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What, No Apple III Support? (6/5/02)
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We can at least be thankful for one thing about our five-week baby-raising hiatus (well, one thing aside from this cutie): at least we didn't miss any Mac OS X updates. It's one thing to have been off the air during WWDC, the public introduction of Jaguar, the unveiling of the eMac and the Xserve, and updates to Apple's whole portable line-- but the very thought that Apple could have released 10.1.5 and we might have gone a month or more without installing it frankly gives us the heebie-jeebies. It's just not natural. We would have had to buy all-new Macs or something, because the ones we own now would have been permanently altered by update starvation. And, you know, that's never a pretty sight.
Luckily, of course, Apple didn't release 10.1.5... until now. Last night we caught wind of the fact over at MacMinute and immediate stabbed at the "Update Now" button, caution be damned-- every once in a while you just have to cut loose and get reckless, you know? Well, we're happy to report that we managed to install the entire 20-something-MB update without so much as a hiccup. Unfortunately, the hiccup came after the installation. When we restarted, our dual-800 MHz Quicksilver failed to recognize and mount the CD in its SuperDrive (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2), and pressing the eject key on our keyboard just popped a charming little eject symbol onto our Cinema Display-- without actually opening the drive. One more restart with the mouse button held down to eject the disc put everything back to normal, but for a brief moment there we were panicking at the prospect of no longer being able to skate virtually as Rodney Mullen. (For those who know who he is, Rodney came out to visit and crashed at our apartment for several days a few years back, which is why we're so much cooler than you. It's all about the name-dropping.)
But we digress. If you're wondering what 10.1.5 does (apart from making SuperDrives temporarily inert, apparently), MacFixIt has the full list of changes. Most of it is the usual improved support for still more digital cameras and CD burners and bug fixes for Mail and Sherlock-- and welcome though those improvements may be, for our money, there are two things about 10.1.5 that really make it stand out. The first is vastly improved iDisk performance-- that puppy's finally actually usable without frequent bathroom breaks during file navigation. And the second is "support for 2D and QuickTime acceleration for Rage Pro."
Whoa, Rage Pro? Sounds like Apple is indeed taking that class action lawsuit about not supporting earlier ATI chipsets pretty seriously. If you happen to own a Rage Pro-based Mac and you've been less than thrilled with Mac OS X's sluglike graphics and glacial QuickTime performance, give this update a shot-- we suspect you'll notice a marked improvement. And no, 10.1.5 doesn't add 3D hardware support for Rage Pro chipsets, nor does it add any hardware support for the slower-than-dirt Rage II chips found in the original iMac and early beige G3s... but hey, in our book, partial Rage Pro support is more than we ever expected to emerge from Apple's Mac OS X development labs. What's next, is 10.1.6 going to add support for Quadras and the LC III?
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SceneLink (3713)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 6/5/02 episode: June 5, 2002: Apple breaks down and agrees to sell the eMac to "regular" people, too. Meanwhile, the MPEG-4 licensing mess is winding down and Apple celebrates by posting a "Public Preview" of QuickTime 6-- even as Mac OS X 10.1.5 hits the airwaves, bearing numerous bug fixes, blazing improvements in the realm of iDisk performance, and partial support for a graphics chipset that Apple had previously abandoned...
Other scenes from that episode: 3711: The "e" Is For "Everybody" (6/5/02) You wanted it, and now you've got it-- and "it" is the Steve-given right to buy an eMac even if you're not somehow affiliated with an educational institution. That's right, people; yesterday Apple issued an official press release confirming that, whether you've already completed your stint in higher learning or you just have no inclination for book-learnin' whatsoever, the only qualification you now need to score yourself Apple's formerly-education-only "Most Affordable G4 System Ever" is enough cash or plastic to cover the bill... 3712: One Step Closer To Done (6/5/02) Say, remember that wacky brouhaha over the proposed MPEG-4 licensing terms? The one that got Phil Schiller all riled up during last February's QuickTime Live keynote? If not, the gist is that Apple was holding off on shipping the allegedly almost-ready-for-prime-time QuickTime 6 (which includes full MPEG-4 support) until the MPEG-LA group of patent holders came up with a licensing plan that didn't require commercial streaming content providers to shell out what Phil viewed as unfair per-stream royalties-- a scheme which Apple apparently feels would hinder the widespread adoption of the MPEG-4 standard in a big way...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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