Microsoft's share of the operating system market is dropping, while Apple computers and handhelds have topped 10 percent for the first time, according to a new report on Internet-connected computers.

NetApplications, the company that tracks browser and operating system market share for a variety of sites across the Internet, released its data for December 2008. According to a Computerworld analysis, the number of Windows users decreased in December by 0.94 percent to 88.7 percent.

The fall was the steepest in four years since Net Applications began collecting data, and was also more than twice that of any similar period in the previous three years. The Computerworld article does note that December statistics do slant slightly towards the Mac due to the reduced number of in-office days for corporate users, but the overall shift is decidedly Mac-ward even once that's accounted for.

Apple's share is just over 10 percent, if one combines the market share for both Macs and iPhones. Macs account for 9.63 percent of computers online. (Windows Mobile devices are included in the 88.7 percent figure.)

Also of note, almost three quarters of Macs online have an Intel processor. This time last year, less than half had one. Overall, Mac OS X's share grew by 31.7 percent compared to a year ago.

Windows XP remains the operating system with the largest installed base, with over 65 percent of the market.

• How about some documentation? I know Steve thinks books are dead, but in the old days Apple documentation was really first rate. Remember that old MacWrite manual? Apple, I know you are in the electronics business, but reading help files on a laptop screen that covers up the application I am trying to learn is a bit of a pain.
• When you release an update to an iPod, iPhone or OS X how about telling me what the update really does. I know you have gotten better at this, but why should people have to guess all the features and fixes that you have put in? Just own up to it and trust your customers.
• Find another partner in addition to AT&T for the iPhone. My phone is a great product that is significantly damaged by an inferior, unreliable network. To me, "more bars in more places" means I'm looking for bars to find a stiff drink so I can recover from my frustration with dropped calls, poor signal strength, and sporadic 3G coverage.
  
• A lot of your products get really warm. My MacBook Pro can be a sizzler on my lap. My Mac Pro keeps my office pretty warm, and I don't need those high temperatures since I'm in Arizona. Don't get me started on the Apple TV. I do think it is a great product, but I'm thinking I could make a fondue on that top surface. There is no fan in the Apple TV and when I put it in standby to spin down the hard drive it wakes up by itself paying no attention to my command. If I want to be ignored, I can walk into any Home Depot. (Update: Some users say the Apple TV does have a fan. I regret the error. It's still too darned hot!)
  

Following up on the 10.5.6 upgrade: The most common issue people seemed to have upgrading to Leopard 10.5.6 was that the install would get stuck at 'configuring installation'. It happened to me, and judging by the Apple support boards and others, it was a pretty widespread bug. We reported the problem Tuesday.

Apple has now responded and acknowledged the issue with a support note. It says that the problem can be caused by getting an update that "was only partially downloaded". Of course, what was not explained was how Apple provided only a partial update, and why and how this got past Apple QA?

For most people, installing the combo update solves the install freeze. Apple is recommending that people use Software Update, so most likely the bad package has been removed from the servers. There are still some nagging issues with Mail, mounting network volumes, Safari, and the other all too usual issues following an OS update.

Of course, for many, the update went just fine.

Thanks to all who wrote in and shared their experiences.

There is more fallout from the current Leopard update to version 10.5.6. Many users are flocking to the Apple support forums to share their tales of woe about Time Machine failures after the update. (Ironically, Time Machine was on the list of items that received bug fixes).

Upgraders are seeing Time Machine stall, fail to identify the target hard drive, lock up while Time Machine is 'preparing' to backup, and other assorted glitches. There is no guarantee that these issues were caused by the update to 10.5.6, but users are seeing a lot of problems in parallel to the software changes.

MacFixit has quite a bit of guidance on the Time Machine issues. One of the most interesting observations is the long pause while 'preparing' to backup. It seems TM needs to do a deep traversal of the data because it sees a lot of file changes to copy, as would be expected with a major software update. The advice is to wait it out and and eventually TM is likely to get going. I had the same issue and eventually stopped the process, erased my TM drive and started again. That was after more than 2 hours of 'preparing'. It looks like I might have been better off to wait.

I had hoped 10.5.6 would fix the occasional TM error I get telling me that the backup failed, but then when I try again, everything is fine. I spent a good hour on the phone with Apple support on this problem some months ago, but didn't get anywhere. Many others have seen this rather arcane message and reported it. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next OS update.

It's good to keep in mind that most people updated without any dire consequences, but there are enough people grumbling that it merits a closer look by Apple.

• I tried to upgrade to 10.5.6 yesterday and I left the computer on to do the upgrade while I went back to work. When I came back, it has the normal window up that says "configuring installation" and from there it just starts and hangs.
• I have just downloaded the latest update (10.5.6) and then rebooted my iMac, next the software Update box appeared on screen as usual, saying: Installing 1 item, configuring Installation. Then the Blue progress bar started to move to the right, went about 1/4 of an inch and stopped there, I left the iMac running for two hours and the progress blue bar had not moved.
• My Mac gets to preparing installation then nothing... Left it there all night in case I was being impatient but this morning still preparing install?

Apple's support page and Software Update appear to be a little bit hammered --- you know what that means: A new OS update!

Mac OS X 10.5.6 has just been released to Software Update. The ~190 MB update (assuming you are already running the latest version of OS X) offers up the following, according to Apple's Support Page:

• Various improvements to performance and stability in Mail.app, iCal, Airport and Safari
• Graphical improvements
• DVD player performance improvements
• A new Trackpad panel in System Preferences for portable Macs
• Time Machine and MobileMe improvements
• Other various fixes.

The whole support page lays out the improvements with more accuracy than we often see from Apple and there are security updates too.

My download has just finished and my dock is bouncing, so I'm off to update my system. Post your results in the comments!

Thanks Tyler and Mike!

Although they speculated that Mac OS X 10.5.6 (not to be confused with 10.6, "Snow Leopard") could arrive by November 21, there is still work to be done on the release, according to Ars Technica's David Chartier.

Apple is asking reviewers of this latest build, 9G52, to test MobileMe's automatic syncing on "networks with medium-to-high latency or constrained bandwidth." Apple might be trying to improve MobileMe syncing; anecdotal evidence suggests that for many, syncing is still not up to snuff.

Second, Apple wants users of non-Latin languages like Hangul, Kototeri, Traditional Chinese, Cyrillic, Hebrew and Arabic to use Mail, in order to test its support of non-Latin character sets.

Even so, 9G52 fixes over 100 issues. Full notes on the build are available in the second part of this story.

There's no word on when the update will be released, but we'll likely have to be patient for a little while longer. Like my mom always said when baking, "it'll be ready when it's finished."

I find the Mail.app plugin Widemail extremely useful. At my day job I use Outlook and the widescreen view is very efficient for space management. Prior to upgrading to Leopard, I used the application Letterbox written about here; however in my recent search for a Mail-enhancing plugin I wanted something a little more robust. Enter Widemail. It not only provides the awesome widescreen view from Letterbox, but it provides a means for creating a two-line message row similar to that found in Outlook for Windows and Entourage on the Mac.

Since we last wrote about Widemail the developer has added a preference pane within Mail.app making it easier to tweak settings. Additionally, the Widemail custom column can now have items that are left-aligned and right-aligned within the same row. Everyone's favorite automatic self-update framework, Sparkle, has been added as well.

Widemail makes Mail.app exceptionally more functional for my day-to-day use and is a free download (as in, feel free to make a donation).

[via Lifehacker]

Note: This tip is Leopard-only, sorry Tiger holdouts.

The Command-? trick is easily one of my favorites among the less-ballyhooed feature expansions of Leopard. If you missed that one, it allows you to search for menu items in any application by pulling down the "Help" menu, which can be triggered from the keyboard with the Command-? (Command-Shift-/) shortcut. Typing the first few letters of the menu item you're searching for will highlight its location in the dropdown menus. I use it a lot, but somehow missed one great capability noted by TUAW reader Maarten: in Safari, the menu item search extends to your bookmark collection and Safari history!

Because the bookmarks and history items are contained in the menubar's menus, they're searched along with the other menu items, allowing blazing-fast navigation of the sites listed in the Bookmarks and History menus. I like speed; I have my bookmarks toolbar set up with numbered titles which correlate to their Command-number shortcut (the first non-folder item in the toolbar can be accessed with Command-1, the second with Command-2, etc.), and I have keyword shortcuts assigned to my other most-accessed bookmarks using various tools. There's only so much room in my life, however, for organizing bookmarks and assigning keywords. History search can be a tedious prospect, too, even using Spotlight or Safari's History menu hierarchy. This trick provides instant search and it's only a keyboard shortcut away. Because the History results are sorted into sub-menus named by date, the results from the history menu appear with their access date first, so it's easy to navigate the results to find what you're looking for.

The concept behind this tip applies to all kinds of applications. I started experimenting and found that the search bar in the help menu almost always included recent documents and open windows ... basically anything the application lists in its menus. The bookmarks/history search works in most other browsers, too. I use Firefox as well as Safari, so I was happy to find it worked there, with one minor caveat: the Command-? shortcut in Firefox opens the Firefox Help webpage, not the Help menu item, requiring a mouse click to focus the search box in the dropdown. I haven't found a way to add shortcut keys for top-level menu items in System Preferences, so if anyone knows that, or another way to access the search menu via a shortcut key, I'd love to know about it.

Happy searching, and a big thanks to Maarten for the tip!

Ars Technica's Chris Foresman notes that test builds of Leopard's newest update, version 10.5.6, are arriving more frequently, perhaps signaling that the software is nearly ready for the public.

Build 9G38, the latest, notes that there are no known issues with the build, a crucial last step in the development process. Prior builds addressed issues with MobileMe, Time Machine reliability over AFP, Mail, and a long list of other "focus areas." The build was released last week.

Foresman closed by saying "though the signs point to a release soon ... I do not recommend holding your breath." Always good advice.

• If your Mac is new: Boot up the new Mac and go through the setup screens. When the setup assistant asks if you want to migrate information from your old Mac, choose "From Time Machine backup or other disk."
  
• If your Mac has an existing account, don't fret. Just open "Migration Assistant" located in /Applications/Utilities.
  

Gallery: Migrating to a new Mac