As notes MacRumors, Apple is hiring a Finder engineer for development related to Finder:

The Finder team is seeking an energetic, motivated software engineer to help develop next generation versions of the Finder, the notorious file browser for Mac OS X.
You will be responsible for developing new features of an application that is often perceived by our users as the “face of the system”. You will be working on user interfaces spanning various browser views, new advanced search features, navigation and data presentation as well as many other parts of the application.

In this position you will be expected to:
- Participate in all of the various stages of feature development from design brainstorms, through feature development, all the way to fixing that last critical elusive bug under a tight release deadline.
- You will be required to produce clear designs, excellent implementation and tight code.
- Deliver tight, well implemented features, fix bugs and develop Finder into the best file browser on the planet.
- Work on performance and responsiveness of the Finder, making it feel lightweight, fast, snappy and pleasant to use.

This could be a confirmation to a report we posted in October 2005 revealing some information about Leopard’s next generation Finder. The job posting mentions “advanced search features” and “speed improvements”, reflecting the extensive use of Spotlight and the performance improvements we had mentioned in our report.

According to AppleInsider, Apple has seeded the first builds of Mac OS X 10.4.5 (Tiger) Update. The builds, numbered 8H3 and 8H5 focus on the following areas :

- Safari,
- CoreGraphics
- Mac OS X Dock
- Mac OS X crash report
- Software Update
- MSDOS file system compatibility

No timeframe is provided for the release date of this update.

Google has officially released Google Earth for Mac which has been made available on their web site.

Requirements to run Google Earth for Mac are the following:

Mac OS X (10.4)
500Mhz
256M RAM
400MB disk space
Network speed: 128Kbits/sec
3D-capable video card with 16Mbytes of VRAM
1024x768, “16-bit High Color” screen

Mac users have been waiting several months after the Windows release but now, the piece of Software is available as a final 3.1 version for Mac OS X. About a month ago, a beta version was leaked on the Internet and was made available on several peer to peer networks.

Apple has just released Mac OS X 10.4.4 update through the Software Update utility. The 27.6MB update brings the following improvements, according to Apple:

The 10.4.4 Update delivers overall improved reliability and compatibility for Mac OS X v10.4 and is recommended for all users.

For detailed information on Security Updates, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798.

Along with the update for Aperture, Apple has also released an update for Soundtrack Pro to version 1.0.2. The update which waights 41.6MB has the following description:

About this update
Soundtrack Pro Update (version 1.0.2) gives audio and video professionals a powerful way to edit and design sound.

Soundtrack Pro waveform editor includes innovative action layering and intelligent repair and restoration functions that let you accurately manipulate audio while retaining total creative flexibility. And, with support for video formats up to HD resolutions, full multitrack editing and mixing, over 50 professional effects plug-ins, and thousands of included Apple Loops, precise audio control has never been so intuitive.

This update is not for the version of Soundtrack that ships with Final Cut Pro, which is alrady numbered 1.2. More information about this update can be found here.

Apple has released an update for Aperture to version 1.0.1 through the Software Update utility and its web site. The update offers the following changes and improvements:

Aperture 1.0.1 Update addresses a number of issues related to reliability and performance. It also delivers improved image export quality and metadata handling. Among the key areas addressed are:

White balance adjustment accuracy and performance
Image export quality
Book and print ordering reliability
Auto-stacking performance
Custom paper size handling
This update is recommended for all Aperture users.

AppleInsider and ThinkSecret report that another build of Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.4, numbered 8G22, has been seeded to developers this week.

This update will bring more than one hundred bug fixes to Apple’s operating system and should be released very soon, according to both sites.

According to ThinkSecret, an OpenGL bug is currently the only major issue that remains on the 8G22 build.

AppleInsider and ThinkSecret both confirm that Mac OS X 10.4.4 is coming soon, as Apple usually releases an update before the year end.

The build 8G17 that was seeded lasy week brings a number of bug fixes for graphics, FileManager and FileSystem according to ThinkSecret.

This update will bring more than one hundred bug fixes. Among them, “AirPort and Bluetooth wireless access, Spotlight indexing and searching, and RAW camera support”, according to AppleInsider.

As notices MacRumors, a message on the french site MacGeneration forums posted by an anonymous, claims that Apple is developing its Cocoa framework and development environment xCode to Windows.

It is also reported in the forums post that Apple will port Safari to Windows the day the first Intel-based Mac ships.

The idea is to promote Mac development tools and framework to Windows developers, allowing them to create really universal binaries, independant of the processor and the operating system (Mac OS/Windows).

Earlier OS projects have been doing the contrary. On Linux, Wine simulates (and not emulates) a Windows environment and can run Windows applications. Apple had also a similar project at the early stages of development of Mac OS X (Rhapsody at that time) but it dropped the “Yellow Box” project with the release of Mac OS X.

There are however some reasons to doubt on the credibility of this forum post, time will tell. Meanwhile, I let you make your own opinion on it by giving it a read.

Security Update 2005-009:

Apple has just released a Security Update labeled “2005-009″ through the Software Update utility.

The update provides the following changes: (more…)

As report several readers and Mac-centric sites (1, 2), Apple is now shipping Aperture, the photography editing application released during a special event on October the 19th. (more…)

According to unconfirmed reports (see 1, 2), hackers have easily cracked Mac OS X 10.4.3’s improved TPM protection. Not only the new version runs on any PC, but it also enables accellerated graphics on some ATI chips and AltiVec instructions emulation on Rosetta. (more…)

Apple has quietly released a Firmware update for the PowerMac G5 Single 1.8Ghz (late 2004). (more…)

Apple has made available Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) 5.0 Release 3 through the Software Update utility. (more…)

ThinkSecret reports that Apple has seeded the first build of Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.4, labelled “8G7″, to developers. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal claims that Apple has made an offer to MIT’s Media lab initiative for making a $100 laptop for students. (more…)

According to Digitimes, Apple is seeking for a new supplier for low density NAND chips for its iPod nano and is in talks with Hynix. (more…)

Here’s a catch-up with news of the end of this week: (more…)