The NEWS link on gnu.org leads to a 404 so here are the changes copied from Savannah.
* Changes in Emacs 24.5
** This is mainly a bug-fix release, but there are some other changes.
** The default value of `history-length' has increased to 100.
** The variable `redisplay-dont-pause' is obsolete.
* Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.5
** `call-process-shell-command' and `process-file-shell-command' no longer
take "&rest args".
** The option `browse-url-firefox-startup-arguments' no longer has an effect.
** ERC
*** New option `erc-rename-buffers'.
*** New faces `erc-my-nick-prefix-face' and `erc-nick-prefix-face'.
*** `erc-format-@nick' displays all user modes instead of only op and voice.
*** The display of irc commands in the current buffer has been disabled.
*** `erc-version' now follows the Emacs version.
** Obsolete packages
*** cc-compat.el
*** crisp.el (moved to elpa.gnu.org)
*** tpu-edt.el, ws-mode.el
These emulations of old editors are believed to be no longer relevant
- contact emacs-devel@gnu.org if you disagree.
*** vi.el, vip.el (try M-x viper instead)
Package.el will attempt to download asynchronously by default. `package-selected-packages` tracks user-installed packages vs. dependencies of other packages. `package-autoremove` will remove packages that were installed as dependencies but no longer used. New minor mode enabled by default, `global-eldoc-mode`. Eww can render HTML with variable-width fonts. Good stuff. :)
Emacs is currently my preferred operating system, and I wish I could use it for everything. One problem is the Web. A modern browser is also an operating system of it's own, and while it is possible to embed a full-featured browser into Emacs, it can't be fully integrated. We need an Emacs-based alternative to the Web, something decentralized, maybe Xanadu-like! Just dreaming.
Can anyone comment on why they are tag-averse? In my mental model, applying the git tag is just a standard (and arguably the first) step in making a release.
It's more than just possible, it's likely. They have recently had long flame wars because old timers don't want to, and think they shouldn't have to, learn about the git's "index" and think git should be changed to push on commit like cvs. Give them time.
This reminds me that with git sometimes you don't have anything to push to.
Example 1: a repository is local by definition and if you work alone you can back it up to your USB disk and never push it to any remote.
Example 2: there are many ways to send diffs to other developers. Push is one of them but you can also use git-format-patch and git-send-email together to mail them to your team.
I have seen it vary from a few days to a week or more. In case you just want to try the latest features, I can recommend unofficial emacs-w64 builds (http://sourceforge.net/projects/emacsbinw64/). Been using a build from here for months and found it to be fairly stable.
Does anyone know what the obstacles are to an official 64-bit Windows build? There are multiple unofficial builds in the wild and at least one (linked in the parent comment) builds without patches.
I've done some emacs building on Windows before, and I think it's more to do with all the dependencies.
There are so many of precompiled dependencies available for 32-bit, but last time I checked, it's not the case for 64-bit, so you have to resort to compiling those dependencies as well. Though this situation may now be better, but that was major issues when I looked into 64-bit before.
Aquamacs is a heavily customized emacs based on GNU Emacs. I'm not sure how or if Aquamacs resynchronizes with GNU Emacs, but in principle, a new release of Aquamacs might start with this release of GNU Emacs as a base.
In general, I've found the platform integrations of Aquamacs to not be worth the trouble and package incompatibilities that they appear to introduce. I'm not using OS X these days, but up until a couple of months ago, I tended to use either the "Emacs for OSX" distribution, or compile my own via Homebrew.
I think it's pretty common for people to recommend using one of the more "vanilla" versions of GNU Emacs over Aquamacs these days.
...and here's what we're looking forward to in 25.1 (corrected): http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/plain/etc/NEWS
Package.el will attempt to download asynchronously by default. `package-selected-packages` tracks user-installed packages vs. dependencies of other packages. `package-autoremove` will remove packages that were installed as dependencies but no longer used. New minor mode enabled by default, `global-eldoc-mode`. Eww can render HTML with variable-width fonts. Good stuff. :)