Lab Notes

Apple released an update (Security Update 2005-007 v1.1) to its update today. They forgot to add 64 bit support, meaning that 64 bit applications failed to work after the update. Most notably, Mathematica stopped working.

Is it that so few Mac OS X applications are 64 bit that Apple forgot to include support? I discussed moving Elektron to 64 bits back in February, and concluded that it wasn't possible due to limited system support. Only one system framework is 64 bit (the central framework against which all apps link, System.framework), leaving all subsidiary frameworks 32 bit. This means that until Apple moves forward with making subsidiary frameworks 64 bit (Elektron uses the LDAP, Cocoa, Carbon (yes, both of those last two), DirectoryService, SystemConfiguration, Security, and CoreFoundation frameworks), you won't see many 64 bit applications shipping. As a result, not many people were affected by this bug, but if you were, the fix is available now via Software Update.