14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is thought to be gearing up for releasing the seventh incremental update to Leopard later this week. Sources cited by Mac|Life are said to have gained knowledge of a Friday release, with the last known issues (in iChat and Safari) being fixed in build 9J58. As for the final build, it is said to arrive with fixes for networking, syncing and Bluetooth issues.
“If you've been champing at the bit for the magic of 10.5.7, according to a super-secret Apple source, your champing can cease on Friday,” the report in question reads. “The newest version of Leopard is slated to fix a slew of networking, syncing and bluetooth issues.”
As noted above, Mac OS X 10.5.7 Build 9J58 (seeded to developers last Wednesday) adds just two areas of change, both affecting CFNetwork in association with Safari, VPN and iChat. The Safari 4 Beta was once more listed as incompatible with OS X 10.5.7, as with earlier builds. The release had developers focusing on a total of 26 areas comprising Mac OS X Leopard, among which AFP, Bluetooth, FileSync, iCall, iChat, Mail, MobileMe, Safari, Sound, Time Machine and X11 were mentioned.
As we wait for Apple to release the 10.5.7 update, there is also talk of a combo update reportedly being worked on as well. The combo update is to address issues with Leopard versions 10.5.6 down and is said to arrive alongside a “Security Update 2009-002,” believed to address “Tiger” problems mostly. Several graphics cards, such as NVIDIA's Quadro FX 4800 and the GTX 285 “Mac Edition” are dependent on the 10.5.7 update.
Readers can follow the development of Mac OS X 10.5.7 in the related stories as they wait for the maintenance update to pop up in their Software Updaters. The latest 10.5.7 seed notes (build 9J58) can be viewed here, while those tracking the ongoing development of OS X 10.6 can check out the latest Snow Leopard news here.