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→‎Criticisms: you win, warren, the verifiable truth isn't good enough, so we're back to the one we can trace back to the press. awesome.
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* After Leopard's release, there were widely-reported incidents of new Leopard installs hanging at boot with a blue screen.<ref>http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1195031&tstart=15</ref> Most of these problems were attributed to Leopard's incompatibility with an unsupported add-on extension called [[Application Enhancer]] (APE), from [[Unsanity]]; unbeknownst to many users, APE had been installed silently on many Macs by Logitech as part of their mouse drivers.<ref>http://daringfireball.net/2007/10/blue_in_the_face</ref> Apple released an article on how to solve this problem.<ref>http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306857</ref>
* After Leopard's release, there were widely-reported incidents of new Leopard installs hanging at boot with a blue screen.<ref>http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1195031&tstart=15</ref> Most of these problems were attributed to Leopard's incompatibility with an unsupported add-on extension called [[Application Enhancer]] (APE), from [[Unsanity]]; unbeknownst to many users, APE had been installed silently on many Macs by Logitech as part of their mouse drivers.<ref>http://daringfireball.net/2007/10/blue_in_the_face</ref> Apple released an article on how to solve this problem.<ref>http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306857</ref>

* Leopard was criticized for poor Java compatibility. At Apple's insistence, the Mac OS X port of [[Java (programming language)|Java]] is Apple's own responsibility, not [[Sun Microsystem|Sun's]]. Java developers criticized Apple for shipping an outdated Java Virtual Machine, and for shipping without [[J2SE|J2SE 6]]. Some Java developers complain that Apple's in-house Java port is idiosyncratic and non-compatible; as shipped on Leopard, Mac OS X Java is incapable of running J2SE 6-dependent programs. Advocates of Mac OS X argue that Java has never been a well-supported development environment on the Mac, that Java applications are resource-hungry, and that Java UI applications fail to retain a consistent look-and-feel with the rest of the operating system.<ref>http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2202328/apple-leopard-stomach-java</ref><ref>http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3708156</ref><ref>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/29/no_java_for_leopard/</ref>


* Security features in Leopard were criticized as weak or ineffective, with the revamped OS X firewall coming in for the most criticism, after claims from research group Heise Security that the Leopard installer downgraded firewall protection and exposed services to attack even when the firewall was re-enabled. Several researchers noted that the Library Randomization feature added to Leopard was ineffective compared to mature implementations on other platforms, and that the new "secure Guest account" could be abused by Guests to retain access to the system even after the Leopard log out process erased their home directory.<ref>http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2209676,00.asp</ref><ref>http://securosis.com/2007/10/29/quick-leopard-update/</ref><ref>http://www.heise-security.co.uk/articles/98120</ref>
* Security features in Leopard were criticized as weak or ineffective, with the revamped OS X firewall coming in for the most criticism, after claims from research group Heise Security that the Leopard installer downgraded firewall protection and exposed services to attack even when the firewall was re-enabled. Several researchers noted that the Library Randomization feature added to Leopard was ineffective compared to mature implementations on other platforms, and that the new "secure Guest account" could be abused by Guests to retain access to the system even after the Leopard log out process erased their home directory.<ref>http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2209676,00.asp</ref><ref>http://securosis.com/2007/10/29/quick-leopard-update/</ref><ref>http://www.heise-security.co.uk/articles/98120</ref>

Revision as of 05:05, 4 November 2007

Mac OS X v10.5 “Leopard”
File:OSXLeopard.png
Screenshot of Mac OS X Leopard with the new Finder
DeveloperApple Inc.
OS familyMac OS X
Working stateSupported
Source modelClosed source (with open source components)
Latest release10.5.0 / October 26 2007[1]
Kernel typeHybrid kernel
LicenseAPSL and Apple EULA
Official websitewww.apple.com/macosx/

Mac OS X version 10.5 “Leopard” is the sixth major release of the Mac OS X operating system for Apple’s Mac line of personal computers, the successor to Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger". Leopard was shown to developers for the first time at the 2006 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).[2] Leopard was released on October 26 2007, and is being sold for US$129, GB£85, AU$158[3] and NZ$199[4]. Apple also sells a US$199 "Family Pack" that includes five licenses, and the single user version for students at US$116 (both prices plus tax).[5] Apple offers a US$9.95 (plus tax)[6] upgrade to people that purchase new Apple computers between October 1, 2007 and December 29, 2007 that do not already have Mac OS X v10.5 pre-installed or a Leopard upgrade DVD included starting October 26, 2007.[7]

According to Apple, Leopard contains over 300 changes and enhancements,[8] covering core operating system components as well as included applications and developer tools. Leopard introduces a significantly revised desktop, with a redesigned Dock, Stacks, a semitransparent menu bar, and an updated Finder that incorporates the Cover Flow visual navigation interface first seen in iTunes. Other notable features include support for writing 64-bit graphical user interface applications, an automated backup utility called Time Machine, support for Spotlight searches across multiple machines, and the inclusion of Front Row and Photo Booth, which were previously only included with some Mac models.

Apple missed Mac OS X v10.5’s release time frame as originally announced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. When first discussed in June 2005, Jobs had stated that Apple intended to release Leopard at the end of 2006 or early 2007.[9] A year later, this was amended to "Spring 2007", however on April 12 2007, Apple issued a statement that its release would be delayed until October 2007 because of the development of the iPhone.[10]

New and changed features

End-user features

  • Back to My Mac, a feature for .Mac users that allows users to access files on their home computer while away from home via the internet.
  • Boot Camp is included. It is a software assistant which has been available as a beta release download for Mac OS X v10.4 from Apple’s website since April 5 2006.[11] It assists in the installation of Windows XP or Windows Vista to a separate partition (or separate internal drive) on Intel-based Macs.
  • Dashboard enhancements, including Webclip, a feature that allows users to turn a part of any web page into a live Dashboard widget, and Dashcode to help developers code widgets.[12]
  • New Desktop, comprised of a redesigned 3-D dock with a new grouping feature called Stacks.
File:Leopard-stacks-fan-grid.png
The new Dock, showing a Stack viewed as a "Fan" (left) and a "Grid" (right).
  • Dictionary can now search Wikipedia, and a dictionary of Apple terminology as well. Also included is a 200,000-word dictionary and 25,000-word thesaurus for the Japanese language, provided by the Japanese publisher Shogakukan.[13][14]
  • A redesigned Finder, with features similar to those seen in iTunes 7, including Cover Flow and a Source list-like sidebar.
  • Front Row and Photo Booth are available with the purchase of a new Mac, and are included with Leopard. Front Row has been reworked to closely resemble the interface used by the Apple TV, and Photo Booth includes video recording with real-time filters.
  • iCal calendar sharing and group scheduling as well as syncing event invitations from Mail.[15] The icon also reflects the current date even when the application is not running. In previous versions, the icon would remain at July 17th until the application was run.
  • iChat enhancements, including multiple logins, invisibility, animated icons, and tabbed chats, similar to features present in Pidgin, Adium and the iChat plugin Chax; iChat Theater, allowing users to incorporate images from iPhoto, presentations from Keynote, videos from QuickTime, and other Quick Look features into video chats; and Backdrops, which are similar to chroma keys, but use a real-time difference matte technique which does not require a green or blue screen. iChat also implements desktop sharing, a feature previously available with Apple Remote Desktop.[16][2][17]
  • Mail enhancements including the additions of RSS feeds, Stationery, Notes, and to-dos. To-dos use a system-wide service that is available to all applications.[18]
  • Network file sharing improvements include more granular control over permissions, consolidation of AFP, FTP and SMB sharing into one control panel, and the ability to share individual folders, a feature that had not been available since Mac OS 9.[19]
  • Parental controls now include the ability to place restrictions on use of the Internet and to set parental controls from anywhere using remote setup.[20]
  • Podcast Capture, an application allowing users to record and distribute podcasts. It requires access to a computer running Mac OS X Server with Podcast Producer.
  • Preview adds support for annotation, graphics, extraction, search, markup, and size adjustment tools. [21]
  • Quick Look, a framework allowing documents to be viewed without opening them in an external application.[22]
  • Safari 3 is included.
  • Sherlock, a search software included in Mac OS since OS 8.5, is no longer included.[23]
  • Spaces, an implementation of "virtual desktops" (individually called "spaces"), allows multiple desktops per user, with certain applications and windows in each desktop.[24] Users can organize certain Spaces for certain applications (e.g., one for work-related tasks and one for entertainment) and switch between them. Exposé works inside Spaces, allowing the user to see at a glance all desktops on one screen.[25]) Users can create and control up to 16 spaces, and applications can be switched between each one, creating a very large workspace.
  • Spotlight incorporates additional search capabilities such as Boolean operators, as well as the ability to search other computers (with permissions).[26]
  • Time Machine, an automated backup utility which allows the user to restore files that have been deleted or replaced by another version of a file.[27]
  • Universal Access enhancements: significant improvements to applications including VoiceOver, along with increased support for Braille, closed captioning and a new high‐quality Speech synthesis voice.[28]

Developer technologies

  • Native support by many libraries and frameworks for 64-bit applications, allowing 64-bit Cocoa applications. Existing 32-bit applications using those libraries and frameworks should continue to run without the need for emulation or translation.[29]
  • Leopard offers the Objective-C 2.0 runtime, which includes new features such as garbage collection. Xcode 3.0 supports the updated language and was itself rewritten with it.[30]
  • A new framework, Core Animation, allows a developer to create complex animations while specifying only a "start" and a "goal" space. The main goal of Core Animation is to enable the creation of complex animations with small amounts of program code.
  • Apple integrates DTrace from Sun’s OpenSolaris and adds a graphical interface called Instruments (previously Xray). DTrace provides tools that users, administrators and developers can use to tune the performance of the operating system and the applications that run on it.[31]
  • The new Scripting Bridge allows programmers to use Python and Ruby to interface with the Cocoa frameworks.[32]
  • Ruby on Rails is included in the default install.
  • Leopard’s OpenGL stack has been updated to version 2.1, and uses LLVM to increase its vertex processing speed.[33] Apple has been working to get LLVM integrated into GCC;[34] LLVM's use within other operating system facilities has not been announced.
  • Leopard’s security frameworks support Mandatory Access Control, sandboxes and code signing.[35]
  • The Graphics and Media State of the Union address confirmed many other features are possible because of Core Animation, such as live desktops, improvements to Quartz Composer with custom patches, a new PDF Kit for developers, and improvements to QuickTime APIs.
  • Leopard includes a read-only implementation of the ZFS file system.
  • Leopard includes a framework implementing latent semantic mapping (LSM) for classifying (e.g. textual) data.

In mid-December 2006 a pre-release version of Leopard appeared to include support for Sun’s ZFS.[36] Jonathan Schwartz, CEO and President of Sun Microsystems, stated on June 6 2007 that ZFS has become "the file system" for Leopard.[37] However, the senior project marketing director for Mac OS X stated on June 11, 2007 that the existing HFS+, not ZFS, will be used in Leopard. Apple has since clarified that a read-only version of ZFS would be included.[38]

Security enhancements

Leopard attempts to improve the security of Mac OS X in a number of ways. New security features intend to provide better internal resiliency to successful attacks, in addition to preventing attacks from being successful in the first place. Some Leopard security features, like Library Randomization and Sandboxing, are inspired by other operating systems like Windows Vista and OpenBSD. Others, like Secure Guest Accounts, are novel to Leopard.

Library Randomization
Leopard implements address space layout randomization, which randomizes the locations of libraries in memory. Vulnerabilities that corrupt program memory often rely on known addresses for these library routines, which allow injected code to launch processes or change files.
Application Layer Firewall
The built-in Leopard firewall is "application-aware", and can be configured on a per-application basis. The increased flexibility may allow the firewall to be deployed more widely and configured more restrictively.
Sandboxes
Leopard includes kernel-level support for role-based access control (RBAC). In theory, RBAC prevents an application like Mail.app from editing the password database. In practice, Leopard Sandboxes are far less flexible than the RBAC features of other operating systems, and are used primarily in low-level OS components. [citation needed]
Application Signing
Leopard provides a framework to use public key signatures for code signing to verify that code has not been tampered with.
Secure Guest Account
Guests can be given access to a Leopard system with an account that erases and resets itself at logout. [39]

Compatibility

Like Mac OS X v10.4, Leopard supports both PowerPC and Intel Macintosh computers. However, Leopard was not released in separate versions, but instead consists of one universal release that runs on either processor.[29] Leopard supports any Mac with a PowerPC G4 processor running at 867 MHz or higher, any G5 processor, and any Intel processor, dropping support for slower G4 and all G3 processors.[40] In the past, each new major release of Mac OS X has dropped support for at least some older Macs; v10.3 dropped support for Macs without built-in USB ports, and v10.4 dropped support for computers without FireWire ports.

Documentation contained with the Developer Preview DVD states that a PowerPC G4 or G5, or Intel processor is a minimum requirement. Despite this, some users have managed to install Leopard's developer preview version on Macs with G3 processors by editing a particular file and then creating a new installation DVD with this edited file. However, even though these hacked Leopard installations can be installed on G3-based Macs, some applications (for example Safari and iChat) will not function.[41] It is not known whether this is possible with Leopard's final shipping version.

Leopard is certified as fully UNIX compliant. Certification means that software following the Single UNIX Specification can be compiled and run on Leopard without the need for any code modification.[32] The certification only applies to Leopard when run on Intel processors. Leopard also removes support for Classic applications.[42]

System requirements

Apple states the following basic Leopard system requirements, although, for some specific applications and actions (such as iChat backdrops) an Intel processor is required:[40]

  • Processor must be any Intel, PowerPC G5 or G4 (at least 867 MHz or faster)
  • DVD drive (for installation of the operating system)
  • At least 512 MB of RAM (additional RAM (1GB) is recommended for development purposes)
  • At least 9 GB of disk space available

Packaging

File:OSXBoxes.png
The Mac OS X v10.5 retail box (far right).

The retail packaging for Leopard is significantly smaller than that of previous versions of Mac OS X. It also sports a hologram on the front, making the "X" appear to float above a purple swirl, somewhat resembling the default Leopard desktop picture.[43]

Version history

Mac OS X
version
build release date notes
10.5.0 9A581 October 26, 2007 retail

Criticisms

  • After Leopard's release, there were widely-reported incidents of new Leopard installs hanging at boot with a blue screen.[44] Most of these problems were attributed to Leopard's incompatibility with an unsupported add-on extension called Application Enhancer (APE), from Unsanity; unbeknownst to many users, APE had been installed silently on many Macs by Logitech as part of their mouse drivers.[45] Apple released an article on how to solve this problem.[46]
  • Leopard was criticized for poor Java compatibility. At Apple's insistence, the Mac OS X port of Java is Apple's own responsibility, not Sun's. Java developers criticized Apple for shipping an outdated Java Virtual Machine, and for shipping without J2SE 6. Some Java developers complain that Apple's in-house Java port is idiosyncratic and non-compatible; as shipped on Leopard, Mac OS X Java is incapable of running J2SE 6-dependent programs. Advocates of Mac OS X argue that Java has never been a well-supported development environment on the Mac, that Java applications are resource-hungry, and that Java UI applications fail to retain a consistent look-and-feel with the rest of the operating system.[47][48][49]
  • Security features in Leopard were criticized as weak or ineffective, with the revamped OS X firewall coming in for the most criticism, after claims from research group Heise Security that the Leopard installer downgraded firewall protection and exposed services to attack even when the firewall was re-enabled. Several researchers noted that the Library Randomization feature added to Leopard was ineffective compared to mature implementations on other platforms, and that the new "secure Guest account" could be abused by Guests to retain access to the system even after the Leopard log out process erased their home directory.[50][51][52]
  • Though generally lauded in the press as a step forward for data recovery, Time Machine was criticized in multiple publications for lacking the capabilities of third-party backup software. Analyzing the feature for TidBITS, Joe Kissell pointed out that Time Machine does not create bootable copies of backed up volumes, does not backup up to Airport Disk hard drives and won't back up FileVault encrypted home directories until the user logs out, concluding that the feature is "pretty good at what it does" but he'll only use it as part of a "broader backup strategy".[53][54][55]
  • R.L. Prior, on the ThinkMac blog, criticized a number of changes to Leopard's user interface, including the transparent menu bar, the shelf-like Dock and the new folder icons.[56]
  • When Leopard was initially released, buyers of new Macs in August and September 2007, including the 20 and 24-inch iMac models released in 2007-08-07, were denied of the $9.95 upgrade pricing. However, there were surprisingly few complaints over Apple's discussion boards. When asked why complaints about the upgrade pricing policy were being deleted, the official response was the questions were not "support oriented"; but when asked why posts praising Apple's upgrade policy, from customers that bought new Macs in October, were not also being deleted, as they also were not "support oriented", the posts were censored. In addition, threads for questions over OS X's validation scheme were censored.[57]
  • Anil Dash accused Apple of being smug because when browsing other computers Leopard uses an icon of a computer monitor displaying a blue screen of death to represent non-Apple computers. He also criticized this icon because computers that are not running Windows will also be represented with this icon.[58]

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/10/16leopard.html
  2. ^ a b Ryan Block (August 7 2006). "Live from WWDC 2006: Steve Jobs keynote". Engadget. Retrieved 2006-08-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Simon Aughton (June 12 2007). "Apple reveals Leopard's new desktop design". PC Pro. Retrieved 2007-08-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Apple Inc. (October 30 2007). "The Apple Store (New Zealand) - Mac OS X Leopard Retail". Apple Inc. Retrieved 2007-10-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/promobar_leopard_utd.html
  6. ^ http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/
  7. ^ Apple, Inc. (October 16 2007). "Apple - Mac OS X Leopard - Up-to-Date". Retrieved 2007-10-16. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ "Mac OS X Leopard - Features - 300+ New Features". Apple Inc. October 16 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-16. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ "Apple's Intel switch: Jobs' keynote transcript". CNet. June 15 2005. Retrieved 2007-04-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ Apple, Inc (April 12 2007). "Apple Statement" (Press release). Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved 2007-04-12. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ Apple Inc. "Boot Camp". Apple. Retrieved 2006-04-11.
  12. ^ Apple Inc. "Leopard Sneak Peek - Dashboard". Retrieved 2006-11-28.
  13. ^ "Non-mentioned Leopard features". Retrieved 2007-10-01.
  14. ^ "Apple - Mac OS X Leopard - Features - 300+ New Features". Retrieved 2007-10-21.
  15. ^ Apple Inc. "Leopard Sneak Peek - iCal". Retrieved 2007-04-23.
  16. ^ "WWDC 2006 Keynote - Live Coverage". Retrieved 2006-08-07.
  17. ^ Apple Inc. "Leopard Sneak Peek - iChat". Retrieved 2006-11-28.
  18. ^ Apple Inc. "Leopard Sneak Peek - Mail". Retrieved 2006-11-28.
  19. ^ Glenn Fleishman (October 25 2007). "Leopard Simplifies Sharing". TidBITS. Retrieved 2007-10-26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ^ Apple Inc. "Mac OS X - Leopard Sneak Peek". Apple. Retrieved 2006-08-08.
  21. ^ Apple Insider. "Road to Mac OS X Leopard: an extensive look at Preview 4.0". Retrieved 2007-10-4. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  22. ^ Apple Inc. "Quick Look". Apple. Retrieved 2006-04-11.
  23. ^ Think Secret. "Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard". Retrieved 2007-10-03.
  24. ^ Apple Inc. "Leopard Sneak Peek - Spaces". Retrieved 2006-11-28.
  25. ^ "OS 10.5 Leopard Spaces + Exposé". GoogleVideos. GoogleVideos. 2006. Retrieved 2006-08-28.
  26. ^ Rob Griffiths (August 15 2006). "Leopard first looks: Spotlight". Macworld. Retrieved 2007-04-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  27. ^ Rob Griffiths (August 9 2006). "WWDC: Apple's Time Machine looks to ease backups". Computerworld Inc. Retrieved 2007-04-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. ^ Apple Inc. "Leopard Sneak Peek - Accessibility". Retrieved 2006-11-28.
  29. ^ a b Apple, Inc. "Mac OS X - Leopard Sneak Peek". Apple. Retrieved 2006-08-08.
  30. ^ Apple Inc. "Mac OS X Leopard Sneak Peek - Xcode 3.0". Apple. Retrieved 2006-08-07.
  31. ^ Mike Shapiro (August 7, 2006). "DTrace on Mac OS X at WWDC". $<blog. Retrieved 2006-08-08.
  32. ^ a b "Mac OS X Leopard - Technology - UNIX". Apple. Retrieved 2007-06-11.
  33. ^ Lattner, Chris (August 15, 2006). "A cool use of LLVM at Apple: the OpenGL stack". LLVMdev. Retrieved 2006-08-21.
  34. ^ Siracusa, John (December 4, 2005). "Avoiding Copland 2010: Hints of things to come?". FatBits. Retrieved 2006-08-08.
  35. ^ http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html#security
  36. ^ World of Apple (December 17, 2006). "ZFS Makes it to Leopard". World of Apple. Retrieved 2006-12-17.
  37. ^ Schwartz, Jonathan (June 6, 2007). "Washington D.C. Sun Conference". sun.com. Retrieved 2007-06-06.
  38. ^ Gonsalves, Antone. "Apple Says No Sun File System For Leopard". InformationWeek. Retrieved 2007-06-12.
  39. ^ http://db.tidbits.com/article/9251
  40. ^ a b Apple, Inc. "Mac OS X Leopard- Technical Specs". Apple. Retrieved 2007-10-16.
  41. ^ http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=24736
  42. ^ "Do Classic applications work with Mac OS X 10.5 or Intel-based Macs?". Knowledge Base. Apple Inc. January 13 2006. Retrieved 2007-10-25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  43. ^ arn. "Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Packaging". Retrieved 2007-10-25.
  44. ^ http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1195031&tstart=15
  45. ^ http://daringfireball.net/2007/10/blue_in_the_face
  46. ^ http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306857
  47. ^ http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2202328/apple-leopard-stomach-java
  48. ^ http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3708156
  49. ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/29/no_java_for_leopard/
  50. ^ http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2209676,00.asp
  51. ^ http://securosis.com/2007/10/29/quick-leopard-update/
  52. ^ http://www.heise-security.co.uk/articles/98120
  53. ^ http://db.tidbits.com/article/9270
  54. ^ http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2296/071026leopardreview/
  55. ^ http://www.macworld.com/2007/10/features/leopard_pricing/index.php
  56. ^ http://www.thinkmac.co.uk/blog/2007/10/leopard-stupidity.html
  57. ^ Tony Celeste (2007-11-02). "Mac OSX Cracked for PCs/More Update Woes". Retrieved 2007-11-02.
  58. ^ Anil Dash (2007-10-28). "Smug Ugly". Retrieved 2007-11-02.

External links

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