David Risley is the founder of PCMech.com. He is the brains, the thinker, the writer, the nerd.According to AppleInsider, Apple has begun testing for the 10.5.3 update to it’s OS X Leopard operating system. The update is said to include 75 bug fixes. According to the story:
Among those components in need of evaluation, people familiar with the matter tell AppleInsider, are AddressBook, AppleScript, Audio, Back To My Mac, Dashboard, the Dock, DVD Player, Finder, Graphics, iCal, Mail, Portable Home Directories, Printing, Rosetta, Spaces, Spotlight, Time Machine, and VoiceOver.
The developer community is busy testing the code, and we should see the public release some time in April or early May.
While I’m at it, I’m going to rub something in. Why? Because it is deserved.
Apple releases Leopard 10.5 on October 26, 2007. I, at that point, proceed to buy a Mac Pro. On November 15th, Apple releases the first update 10.5.1. On February 11, 2008, Apple releases 10.5.2. Now we hear 10.5.3 will come out in about a month from now. All the while, Leopard is running much smoother than Vista ever did.
I should also mention that 10.4 Tiger was released on April 25, 2005. So, we had about 2.5 years between major versions of OS X.
OK, onto Microsoft. They release Windows XP on October 25, 2001. Windows Vista was released to volume license holders on November 8, 2006 and released to the general public on January 30, 2007. Vista SP1 update was just released to the general public only 10 days ago (March 18, 2008).
So, let’s see, Apple released 3 updates to Leopard within 6 months. Microsoft took 5 years to develop it’s new OS (it took Apple 2 years) and it took them over a year to get out the first major update to Vista. In the meantime, Vista is annoying enough to cause a lawsuit and a “Save XP” petition”.
Needless to say, I am, at this point in time, glad I am running Apple. One company is staying ahead of the curve. The other company, well, isn’t.
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Rich Menga, a native New Englander residing in Tampa Bay Florida, 
3/28/2008 4:58 pm
New study shows MS patches their security faster than Apple:
http://security.itworld.com/4940/microsoft-patches-faster-than-apple-080327/page_1.html
Keep in mind MS is constantly releasing “small” updates via Windows Update instead of waiting to distribute a bunch at once like Apple does.
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3/29/2008 12:58 am
Hehehe. I haven’t been here for quite a while. (Mr. “document centric” if you don’t recall.) Did I tell you or did I not that Apple is great abut regular updates, especially listening to user feedback? I’m off to see if you ever wrote anything about 10.5.2 restoring the pop-up menus to docked folders like I predicted.
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Ben Hammond reply on April 5, 2008 9:51 pm:
I must begin with saying that I own a macbook and pretty much use it day in and day out. I own a pc desktop but don’t use it all that much.
Amount of money users have spent on an operating system between major upgrades:
MS: whatever their first purchase of XP cost (if they upgraded separately): $150-250 or $300
Apple: at least $500-600, not to mention expensive hardware.
I don’t consider the update from tiger to leopard a major update like XP to Vista. It’s more of a facelift like the other OS X releases (yes, it’s 64bit, but there was a 64bit XP pro as well).
Remember, I’m not a MS fan… this is just what I see.
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4/26/2008 8:32 pm
I hope they fix problem with some USB disks (for example sata disk in CoolerMaster X Craft 360), on 10.4.9 worked well but with 10.5.2 doesn’t.
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