Apple releases Leopard OS X 10.5.2 update

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In what is rapidly becoming a regular Tuesday occurrence, Apple has made another weekly announcement, this time releasing the much-anticipated 1.5.2 update for its OS X Leopard operating system.

The company has managed to announce something of substance every Tuesday so far in 2008, and today was no different, as it released the main update, along with a security patch and a graphics compatibility update.

The 10.5.2 update is currently available through Software Update, or as a combo update from apple.com/support/downloads with separate versions for the desktop and server versions of OS X, as usual. A list of what's included is available in the release notes.

The feature list includes dozens of critical bug fixes, additional hardware and file format support; improved router compatibility with non-Apple routers for Back to My Mac, and new raw image formats.

A Time Machine menu has been reintroduced to the menu bar (having been missing since earlier, pre-release developer builds), which offers similar options to Ctrl-clicking the Time Machine icon in the Dock.

It also shows definite response to criticism from some observers at the time Leopard launched last October. There are now extra view options for Stacks, plus tweaks to the appearance of Leopard's menu bar, which proved controversial for some users. It is now more opaque than before, and is complemented by a new option to remove the textured transparency effect altogether.

Graphics updates are now provided separately from those for the whole operating system. After installing 10.5.2, run Software Update again to download a separate Leopard Graphics Update, which weighs in at 49MB on its own.

The update also addresses a number of security vulnerabilities that could enable an attacker to run arbitrary code. Apple has also released these security components as a standalone update for both Leopard and Tiger systems available via Software Update and from the Apple downloads page.

* Apple also released new firmware for its iPod Classic media players. Version 1.1.1 implements unspecified bug fixes, but as the editor of IT PRO noted after he installed it this morning, his 160GB Classic still suffers from frequent freezing of click wheel scrolling, a reported issue with the latest of Apple's pocket audio and video players.

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