14 DAY TRIAL // Dropbox testers running the latest experimental builds on OS X 10.4 Tiger will notice some improvements in the newest release of the file sharing/storing/syncing app. Dropbox 2.9.44 is specifically aimed at the decade-old OS X Tiger, which continues to be used by a handful of customers.
Released in 2005, OS X 10.4 Tiger is one of the last remaining Mac OS versions still capable of handling today’s web standards and most of the universal apps offered for sale by developers. However, its days are numbered.
But Dropbox Inc. continues to maintain the compatibility of its software with the decade-old operating system. The reason is unknown, but Dropbox has always struggled to offer its services to every platform out there, even those with tiny screens. In a nutshell, the company cares about every last customer out there.
Case in point, the newest experimental/beta builds of the Dropbox client have been spotted with fixes that exclusively target OS X version 10.4, also known as Tiger.
According to dropboxer Alicia C. writing on the company’s forums, Dropbox 2.9.44 Experimental “Fixes one of the bugs causing 2.9 not to start on Mac 10.4 (unfortunately there is still another, fix coming soon!),” as well as other minor fixes for all platforms.
The previous experimental update (2.9.42) dealt with a bug where the Preferences window would not show on OS X 10.4 systems. In other words, Dropbpox Inc. has been mighty focused on getting things right for Tiger customers.
As usual, the forum post includes details on what’s new in the 2.9 series, including streaming sync, which facilitates syncing of large files.
“As a large file is uploaded to our servers, other desktop clients with access to that file will begin downloading the file in the background. This makes large files sync faster between your computers using the same Dropbox account as well as in shared folders,” according to the cloud company.
Other new additions and enhancements include scrollable tray pop-up, improved initial sync performance, new languages (Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Thai & Ukrainian), over quota “Your Dropbox is full” screen, “Upgrade to Pro” screen post-install, and an option to disable “Move to Dropbox” context menu.
According to the developers, “To disable the ‘Move to Dropbox’ context menu quit Dropbox, then run the executable passing --move-to-dropbox=True, then restart Dropbox (without the --move-to-dropbox option).”
The latest stable version of Dropbox is in the 2.8 branch/series, so go ahead and download a Dropbox 2.8 build for maximum reliability. Experimental releases are meant for testing purposes, so don’t feed a Dropbox 2.9 build your most important data (at least not without an existing backup of that data).
The requirements remain in place for all platforms, and you needn’t worry about not having enough resources to run the software, considering it still supports operating systems that are as old as time itself.
Download Dropbox 2.9.44 Experimental for Mac OS X