14 DAY TRIAL // The third incremental update for OS X Mavericks was outed yesterday with a few noteworthy features and improvements meant to enhance users’ experience, including 4K display support, more reliable VPN connections, and an updated version of Safari, just to name a few.
In releasing the update yesterday, Apple addressed customers worldwide with the following message: “The OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 Update is recommended for all Mavericks users. It improves the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac.”
As usual, the update is recommended to all users of the Mavericks operating system. To download OS X 10.9.3 and install it on their Macs, they need the previous Mavericks version (OS X 10.9.2) installed on their systems.
The installer is supported in dozens of different languages and users must have at least 1GB of free disk space to download and apply the update. With that out of the way, let’s look at the new features and improvements delivered in OS X 10.9.3.
High on the list of changes is enhanced 4K display support on Mac Pro (Late 2013) and MacBook Pro with 15-inch Retina Display (Late 2013) models. Creatives and professionals far and wide have been asking for this and Apple finally delivered this year.
Notably, OS X 10.9.3 itself does not include standalone security patches, meaning no new vulnerabilities have been discovered in the operating system for over two weeks now.
To Apple’s credit, OS X remains one of the most secure computing platforms out there, despite the company’s notorious slow acting in the face of newly emerged threats. However, the company does note that “OS X Mavericks v10.9.3 includes the security content of Security Update 2014-002,” which was deployed in mid-April.
10.9.3 further improves the reliability of VPN connections using IPsec, the reliability of copying, editing, and inspecting permissions of files on an SMB file server, and the reliability of network home directories.
Stability when installing configuration profiles is also improved, and the Active Directory logins should work better for groups now. An issue that prevented Font Book from installing PostScript Type 1 fonts is also addressed.
Customers who prefer sticking to an older version of the operating system can still apply only the security patches offered by Apple in the 2014-002 update by downloading only the security update.