Yesterday was the Mac OS X Leopard Launch. I’m excited to try out the new features of Mail.app, Time Machine, and Spaces, but I haven’t gotten my copy yet. However, I found it somewhat amusing that an hour before the official worldwide launch I got an email from the “Worldwide Developer Relations” team about an issue I had reported:

This is a follow-up to Bug ID# 4693402. Engineering believes this issue has been addressed in Mac OS X Leopard.

Leopard is available commercially as of October 26, 2007 at:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/

Upon installing this software, please update this bug report with your results.

Thank you for your time. We truly appreciate your assistance in helping us discover and isolate bugs.

Best Regards,

The Bug Reporting Team
Apple Developer Connection
Worldwide Developer Relations

WOW. I couldn’t even remember how long it had been, although I vaguely remembered the bug. My colleague, who was with me when we were investigating the bug, had also received two emails yesterday for bugs he filed against Mac OS X Tiger.

Reading on, I saw the text of my bug report including the date.

August 22, 2006.

Double WOW. At least they addressed the issue. I have yet to confirm it, though, but it’s nice that they gave me feedback on my feedback. Many companies don’t do enough of that; bug reports seem to just disappear into the ether.

If you’re curious, this was the bug:

——————————————————-
Bug ID #: 4693402
Bug Title: Incorrect System Date affects Safari browsing
——————————————————-
<GMT22-Aug-2006 07:27:23GMT> Jen L:
Summary:
In Safari, when the system date is set to a date in the following range - 12/31/1969 to 12/31/2000 - a user is unable to enter information in the URL field or visit websites via bookmarks.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Click on clock on upper right hand corner of desktop
2. Select “Open Date & Time…”
3. Under “Date & Time” section, uncheck “Set date & time automatically”
4. Set Date to 12/31/1969
5. Click Save button
6. Close Window
7. Open Safari
8. Typing in the URL field is not allowed and the cursor does not move. Clicking on a link in the Bookmarks Toolbar does not bring up a web page.

Expected Results:
Ability to type in URL field. Clicking on bookmarks in the Bookmarks Toolbar displays web page.

Actual Results:
Unable to type in URL field. Clicking on the bookmark toolbar redraws misaligned bookmark links. In clicking these links, nothing is displayed in the browser. However, if the window is resized after clicking on a bookmark link, the web page is displayed properly.

Regression:
Tested on 15″ Aluminum Powerbook and 12″ MacBook each with OS X 10.4.7 and Safari v. 2.0.4 (419.3). Setting system date to 12/31/1969, 1/1/1970, 12/31/2000 all produce the same issue. This problem is not present when manually configuring the system date to 1/1/2001.

Notes:
None.