datepicker altField not working

jquery 1.4.4

jquery ui 1.8.9

using altField option does not update the altField when a date is selected

furthermore when asking for the altField option value datepicker returns an empty string

tested on chrome dev version, firefox stable, firefox beta and minefield

no errors anywhere

(tryied on jsFiddle but the datepicker won't init, no errors...)

<input type="text" id="dueDate" name="dueDate" value="" />

<input type="text" id="hdnDueDate" name="hdnDueDate" value="" />

<script>

jQuery(document).ready(function(){

jQuery('#dueDate').datepicker("option", "altField", '#hdnDueDate');

console.log(jQuery('#dueDate').datepicker( "option", "altField" ));

});

</script>