RSSApple Seeds New 'Panther' Beta
By Eric Steil | Published August 4, 2003, 5:29 PM
Apple on Saturday released a new beta of Panther, the next version of the company's Mac OS X operating system. The build, labeled 7B21, shows the progress made since the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and is the first release available to developers who did not attend.
Build 7B21 includes extensive bug fixes along with new features and updated versions of bundled applications. The Address Book now allows contacts to be synced with Microsoft Exchange, and Finder now allows the creation of ZIP archives from files and folders.
Similar to Windows XP's Error Reporting feature, the operating system now prompts the user to automatically send information to Apple when an application crashes.
Safari, Apple's web browser, has been upgraded to version 1.1 incorporating many bug fixes since the release of version 1.0 in June.
Available for download at the Apple Developer Connection, the build is available to Select and Premier members. While there is not yet a specific release date for the new operating system, in June Apple announced that Panther will be available by the end of the year.
Just completed the 7B28 download 2 days ago, and the error reporting feature becomes a "regular". For example, Safari crashes very often, which invokes the error reporting window. IChat 2.0 AV also breaks, not recognizing any of the other iChat users on the network. Empty trash does not refresh properly, and you have to manually click the emptied trash items one by one to make them "go away". Strange, that A202 was more stable than 7B28. May have to revert to A202 and to accept some quirks on the GUI behavior of MS Entourage.
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|Keep in Mind that Panther is still not even in Beta Yet. This version is merely a "Developer Preview" Including Bug Reporting makes perfect sense. Wheras having it in a finished OS, well to me that makes an OS seem unfinished.
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|The WWDC Preview was just that. A preview. 7B21 is a beta version, hence the B. Considering it's being released next month, it would have to be.
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|Where did you get the Information of Panther being released in September? The only information I have is that it will be released by the "end of the year" I would be thrilled if it came out early, but I doubt it.
Re: the Build Naming, As far as I know the Letter there does not stand for "beta" but is merely a part of the build number. I may however be incorrect. (The original Panther (WWDC) Build Number did not have a B in it, the actual numer escapes me at the moment but...)
The reason I made the distinction between "Beta" and "Developer Preview" is that when Cheetah (10.0) was seeded to Developers it was not yet a beta. The Beta was made publicly available.
I realize that this is obviously a different situation, I was just basing my assumption on the Release Date Information _I_ had and on previous experience.
Thanks
-Jon
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|the G5 is slated to be released in september (ish) and will ship with 10.2.7 which is in beta right now. 10.3 probably won't be out for a couple of months.
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|Just wondering where all the MS Bashers are that pummeled Microsoft for having an error reporting feature in thier OS. You gonna start calling Apple part of the evil empire now for taking an obviously intelligent approach to software error analysis and development?
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|speaking of bashing, is't it interesting that the two companies have funatical followers, the two sides hate each other (just like deomcrates and republicans) for no real good reason. My advice stay out of politics and go with linux, atleast they don't over charge.
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|lol I feel redhat is getting heavier and heavier.
Windows.. I liked win2k, XP is okay.
but look at them apple. OSX is like the stablest apple they've ever got..
I'd say good job apple. but still Microsoft still owns a huge share of market. ... hard to turn the tide, but I agree that comptetitors are getting a lot better now.
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|Fanatical followers? The only fanatics at MS is MS, and it is fanatical to control the universe.
MS users are bland people using bland machines in a bland world.
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|The linux devotees are the worst of the lot!
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|You Mac Clowns forget that Mac OS X runs on a UNIX foundation!
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