Mac OS X 10.4.4 Special Report: Release Notes
Mac OS X 10.4.4 Special Report: Release Notes
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 enhancementsSafari
- 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.
Index:
- Release Notes
- Upgrade procedure recommendation; General purpose workarounds; more
- Memory/RAM not recognized; fixes
- Fast User Switching bugs
- Problems with installer packages
- MySQL broken, fix
- iChat AV problems
- Mail.app crashes
- Kernel panics caused by USB devices
- Bluetooth issues
- Processor upgrade card issues
- Password problems
- Problems launching Final Cut Pro
- Software Update issues
- Fujitsu MO drives not mounting, other issues
- Animated GIF issues
- Reverting (downgrading) to Mac OS X 10.4.3
- FireWire issues; fixes
- Loss of keyboard audio volume control; fixes
- Other sound issues
- RSS feeds not working in Safari; fixes
- Wake-from-sleep issues
- TurboTax 2005 issues
- Windows sharing issues
- Acard-connected drives unmountable, other issues
- Active Directory issues; fixes
- Inexplicably booting into Open Firmware mode
- Loss of internal speakers
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