OS X 10.4.4 Is Here

The fist publicly available version of Intel-native OS X is available. The only catch is that you have to buy one of the new Mactels to get your hands on it. For those who have not yet bought the new models, the 10.4.4 can be downloaded from the Apple site, and offers a number of improvements and overall improved reliability and compatibility.

The update is recommended for all users and includes fixes for:
- 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

All in all, this update is less 'consistent' than the 10.4.3 update which addressed more than 500 issues and improvements. This latest version primarily covers issues that persisted over 10.4.3 because they were not deemed a high enough priority, as well as new issues that have appeared since the last update.

It's still too early for the Internet underground to have begun releasing reports on their attempts to make it run on the average white/grey box PC, but without a doubt efforts are underway in dark basements all over the world. As of yet, it is also unclear what steps Apple has made to keep their OS running only on their hardware, but without a doubt, the fail-safes are there.