Apple releases OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5 with fixes for Mail, Wi-Fi, screen saver and more

Mountain Lion (Installation dialogue)

Apple’s OS X 10.8.5, better known as Mountain Lion, represents the company’s ninth major release of the OS X desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. The company has been testing a fifth update to Mountain Lion for some time and today released the software for public consumption.

OS X 10.8.5 includes changes and fixes for various issues pertaining to the stock Mail app and the operating system’s screen saver feature, in addition to improved performance for AFP file transfer.

Better Xsan reliability and fixes for Wi-Fi issues are also part of this update. It’s available now through the Software Update option on the Mac menu or via the Mac App Store’s Updates tab…

Here’s the full changelog for the OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5 update, build number 12F37.

– Fixes an issue that may prevent Mail from displaying messages
– Improves AFP file transfer performance over 802.11ac Wi-Fi
– Resolves an issue that may prevent a screen saver from starting automatically
– Improves Xsan reliability
– Improves reliability when transferring large files over Ethernet
– Improves performance when authenticating to an Open Directory server
– Addresses an issue that prevented a smart card from unlocking preference panes in System Preferences
– Contains improvements included in MacBook Air (Mid 2013) Software Update 1.0

The update is recommended for all OS X Mountain Lion users as it improves the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac. For detailed information about the security content of this update, check out this Apple support document.

Screen Shot 2013-09-12 at 22.12.51

A new Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 4.09 is also available with RAW image compatibility for the Olympus PEN E-P5 camera and changes that:

– restore lens correction to Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 image
– address a white balance issue with some Nikon images that were modified by third-part applications

Apple is expected to release OS X 10.9 Mavericks some time in Fall.

Announced at June’s WWDC keynote, Mavericks sports under-the-hood technologies that help MacBooks squeeze every last drop of performance from the battery.

It’ll bring out hardware-accelerated scrolling and user-facing features such as Finder Tabs, the native iBooks and Maps apps for your Mac, LinkedIn integration, Shared Lists and Power Saver capability in Safari, improvements to Notifications and more.