Apple steps back in time to patch Os 10 ten.6 Snow Leopard

Retired-in-2013 edition gets a renewed digital certificate and so users can continue to run paid apps, and maybe, simply perhaps, upgrade

Senior Reporter, Computerworld |

Apple yesterday took a trip dorsum in time when information technology offered an update for OS X x.6, aka Snow Leopard, an edition information technology last patched in September 2013.

The "Mac App Store Update for OS X Snow Leopard" -- quite a mouthful, even for Apple'southward naming conventions -- was issued Wednesday so that 10.6 users could proceed to access the Mac Apple Shop, the apps bachelor there, and nigh chiefly, the upgrade to Bone X 10.11, or El Capitan.

Included in the update was a renewed digital certificate required past the Mac app distribution warehouse. "The certificate ensures that you can continue to use the Mac App Shop in Snowfall Leopard to purchase new apps and run any previously purchased apps that utilize receipt validation," Apple wrote in a short support certificate.

Nearly paid apps regularly check with Apple'due south servers to make sure that a receipt exists for the purchase before running, and use a signing certificate to validate that the app was, in fact, paid for.

Information technology was unclear whether the certificate re-consequence was related to the November spiral-up when a new certificate prevented Mac users from running purchased apps, forcing some to delete the apps and re-download them from the shop.

Apple did not immediately reply to questions almost the Snow Leopard update, and whether it was connected to last year's snafu.

The Snowfall Leopard update was the commencement for the at present-unsupported Os X x.6 since September 2013.

Apple tree now patches the OS 10 editions designated as "north," "northward-one" and "north-2," where "north" is the newest. Under that scheme, Snow Leopard was "n-3," and thus retired, when OS X 10.9, aka Mavericks, shipped in 2013.

Considering Os X upgrades are delivered through the Mac App Store, Snow Leopard required access to the mart for users to migrate from the 2009 edition to a newer version, such as 10.11, or El Capitan.

In that location are still Macs running Snow Leopard: According to Web measurement vendor Internet Applications, Bone X 10.half-dozen powered 4.8% of all Macs last calendar month. Although that paled in comparison to El Capitan'due south user share (42.six% of all Macs) or even Mavericks (11.7%), it was larger than for successors similar 2011's King of beasts (4%) and 2012's Mountain Lion (4%).

The ane-in-20 Mac owners who accept hung on to Snow Leopard have proffered several reasons for sticking with the aged Bone, including that it was the last version of OS X able to run applications designed for the PowerPC processor, the Apple/IBM/Motorola-crafted CPU used past Apple earlier information technology switched to Intel in 2006. Additionally, Snow Leopard was the concluding version able to run on Macs equipped with 32-bit Intel processors, making it impossible for owners of some older machines to move across ten.half-dozen.

The Mac App Shop update for Snow Leopard tin be retrieved by selecting "Software Update..." from the Apple tree menu.

Senior Reporter Gregg Keizer covers Windows, Part, Apple/enterprise, spider web browsers and web apps for Computerworld.

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