Mac OS X 10.5.5 Update Kills Bugs Dead, Brings Stability

Apple took some time to delay the initial launch of Mac OS X Leopard to further refine the yet to be released OS and ensure all 300 of those fancy new features work without a hitch. When Leopard finally pounced (see what I did there?) on Mac fans in late October of last year, some hiccups and problems made it through the development process and through incremental updates, Apple has eliminated a few inconveniences at a time. Leopard’s fifth update released only days ago has put to rest most if not all of all the bugs plaguing it from the start and fixed a massively publicized DNS exploit. Although there are always some rocky bits to an OS Update, Mac OS X 10.5.5 brings a boat load of fixes and stability enhancements that will invigorate your Cat.

Surprisingly, Apple has started to include a blow by blow list of what fixes and tweaks are being packaged in each update that instead of synonymously saying “This update is great, please Download it!” It’s a welcome change and a much needed one, comparing the minimal differences in start up times before and after an update is applied just wasn’t cutting it anymore. The most notable improvements are stability fixes for the MacBook Air’s core idling issue, remote dic sharing and video playback. The massively publicized DNS Exploit has been fixed up even though days after it made waves in the Blog-o-sphere, patches started rolling out from other vendors. Hit up Apple’s download page for the Combo Updater and Standalone Updater.

Everything else in the update is listed below.

General
▪ Includes recent Apple security updates.
▪ Addresses stability issues with video playback, processor core idling, and remote disc sharing for MacBook Air.
▪ Addresses an issue in which some Macs could unexpectedly power on at the same time each day.
▪ Resolves a stability issue in TextEdit that could be found when accessing the color palette.
▪ Improves Spotlight indexing performance.
▪ Fixes an issue in which contacts might not sync properly with PalmOS-based devices.
▪ Improves iPhone sync reliability with iCal and Address Book.
▪ Includes improvements to Active Directory (see this article for more information).
▪ Improves Speech Dictionary.
▪ Fixes Kerberos authentication issues for Mac OS X 10.5 clients that connect to certain Samba servers, such as Mac OS X Server version 10.4.
▪ Includes extensive graphics enhancements.
Address Book
▪ Addresses stability issues that may occur when creating a Smart Group.
▪ Resolves a printing issue with address cards containing information that spans more than one page.
Disk Utility and Directory Utility
▪ Improves reliability when rebuilding a software mirror RAID volume in Disk Utility.
▪ Improves reliability of server status displayed in Directory Utility.
iCal
▪ Updates iCal to more accurately handle repeating events.
▪ Improves performance when choosing meeting attendees.
▪ Resolves an issue in which the “Refresh All” option may be dimmed (”grayed out”) in the contextual menu for certain calendars.
▪ Fixes issues with read-only calendars.
▪ Addresses an issue that prevents an invitee from moving an event to a different calendar.
▪ Resolves an issue with syncing published calendars.
Mail
▪ Addresses performance issues related to displaying IMAP messages.
▪ Resolves an issue with SMTP settings for AIM, Compuserve, Hanmail, Yahoo!, and Time Warner Road Runner email accounts.
▪ Addresses stability issues that may occur when dragging a file to the Mail icon in the Dock.
▪ Addresses an issue with the “Organized by Thread” view in which the date does not appear when the thread is collapsed.
▪ Resolves an issue in which RSS feeds could temporarily disappear from the sidebar.
▪ Improves Mail robustness when sending messages.
▪ Improves reliability when saving drafts that have attachments.
MobileMe
▪ Improves overall sync reliability.
▪ Improves Back to My Mac reliability.
Time Machine
▪ Improves Time Machine reliability with Time Capsule.
▪ Addresses performance issues that may affect initial and in-progress backups.
▪ Fixes an issue in which an incorrect alert message could appear stating that a backup volume does not have enough free space.
▪ Time Machine can now back up iPhone backups that are on your Mac, as well as other items in (~/Library/Application Support).