2009/09/03

Snow Leopard isn't the perfect upgrade

Snow Leopard is Apple's latest incarnation of their MacOS X. Though MacOS X has been 64bit for a while, now is the first time that it's really 64bit and most of Apple's applications are also 64bit.

In their wisdom Apple have disabled certain functionality in the 64bit versions of some applications, including running plug-ins in Mail and Address Book. This is annoying since things like Plaxo no longer work properly. Sync'ing does work, but the plug-ins for Mail allowing the user to see if the email comes from a Plaxo user and the ability to add to the Address book don't (Mail starts and warns about the plug-in and moves it to a "disabled" folder).

It is possible to restore the functionality by going in to finder and getting the "info" for Mail.app and making it run in 32bit and then it turns into the old Mail with the plug-in functionality.

Apple say the disabling of plug-ins is to maintain system integrity as plug-in can alter the Mail/etc behaviour. Surely it's up to the user whether they want to run a plug-in or not, and badly behaved plug-ins will quickly be reported to various Internet forums and users can then disable them themselves.

Running 32bit Mail is an annoyance, as it runs slower than its 64bit version. Please Apple find a supported solution.

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