10.5.5 is in the house; it’s coming from inside the house!

It’s time once again for The Wonderful World of Software Update. Today’s contestant? Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.5. So good that just one five couldn’t handle it—we’ve had to give it two. That, my friends, is a lot of five.

The last point update to Leopard came almost 3 months ago, so what does our new friend .5 bring us? Fortunately, these kind of OS updates are one of the few places that Apple seems to still be providing a slew of handy release notes, so we can tell you that it mainly comprises security updates, bug fixes, and performance improvements.

Among those that might catch your eye:

• Addresses stability issues with video playback, processor core idling, and remote disc sharing for MacBook Air.
• Improves Back to My Mac reliability.
• Improves Spotlight indexing performance.
• Includes extensive graphics enhancements. (Ooh, shiny)
• Updates iCal to more accurately handle repeating events.
• Comes with a free pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream.
• Resolves an issue with SMTP settings for AIM, Compuserve, Hanmail, Yahoo!, and Time Warner Road Runner email accounts.
• Time Machine can now back up iPhone backups that are on your Mac, as well as other items in (~/Library/Application Support).

You can grab the 136MB download from Software Update now—a combo installer will likely be available on Apple’s download page shortl—what? Of course all those bullet points are true. I wouldn’t lie to you. Not about the serious business of OS X updates, anyway.

Notice any other improvements or new features? Hit the comment thread below and tell us about it.

Comments (8)

Comes with a free pint of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream.

O RLY?

rjs

September 15, 2008

1:57 PM PT

My Chunky Monkey was melted when the download was finished.

DWes

September 15, 2008

2:47 PM PT

Installed the update on my NacBook Pro, 136mg...installed on my iMac 24, 324mg...both machines installed fine, but can anyone explain the file size difference?

David Van Meter

September 15, 2008

3:41 PM PT

Does this mean my MacBook now has the graphics power of a MacBook Pro?

wesg

September 15, 2008

4:20 PM PT

@wesg Yes.

Gianni Chiappetta

September 15, 2008

4:44 PM PT

the download is 321MB not 136MB
just something I wanted to point out :)

Maggi

September 15, 2008

6:40 PM PT

@Maggi - Mine is only 136MB also. Maybe you missed the last security patch?

Scott

September 15, 2008

9:50 PM PT

I'm wondering what the "extensive graphics enhancements" are?

Erik

September 17, 2008

2:57 PM PT