Dee]

You are telling me after 7 maintenance updates, 1 year of beta testing and these glaring issues are just getting fixed? On top of that, they are charging their users for another patch named Snow Leopard this fall.

[stickfu]

Snow Leopard is as much of a patch as Win 7 is... happy?

[ikramerica--2008]

$29 for 64-bit revisions of all software and new graphics engines is a pretty good deal.

[stickfu]

@ikramerica..

agreed, not to mention support for 16 terabytes of ram, I`m sure there`ll be a research lab or 2 interested in that.

[shellcodes_coder]

Snow Leopard and 64-bit LOL. Why would those movie editors and novices who think that their system is damn secure need a 64-bit kernel? Windows have had 64-bit kernel since XP. Dee, I agree with you

[Mr. Dee]

According to the millions of reviews and experiences, Windows 7 is not a patch or service pack, its major upgrade that millions can benefit from! At least I can run Windows 7 on a 2004 PC and be productive, heck some persons are even running it on systems from 2001. Can you even run Snow Leopard on a 2004 Mac? Nope.

@ ikramerica--2008: 64 bit applications that the majority of Intel Mac users can't even take advantage of because the apps or the hardware is not available? I can guarantee that most Mac users have a minimum of 1 to 2 GBs of RAM in their systems. At least with a Windows based system, its affordable and you can at least get 4 GBs of RAM in a $600 laptop. To get 4 GBs of RAM from Apple in one of their systems you have to pay a Paris Hilton Collection price.

[stickfu]

check ram prices again, no one says you HAVE to buy Apple ram, just as many don`t buy ram from HP or Dell for their machines, Oh and check again most apps are already 64bit apps, The difference being Leopard (and Tiger) would run the app as a 64bit child process.

Regarding Win 7 running it at acceptable speeds using hardware from 2001 requires shutting down of many of its graphical features, but technically you are right it will run, just not at the same level most users expect.

Here`s some reading material to bring you up to speed..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_v10.4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_v10.5

:)

[iPerson1990]

@mr. why would i wan't to run windows 7 on a 2001 yr old pc? its gonna be slow as hell, i rather get a new mac to enjoy 64-bit

[m.meister]

@Dee I doubt there is anything that Apple could do to make you happy. You would find some reason to complain.

The reference to Win 7 being a patch is just showing how ridiculous the original comment that Snow Leopard is a patch is. Both are much more than a patch. Besides 64-bit kernel support, there are numerous key changes designed to let developers really take advantage of all those cores sitting on your desktop now. This will have a huge impact.

And while there is a 64-bit version of Windows, it is very separate and you have to decide if you are going to go 32-bit or 64-bit as you have to buy a different package. OS X has been 32/64-bit for apps since 10.5. 10.6 will add a 64-bit kernel to support more address space. Oh, and the update path is very simple for Mac desktop folk. Go look at the chart MSFT gave Walt Mossberg for upgrades. Ouch.

As for not being able to take advantage of 64-bit apps, I think you do not quite understand what you are talking about. All but one model of Mac can take advantage of 64-bit apps and it has nothing to do with how much RAM you have installed. In some cases, it offers a noticeable performance boost because you get more register space to work with and it simplifies some development (because you can use 64-bit addressing).

I love how folks seem unwilling to purchase RAM from anyone else but Apple when doing price comparisons. No, you can get 4GB at the same price you pay for your DELL memory. Of course, Apple does push the envelope to give you the fastest RAM available when the computer comes out, which can be more expensive than sticking with the cheaper (older) RAM, even though it is slower. I just bumped an iMac up to 4GB for $60 (and that would be with SO-DIMMs).

While I think Windows 7 will be a worthwhile upgrade for Windows XP and Vista users, I am disappointed at the convoluted path MSFT forces on folks to try and squeeze a few more bucks out of you while still trying to claim the cheap throne. I just wish they would be more upfront and hones about it.

[BingItOn]

@stickfu

How about installing OSX 10.5 on 2001 PC, will it ever going to install? or it will die during installation?

[monkeyfun14]

@meister

Little do you know ironically Apple users were the ones that started the Windows 7 is a patch thing.

When whats more funny is that a patch fits Snow Leopards description perfectly. Apple has even been marketing as just performance improvements.

[JeMacUse]

I installed this update a little earlier this evening and ever since I've been unable to connect to the internet unless I plug my macbook into a power source. My battery is now at 64% charged. If I try loading a page or getting mail on battery power, connection fails. If I try again it doesn't work until I plug in the power cord and then the page loads and the mail works. Very weird. Anyone else having this problem?

[DougInKY]

My Macbook is behaving normally after the update. I unplugged it from mains and it still loads web pages just fine.

[ikramerica--2008]

Try rebooting again, and if that doesn't work, try creating closing all internet using apps (mail, safari, etc.), turn off wifi, then create a new location in the network settings, and delete the old location. Remember, this works best if all internet apps are quit and wifi is turned off, so the computer isn't talking to the internet behind your back and saying nasty things...

[JeMacUse]

Thank you for the tips. ikramerica--2008. I tried rebooting as well as creating and new location setting and deleting the old one, all with all internet apps off. I also waited for battery to completely recharge. Still the same--pages won't load unless the MacBook is plugged in to power. I also tried changing energy preferences to better performance, but the problem persists. Very weird. I can only imagine what the computer is saying behind my back now. hehehe--very funny! Anyway, I'm happy your MacBook's behaving normally for you, DougInKY. As for me, I've told my husband not to update the software on his computer until I can figure this out. Again, thank you for your suggestions, ikramerica--2008.

[kungfudrummer]

I'm having the exact same problem. On my MacBook Pro 17" 2.6G as well as my Macbook 2.2.

Please, if anyone has found a solution to this problem, let us know!

And if we could keep the Windows vs Mac debate in a dedicated forum, that would be awesome, too :)

Thanks!

[Seaspray0]

Check the power settings. What hardware is being turning off when you switch to battery?

[JeMacUse]

@kungfudrummer I'm still working on solving it, but I continue to have the same problem. I reset the System Management Controller (formerly known as Power Manager) http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411. After I did this, the problem seemed to be fixed for a while--I was able to load pages on Firefox while power adapter was unplugged, but this ability was shortlived. Now they won't load, nor will the mail app get mail without the computer's (MacBook, white 4,1) being connected to the power adapter. Maybe this approach might work better for you . . . . And I agree with your suggestion that the Win v Mac debate be kept to a dedicated forum.

[JeMacUse]

OK. I give up. I'm not the only one. See, e.g., http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2106689&start=15&tstart=0. I'm going back to 10.5.7. Now I only need to figure out how to do that. ;-)

[jlees]

has anyone tried disk utility to repair the preferences if that doesn't work go to fsck

[JeMacUse]

@jlees I've repaired permissions repeatedly using disk utility. Also disk utility reports all is well with disk. Thanks for suggestion, though.

[JeMacUse]

@jlees I've repaired permissions repeatedly using disk utility. Also disk utility reports all is well with disk. Thanks for suggestion, though. The one thing I haven't tried where I am is to update the airport firmware. The airport does not belong to me and I don't want to risk messing up someone else's network. This may be the issue, so maybe someone else wants to see if it works for them to solve this problem.

[shellcodes_coder]

The size of the world's most advanced update for the world's most crappiest os is 165 MB. I am sure it fixes lots of security holes but CrApple wouldn't mention that because that would freak the hell out of mac users

[iPerson1990]

apparently WindBlowz never gets fixed and vista is on SP2, microsoft dont care about their customers having issues

[m.meister]

Sure, I could whip back with a Win bash or even a Linux bash, but the truth is if you don't like OS X, fine.. use Windows or Linux. I'm fine with you doing that. While I'm sure there are security fixes in there, there are also bug fixes.. not that you should care, because it sounds like you don't even use OS X.

[monkeyfun14]

@iPerson

If Microsoft didn't care about customers having issues why would they even bother to patch it?

Its funny how you can mention Vista being on Service Pack 2 then mention Microsoft not doing anything at the same time. Absolutely idiotic statement.

[MagicFeather]

You know shellscodes_coder, just taking a glance at your most recent posts:

http://www.cnet.com/8705-4_1-0.html?username=shellcodes_coder&tag=contentMain;contentBody

You really seem to be in a tizzy about Apple Inc. I think, secretly, you love them. Otherwise, you'd have nothing to do all day (or night, it seems).

[shellcodes_coder]

MagicFeather: Ya dude you are right. I love apple and their products. I love my MacBook. How can I forget tablet and how great it was

[spatev]

worked fine for me? i'm not sure what is up with the battery-internet deal. And anyone with a shred of sense can tell that windows 7 and snow leopard are both just patches, then again, what is a "new" version of an operating system if not just an update to the old? when mac went to OSX that was a "new" version, because nearly everything changed. i dont consider a slight change in GUI in win7 to qualify it as a real change. And finally! Mr. Dee, i have leopard running on a mac pro from 1999. If it werent for the dropping of PPC i'd get snow leopard. runs like a dream too. ppc really was the best

[stickfu]

Good point

[shellcodes_coder]

Snow leopard is but Windows 7 is not. Before saying anything w/o using it you gotta see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7

Now compare the features new to each OS!!

[Vegaman_Dan]

The OS X update is actually smaller than the iPhone OS update is.

Interesting.

@spatev,

a 1999 Mac Pro??

in 1999, the 350mhz-500mhz PowerMac G4 had just come out. The Mac Pro wasn't introduced until Apple went Intel in 2006...

Besides that, Leopard (not snow leopard) cannot install on any system running 800mhz or slower. Did you get a Sonnet CPU upgrade kit?

@Vegaman_dan,

Third party ANYTHING does not void the warranty of an Apple computer.

I am an Apple-Certified Macintosh Technician authorized to perform warranty repairs, and I USE third-party RAM, third party hard drives, and third party PCI cards in much of what I do.

Maybe what you meant is that the third party stuff ITSELF is not covered under Apple's warranty. That goes for ANY computer manufacturer. The third-party stuff is covered under warranty by the third-party company that made the third-party stuff.

[Dalkorian]

No, after reading from Dan for a while I'm convinced he just likes spreading lies.

[mihajlonet]

When I start Software Update is says that my software is up to date, but I have 10.5.7?!
Why can't I download 10.5.8?! :(

[Dalkorian]

Before doing anything else, make sure you have a good backup. Ideally you would have done that before trying to update, but either way make sure you have one now.

My guess (you haven't given enough info for more than that) is it failed to install previously. Check /Library/Receipts/boms for the file "com.apple.pkg.update.os.10.5.8.bom", if it's there delete it and try again.

[exactlyy]

so windows 7 is just a patch according to MAC's fanboys ?? how is it a patch ?? for me ,i didnt buy windows vista...and i dont have to pay to get vista to upgrade to windows 7 , but for you guys, you have to pay for leopard 1st to get snow leopard..that is what can be called a patch .

[ckh1272]

Hey exactlyy--Since you stated that you don't have Vista, then surely you know that Win 7 is not going to to be $49 or $99. Home Premium (Full) is $199. Compare that to 10.5 and 10.6 combined and that Mac upgrade path is cheaper by $40US ($129 and $29 respectively). Oh, and Mac users who don't have 10.5 Leopard and have an Intel Mac can get SL for $129. Want to try that comparison again??

[kelmon]

I don't understand the point that you are trying to make. Are you honestly trying to compare a $29 upgrade to whatever Windows 7 costs in the US? What sort of response do you want?

[shellcodes_coder]

ckh1272: Windows 7 upgrade applies to all the users of Win 2000/XP and Vista though 2000 and XP users must do clean install. Anyways $29 Apple tax for a patch? It's not worth it. That $29 upgrade path doesn't apply to the users of tiger. Anyways I see no reason for those movie editors ie mac users to utilize 4 GB or more of RAM

[exactlyy]

@ ckh1272
"Compare that to 10.5 and 10.6 combined and that Mac upgrade path is cheaper by $40US ($129 and $29 respectively)"
well , thats somehow missleading, if you want to make things right, tell me, how much you had to pay to get your MAC book , at least 2000$ if not 3000 $
i built my own pc with the best GFX,mothorboard , sound card,processor...that was 3 year ago , and it cost only 800$
and it runs windows 7 faster than it did with windows XP ..
now do you think if you baught a MAC 3 years ago it'd be able to run snow leopard as fast as it run 10.4 or 10.5 and do you think it'll run whatever OS mac release within 2 years ??

[monkeyfun14]

@ckh

You love to ignore how much you paid for the machine its self.

I can easily build a machine more powerful than a top of the line iMac for 600 - 700 thats including Windows.

[Dalkorian]

@exactlyy, that monstrous powerful rockin box you have built there doesn't seem to have a basic spell checker and can't seem to help your inability to use punctuation or proper grammar beyond the 6th grade level.

[exactlyy]

@ Dalkorian
glad to know that my english has finally reached the 6 grade lvl , since its my 3rd language, and i am using firefox with spell checker disabled .. as long as i can bash the crapple fanboys and they understand what i am saying, then there is no need for a spell checker .

[Mark_Anderson]

"@exactlyy, that monstrous powerful rockin box you have built there doesn't seem to have a basic spell checker and can't seem to help your inability to use punctuation or proper grammar beyond the 6th grade level. "

Irony.

[sanjayb]

@excatlyy - Well goodie for u if u built your own PC. Congrats. Enjoy it.
@monkeyfun14 - BS. Built that fantasy PC that can rival a top of the line in power and performance. Show proof of then we might believe your BS.

[kelmon]

Just as an FYI - this is the Mac equivalent of a Windows Service Pack. Can we please stop having these inane discussions about 10.6 being a "Service Pack" for 10.5? Or if you are going to do that then please fully define the term "Service Pack" first? Cheers.

[shellcodes_coder]

Windows service pack equivalent = $29 to upgrade to Snow leopard from leopard. Cheers

[Seaspray0]

I Agree, kelmon.

[rapier1]

Thats sort of true but not really. Service packs have often added significantly new features and made significant changes to underlying core components. I usually just view these updates as what they are - bundled updates to addresses a wide variety of issues. Service packs are more like the minor version upgrades in OS X 10.2 to 10.3 for example.

Also, before anyone accuses me of not knowing what I'm talking about - I've been using a mac all day every day for the past 6 or 7 years now. I've owned 3 during that time (12" PB, mini, 15"MBP). I have also extensively used MS products since 1984. Computers are just tools - you use the best one for the particular job at hand.

[the Otter]

I installed 10.5.8 last night and it?s running beautifully. I frankly don?t notice anything different, but that?s kind of the point of a free, 0.0.1 upgrade: not much new, from an end-user standpoint.

[weegg]

Win7 is still based on 8 bit technology (registry and DLL).

[Mark_Anderson]

Oh god. Did you really just type that?

[shycelticwitch]

Hmmmm another Apple post, another rash of bashing from the iPhobics. Seaspit, EmptyShell, Monkeybreath (you know who you are), and the rest of you who don't own the product. Fortunately I know all the troll monikers now, and can easily breeze past those unimportant (and usually unintelligent) rants and get to the good stuff posted by actual Apple users.

@Seaspray... before you start calling me a troll or shill, please review the LAST comment I posted on a Windows article. It will save you from having to remove your head from a dark, unpleasant location.

[shycelticwitch]

Thank you for clarifying that. I too use 3rd party hardware in my Mac Pros, and had no issue with warranty coverage the ONE and ONLY time I needed it during the 18 years I have been using Apple products.

[Michichael]

Security updates? But I thought mac's don't have security vulnerabilities, malware, viruses, or anything else...

I'm still waiting for some idiot to get a virus on his mac and sue apple for claiming they don't get viruses. You know it'll happen - the biggest vulnerability on any operating system is the user.

[Dalkorian]

That's a typical misconception, it's exploits that are limited not vulnerabilities. Operating Systems are made by human beings and none of us are perfect, therefore it follows that our creations (OS's) won't be perfect either. We can either accept that fact or try to improve, which means patching.

Exploiting Macs are hard because of a mixture of reasons (patches coming out in a reasonable timeframe, the OpenBSD Unix core that Darwin was developed from, security measures taken by Apple which arguably could be better). Notice this doesn't make it impossible, just very hard. THAT is the difference.

[RompStar_420]

Mac is the shiznick!!!! You get what you pay for, that's for sure, life's long lesson.

[AppleSuxLeo]

"In one case, simply opening a PNG file can lead to a remote attacker gaining control over a Mac. Given the pervasiveness of PNG files on the Internet, in e-mail, and across Web sites, this bug is of particular concern," Storms said.

A vulnerability in the Mac OS X CFNetwork could lead to a maliciously crafted Web site that spoofs the real host. Here's how it works: When the Safari browser reaches a Web site via a 302 redirection and a certificate warning is displayed, the warning contains the original Web-site URL instead of the current, redirected Web-site URL. This could allow a maliciously crafted Web site to control the displayed Web-site URL in a certificate warning to give users a false sense of security.
What was that about Mac security ?

[ToksikKitteh]

(pay no attention to my display name) any way i ran into my grandmother at the mac store, she was updating her computer to Snow Leopard, they told her that it was for Intel. And thats what I kept hearing, is that it is not going to be for G5 (me and my grandmother both have G5 not intel). i just updated mine, but what is the deal with first not being able to update a G5, now you can?