14 DAY TRIAL // Developers have confirmed receiving a new build of OS X Snow Leopard, whose seed notes reveal that efforts are to be focused on 64-bit kernel development. The rumored “Marble” interface refresh is not present in Snow Leopard Build 10A314, World of Apple reports.
As usual, the site has been quick to provide the seed notes for Apple's latest Snow Leopard seed. The document contains several notes to developers, such as a known issue when installing via DVD, known Xcode issues, the inclusion of a 64-bit transition guide, to help developers in their efforts to start developing and testing 64-bit versions of their “KEXTs” and more. Apple has enabled the 64-bit kernel in this seed on a number of configurations, stressing that it is solely for development purposes.
The build contains quite a number of known issues, according to the seed notes available courtesy of World of Apple, which are available for your reading pleasure below (just so you know how far we are from a stable version of Snow Leopard).
Known Issues
· It may take 5-10 minutes to get to the Mac OS X Installer when using a DVD. · Setup Assistant sometimes crashes when migrating users. Please reboot and try again if you encounter this. · iCal, Mail or Safari may hang sometimes due to a backround process (configd) crashing. Please reboot if you encounter this. · If multiple users are editing the same document simultaneously over an AFP connection it may result in data loss. Only 3rd party applications that support this behavior, such as database applications, will hit this. Editing files with Finder, for example, is OK. · Finder may crash on 32-bit machines when viewing movie previews through QuickLook, Finder’s column view or the Get Info window. · Changing SSL setting for a Microsoft Exchange 2007 account refetches all of your messages. · Mac Mini’s with a Core Solo CPU will run very slowly. · ‘Repair Permissions’ in Disk Utility reports spurious errors. · Portable Home Directory accounts cannot be created. · Switching between Finder windows with Cmd-` does not work in this seed. · The initial Welcome Page in Safari is blank. · The contextual menu for the Finder icon in the Dock is missing some options. · VoiceOver cannot be started in Setup Assistant using Cmd-F5. Workaround:
1) When you hear “Mac OS X has a built in Screen reader…” press escape. 2) Press the right arrow 13 times to get to the screen that reads “Congratulations, You have learned how to use...”. Wait for this screen to finish reading and VoiceOver will launch. 3) You can then press the right arrow or escape key to return to Setup Assistant with VoiceOver running.
To start developing and testing in 64-bit mode, developers are advised to launch Xcode in Snow Leopard, go to the Help menu, select Documentation Viewer and search for “64-bit Transition Guide.” Some Xcode changes are also mentioned in the seed notes, such as a new startup screen that allows developers to open recent projects directly from the startup window and significant performance improvements when building, searching, or indexing due to adoption of Grand Central technology.
It is not clear whether or not this is one of the "key" Snow Leopard builds we discussed earlier today.