Mavericks updates on the way, first one said to arrive later this month

Nov 7, 2013 07:43 GMT  ·  By

Software engineers at Apple Inc. are actively testing not one, but two upcoming Mavericks updates, the first of which is slated to arrive later this month.

Codenamed “Board,” OS X 10.9.1 is “expected” to launch later this month, these people say, “and it will serve as an update to squash bugs that accompanied the OS X 10.9.0 release of Mavericks last month,” according to 9to5mac. OS X 10.9.1 is yet to be seeded to AppleCare employees.

OS X 10.9.2, the second planned update for Mavericks users, is codenamed “Carve” and is said to include additional fixes, “and perhaps minor feature enhancements.”

Apple’s planned Mavericks updates are mostly geared towards bug fixing, and there are already some complaints from users regarding sound problems on certain Mac configurations, incompatibilities with Google Drive, and others.

Built-in applications like Mail, Safari, and iBooks are also being updated for Mavericks users. Apple is said to be cooking up independent updates to squash bugs in these areas. A new version of Apple Remote Desktop is also being tested.

Mavericks is the latest version of Apple’s desktop operating system. For the first time in a decade, Apple is offering the software free of charge. The only requirement is that you own a decently-specced Mac bought in the last five years or so.

As it codes up patches for the existing flaws in Mavericks, Apple is also working on the next-generation Mac OS, codenamed Syrah. According to the same sources, in OS X 10.10 “Apple is expected to enhance the look of the Mac OS to bring it more in-line with the changes found in iOS 7.”

New versions of iOS are also being tested internally, including an upcoming iOS 7.0.4 update which contains the usual bag of fixes.