New Zealand DST problems

Apple has yet to issue a patch adjusting to a change in New Zealand's seasonal times, Mac users from the country complain. New Zealand's government has decided to shift its daylight savings switch ahead a week, moving from the previous date of October 1st; but without some sort of fix for Mac OS X, this will result in many computers displaying an inaccurate hour in the week between the old switchover and the new one. This in turn may throw off time-sensitive programs, such as iCal, producing inaccurate schedules and badly-timed application launches.

Apple has issued other timeshift patches well in advance of deadlines, such as one that corrected for an American schedule change earlier in the year. Anecdotes suggest however that New Zealand is not the only Pacific country to have had troubles, since while western Australia received a patch for its change, the upgrade was reportedly badly publicized and may not have been distributed through Software Update.

New Zealand coder Glenn Anderson has developed an unofficial patch for Mac OS X 10.3.9 and 10.4.10, although it is warned that the code cannot reach all parts of the Mac OS, such as any Java or WebObjects material. Should Apple release an official patch, the Anderson solution should successfully be overwritten.

by MacNN Staff