14 DAY TRIAL // AppleSeed program members are receiving notifications from Apple regarding a new version of Mountain Lion being prepared for seeding. Developers are likely to receive the bits as well, shortly after OS X 10.8.2 is handed to select customers.
An email from Apple titled “OS X Mountain Lion Software Update Invitation” says that customers are "invited to participate in the next Mountain Lion Software Update seed project, 10.8.2.”
“Apple will provide you with the pre-release software,” the Mac maker adds. “Once builds are available, we ask that you install and test each build to help us make sure that this is a high quality release!”
Apple’s Software Customer Seeding program invites select customers to test pre-release software products in order to provide Apple’s engineering team with real-world quality and usability feedback.
This program gives customers a first look at new and upcoming software, but it also asks of them to keep a tight lid on their discoveries. Testers must provide feedback directly to engineering.
“Participants testing developmental software must tolerate the unpolished nature of a pre-release product. There is always the risk of data loss,” says Apple.
“We want to collect feedback from our customers to improve the overall quality of our products by testing it in many different environments,” it adds. “Your experience with our products impacts our future success and this program will help us facilitate that goal.”
Cupertino is yet to roll out OS X 10.8.1, the first incremental update packing a number of patches for the original Mountain Lion, including one particularly noteworthy power-management tweak.
While OS X 10.8.1 is known to deal with some bugs, OS X 10.8.2 should be a compatibility release aimed at iOS 6, the next major version of Apple’s mobile operating system powering iPhones and iPads worldwide.