Mac OS X 10.4.4 Special Report: Release Notes

CNET staff

Sept. 2, 2009 9:08 a.m. PT

5 min read

On January 10th, Apple released Mac OS X 10.4.4 (which also ships on the new Intel Core Duo-based Macs) in PowerPC-based Mac form.

A Mac OS X 10.4.4 Server edition is also available.

Major improvements in this release (see below for a full list of changes) include enhancements to:

SMB/CIFS and NFS network file services
Bluetooth wireless access
Core Graphics, Core Audio, Core Image, RAW camera support, including updated ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers
Spotlight indexing and searching
AppleScript, iChat, DVD Player, and Safari applications
Dashboard widgets: Calendar and Stocks
Software Update and Sync Services
compatibility with USB and FireWire devices and third party applications
previous standalone security updates

Download links are as follows:

Mac OS X Update 10.4.4 Delta[55 MB]
Mac OS X Update 10.4.4 Combo [120 MB]
Mac OS X Server 10.4.4 Delta[83 MB]
Mac OS X Server 10.4.4 Combo [166 MB]

If you are having problems with the new release, please let us know.

Full list of enhancements

Safari

Safari now displays certain documents that have text/plain headers as plain text rather than treating them as HTML.
On certain websites, such as Telia Webmail, buttons on a page might overlap in Safari; this update resolves the issue.
Text within a nested HTML table's cells (such as a web-based form) no longer disappears when you click it.
Addresses an issue in which some websites, such as www.cbsnews.com, could cause CPU usage to spike unnecessarily, or cause Safari to stop responding, unless Safari's Enable JavaScript preference was deselected.
Resolves an issue in which Safari could unexpectedly quit if you tried to save a web page which includes an inline PDF file as a Web Archive.
Addresses an issue that could cause Safari to unexpectedly quit when filling out forms on some websites.
.Mac now syncs which RSS feed items you have and haven't read in Safari.
Dashboard: the following widgets are updated or new with this update:
Stocks - The stocks widget can now display price graphs for a week or a month; also, font size and spacing have been adjusted.
Address Book - Address Book widget now has three panes: Search, List, and Card.
Calendar - This widget's appearance has been adjusted.
PhoneBook - This widget is now named Business.
People - This widget lets you look up residential phone numbers.
Google - Searches the Internet via www.google.com, then displays the results in your default web browser.
ESPN - Shows news and scores for the sports you choose.
Ski Report - Shows you ski conditions at popular skiing locationspowered by AccuWeather.

iChat

iChat can now detect when you're using a Bluetooth headset as your audio device.
Allows iChat to initiate a video conference with an AOL Messenger (AIM) for Windows user whose name include spaces or uppercase characters.
Resolves an issue in which iChat could unexpectedly quit after experiencing a disconnection during a file transfer.
In an iChat multiperson chat (conference) with "Auto-reply with my away message" enabled, if your status changes to Away your away message no longer appears after every chat line.

Other applications

Addresses an issue in which Preview or other graphic applications might be able to open an EPS format file, but would unexpectedly quit soon afterwards.
Instead of Disk Utility reporting "ERROR: could not freeze volume (Operation not supported)," when trying to perform a Live Verification of a non-Journaled volume, the Verify button is dimmed when a non-Journaled volume is selected.
Improves the compression achieved when saving a TIFF file as a compressed TIFF.
Shadows within a PDF document created in Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later are visible in Adobe Reader as well.
Calculator widget now uses the number format set in International preferences format pane; for example, the Calculator widget's number separator is a comma when the Russian region is selected in the Region pop-up menu.
Resolves an issue in which some PDF files could appear with inverted colors in Preview or other applications.
Adobe Illustrator CS version 11.0 can now save files with 2-byte characters in their name.
Improves framerates in Blizzard World of Warcraft for GeForce 4Ti video cards.
T.C. Electronic Spark XL 2.8 no longer stops responding when quitting or when switching audio devices in the application's preferences.
Addresses an unexpected quitting issue that could occur when switching GarageBand to an aggregate audio hardware device.

Other improvements

Improves stability when third-party networking kernel extensions are installed, such as socket filters that implement a data filter.
iPhoto can now import and work with raw graphic files from several recent digital cameras.
Resolves an issue in which, under certain conditions, canceling a .Mac synchronization session could result in erroneous contacts being added to Address Book.
Addresses certain issues that could occur when performing a full sync or sync reset with .Mac.
Allows you to reinstall bundled software from Mac OS X 10.3.4 or later DVDs, instead of receiving an "Error Reading Package - The package is damaged and cannot be read" alert.
Addresses an issue for Mac OS X 10.4.3 in which you cannot unlock the System Keychain, or the System Keychain does not accept your authentication when authenticating for a wireless network.
Includes later versions of the Courier and Monaco system fonts that resolve certain Central European language and Cyrillic glyph display issues.
Turning Bluetooth on and off rapidly several times in Bluetooth preferences no longer causes Bluetooth to stop responding, nor causes the On/Off button to become dimmed.
Includes recent Security Updates.

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