Apple Mac HQ

If you’re like me and still running with the old cat, you’re in for a surprise the next time Software Update is run. Apple released 10.4.11 yesterday and it contains a number of updates and fixes. You can find the entire table of updates listed here; but most notably included is:

• Safari 3
• Improved syncing between iPhone and Yahoo! address books
• Improved reliability when mounting external USB hard drives
• Allows the use of the special keys on aluminum Apple Keyboards to control Aperture slideshows

Looks like Tiger will continue to get some love even though Leopard has shipped.

Popularity: 15% [?]

I posted a question on Mac-Forums last week about the speed of Leopard vs. Tiger. I had heard from others that previous OS X versions actually increased the speed of machines. I was very intrigued by this concept since my pervious dealings with Windows were quite the opposite.

Of those that responded to the forum question, 75% said they experienced faster performance on their Mac after installing Leopard. A few people said they experienced slower performance with the remaining few saying they saw the same performance or couldn’t tell the difference. This is pretty amazing since Vista makes all but the fastest machines crawl.

It’s worth nothing that nearly the exact same percentage of those who saw speed increases in Leopard were running on an Intel processor. One user upgraded 4 Macs (2 PPC and 2 Intel) and saw speed increases with Leopard, but the increase was not as noticeable on PowerPC processors. Obviously your milage will vary based on system configuration. However, the majority agree that Leopard is faster. Go forth and upgrade!

Popularity: 17% [?]