Advertisement

OS X 10.5.7: The hidden fixes

Mel Martin
Updated ·2 min read

I really didn't have any complaints about the latest Mac OS update. It went smoothly on 3 Macs, and I didn't hear any complaints from friends or associates.

While many people moan about things that didn't get fixed, I'm somewhat concerned about the things that the 10.5.7 update DID fix that I didn't know about.

A bit of background: For about a year I've had a Logitech Webcam. It was designed for the Mac, and was meant to replace the iSight firewire webcam that Apple unceremoniously discontinued.

The Logitech unit, a Quickcam Vision Pro for Mac, has a wonderful crisp image and a nice wide angle view. It is plug and play. That's the problem. As some other users have seen, its internal aperture adjustment sometimes goes haywire, and you have to unplug it, and re-plug it in again to get a picture that is not really, really dark. It's kind of plug and play, then unplug or don't play. Then plug it in again.


I went on the Logitech forums, and saw many others with the same issue. Logitech said the issue was a feature, not a bug. Yeah, right!

It was clear it wasn't going to get fixed, so guess what? The OS X 10.5.7 update did fix it. That's right. The camera comes up perfectly every time now. So maybe it was a bug in the way the Mac handled some USB webcams. The problem is, this isn't documented anywhere. Not on the Apple web page that details the update fixes, or anywhere else that I could find.

This is a disturbing and continuing habit of Apple documentation. There really is no depth on the updates, just kind of a high altitude view that hits the main changes. Make no mistake, I'm happy about this fix, and I'm sure there are many other 'invisible fixes' as well, but I'd sure like to know what really is in the update. I wonder how many people deep-sixed their Logitech cameras not knowing this fix was coming, or was implemented? Apple can do better. I think secrecy is fine before products come out, but not after. At least my video chats look OK now. If you have had some similar experiences, let us know.