14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has seeded the fifth beta of Mac OS X 10.6.8 to developers (the second such release this week), asking the code savvy to focus their testing efforts on areas like AirPort, Mac App Store, graphics drivers and more.
Earlier this week, we reported that Mac OS X 10.6.8 Build 10K537 was available to developers enrolled with Apple’s program.
Featuring an identical set of focus areas as the builds before it, 10K537 is now superseded by Build 10K540, which developers can download immediately from Apple’s Mac Dev Center.
Those who’ve already grabbed the bits and installed the new beta on their test Macs have confirmed that Apple lists no known issues in the seed notes, and that the list of focus areas remains almost unchanged: AirPort, graphics drivers, Mac App Store, networking, QuickTime, and VPN.
Given that OS X 10.6.8 hasn’t churned up any bugs in its development cycle, with Apple seeding as many as two clean builds this week, Softpedia believes that its final (public) release is imminent.
The current version of Snow Leopard is Mac OS X 10.6.7, which adds preliminary support for upgrading to OS X 10.7 Lion.
Apple has confirmed that the only way to upgrade to Lion on day one is to have the latest version of Snow Leopard installed, as well as the Mac App Store through which customers can download the $30 software.
With Lion scheduled to debut in July, it is almost a certainty that the ‘latest’ version of Snow Leopard will, in fact, be Mac OS X 10.6.8.
The release will not only lay the ground for a smooth transition to OS X Lion, it will also be a maintenance update that patches minor bugs and, potentially new security patches as well.