Mac OS X 10.6.6 Builds Already Circulating as 10.6.5 Awaits Release

As Mac users worldwide await Mac OS X 10.6.5 to go live, Apple is already seeding beta builds of the next version of Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6.6. Reportedly, the build is under 4 megabytes in size, contains no known issues, and asks developers to focus on App Store receipts.

According to a report by 9to5mac, Apple has recently released what appears to be the first beta build of Mac OS X 10.6.6, as the company is gearing up to release Mac OS X 10.6.5 to the public.

The accompanying seed notes reportedly reveal that the build has no known issues, and “contains developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts.”

Developers are then directed via a link to a document about Validating App Store Receipts, for more details.

It is interesting to see how fast Apple is moving trying to set the ground for third-party developers looking to turn a profit by selling an app or two in the company’s forthcoming Mac App store.

What’s even more interesting is that the build, Mac OS X 10.6.6 10J521, weighs in at just 3.7 MB, according to the report in question.

So far this is all we know about OS X 10.6.6 which, as noted above, is beginning to see the light of day even before OS X 10.6.5 gets publicly released.

Speaking of which, Apple is known to be preparing the update’s release momentarily, with a pre-release build seeded to developers earlier this week.

The build was labeled as final thanks to the accompanying seed notes, which revealed that Apple has applied the following fixes and enhancements to Snow Leopard:

- improve reliability with Microsoft Exchange servers
- address performance of some image-processing operations in iPhoto and Aperture
- address stability and performance of graphics applications and games
- resolve a delay between print jobs
- address a printing issue for some HP printers connected to an AirPort Extreme
- resolve an issue when dragging contacts from Address Book to iCal
- address an issue where dragging an item from a stack causes the Dock to not automatically hide
- resolve an issue with Wikipedia information not displaying correctly in Dictionary
- improve performance of MainStage on certain Mac systems
- resolve spacing issues with OpenType fonts
- improve reliability with some Bluetooth braille displays
- resolve a VoiceOver issue when browsing some web sites with Safari 5

As Apple is busy improving Snow Leopard, the company is also known to be actively developing the next generation Mac OS X dubbed Lion.