Apple updates OS X Mountain Lion to 10.8.5

With the official release of OS X Mavericks 10.9 looming large, Apple has still managed to squeeze another update for OS X Mountain Lion out of the door. The version is now bumped up to 10.8.5, and fixes various bugs and brings in performance improvements. While these updates are applicable for all MacBook users upgrading the OS X from 10.8.4, the mid-2013 MacBook Air (Haswell) will get the Software Update 1.0, after a prolonged period of beta testing.

"The OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.5 Update is recommended for all OS X Mountain Lion users. It improves the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac.", says the official release documentation.

The update fixes an issue with Mail, which did not display new messages in certain cases. Also, the file transfer performance over Wi-Fi ac networks has been improved, and this will at the moment be largely applicable to the latest MacBook Air.

The release details shared mention:

- 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 the improvements included in MacBook Air (Mid 2013) Software Update 1.0

You can download this latest update via the updates tab in the App Store application on your OS X desktop.