Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Minor application updates! Get your minor application updates!
For those of you who like to keep your software current (I hope that's all of you), Apple has released a trio of minor updates in the past 24 hours that will have varying relevance to each user. The QuickTime 6.3 update focuses primarily on cell phone compatibility along with enhanced support for Keynote, iMovie, and iDVD. The iSync 1.1 update adds support for many more cell phones (hmm, seems to be a common theme here), including non-Bluetooth phones that sync over USB. You might want to check, as your phone might suddenly be a candidate for iSync without you even knowing it. iMovie 3.03 is a performance and stability boost, which is usually the least-heralded yet most important kind of software update.
Also, if anyone missed it, iTunes 4.01 was released a bit earlier, notable for a performance and stability boost of its own, but far more notable for the fact that the recent wave Internet music-sharing hacks have been disabled. Don't say I didn't warn you. All four of the updates I've mentioned can be rounded up at once via Software Update. If you don't know how to run it manually, just open System Preferences, choose "Software Update", and click on the "Check now" button. If not all of the updates appear on the list, don't worry, as updates sometimes appear at different times for different users. If I had to guess, I'd say Apple does this to stagger the download frenzy and keep the weight off its servers. If you just gotta have the updates before they show up in Software Update, all links to all four downloads can be found on this page.
Some users like to be cautious and wait a few days before installing any new update, so as to let others be the initial guinea pigs. The theory is that any widespread problems with any given release will be widely reported on, thus saving you potential agony. This is good advice to those who don't like to take unneccessary risks with their system. But Apple puts out these releases for a reason; they're essentially saying that this would have been the finished product that they would have released in the first place, if they had had the extra time and the extra foresight to get it all right before the original deadline. Just be glad Apple does this for us, unlike some unnamed software companies who don't patch their applications unless their attorneys advise them that a lawsuit is coming.
So whether you install such updates right away or wait a bit, be sure to just do it. QuickTime, especially, is at the core of your operating system, so installing version 6.3 is like getting a taste of Panther ahead of time. Speaking of Panther, that particular cat will be out of the bag in just a few weeks, and I can't wait to hear all about it. Although the actual release date is unknown, Apple has made it clear that details will be revealed to developers at the Worldwide Developer Conference at the end of this month. Here's hoping that the leap from Jaguar to Panther will be at least as large as the leap from 10.1 to Jaguar. The nice thing is that since most of the larger necessary refinements have already been made to OS X, most of what we'll get from here on in will should be of the cool and innovative variety. The Year of the Mac continues.
For those of you who like to keep your software current (I hope that's all of you), Apple has released a trio of minor updates in the past 24 hours that will have varying relevance to each user. The QuickTime 6.3 update focuses primarily on cell phone compatibility along with enhanced support for Keynote, iMovie, and iDVD. The iSync 1.1 update adds support for many more cell phones (hmm, seems to be a common theme here), including non-Bluetooth phones that sync over USB. You might want to check, as your phone might suddenly be a candidate for iSync without you even knowing it. iMovie 3.03 is a performance and stability boost, which is usually the least-heralded yet most important kind of software update.
Also, if anyone missed it, iTunes 4.01 was released a bit earlier, notable for a performance and stability boost of its own, but far more notable for the fact that the recent wave Internet music-sharing hacks have been disabled. Don't say I didn't warn you. All four of the updates I've mentioned can be rounded up at once via Software Update. If you don't know how to run it manually, just open System Preferences, choose "Software Update", and click on the "Check now" button. If not all of the updates appear on the list, don't worry, as updates sometimes appear at different times for different users. If I had to guess, I'd say Apple does this to stagger the download frenzy and keep the weight off its servers. If you just gotta have the updates before they show up in Software Update, all links to all four downloads can be found on this page.
Some users like to be cautious and wait a few days before installing any new update, so as to let others be the initial guinea pigs. The theory is that any widespread problems with any given release will be widely reported on, thus saving you potential agony. This is good advice to those who don't like to take unneccessary risks with their system. But Apple puts out these releases for a reason; they're essentially saying that this would have been the finished product that they would have released in the first place, if they had had the extra time and the extra foresight to get it all right before the original deadline. Just be glad Apple does this for us, unlike some unnamed software companies who don't patch their applications unless their attorneys advise them that a lawsuit is coming.
So whether you install such updates right away or wait a bit, be sure to just do it. QuickTime, especially, is at the core of your operating system, so installing version 6.3 is like getting a taste of Panther ahead of time. Speaking of Panther, that particular cat will be out of the bag in just a few weeks, and I can't wait to hear all about it. Although the actual release date is unknown, Apple has made it clear that details will be revealed to developers at the Worldwide Developer Conference at the end of this month. Here's hoping that the leap from Jaguar to Panther will be at least as large as the leap from 10.1 to Jaguar. The nice thing is that since most of the larger necessary refinements have already been made to OS X, most of what we'll get from here on in will should be of the cool and innovative variety. The Year of the Mac continues.
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