14 DAY TRIAL // Apple seems poised to continue its fast-paced annual upgrade cycle of the Mac operating system, with new evidence of increased OS X 10.9 web activity coming from the company’s Cupertino campus.
The Mac maker is hard at work testing the next major version of its next OS X release, and the first betas should be rolled out shortly, if AppleInsider’s findings are any indication.
Evidence of OS X 10.9 first emerged last year in October, when web visits from Apple’s test machines counted around three dozen. That number has now ballooned into thousands - a clear indication that development is ramping up.
With WWDC 2013 just months away, Apple could be preparing the first OS X 10.9 betas as you are reading these lines. A formal unveiling of the software should also be expected around the time the first beta is handed to registered developers.
While the next major release of the Mac OS is being prepared, Apple continues work on OS X 10.8.3, an upcoming maintenance update for the current version of the Mac OS, Mountain Lion.
Spanning nine betas in total, the development of this particular incremental update has been notably longer.
People familiar with the software tell us that Apple has made improvements to Wi-Fi in OS X 10.8.3. Focus areas (in need of testing) include AirPlay, AirPort, Game Center, Graphics Drivers, and Safari.
Apple doesn’t usually stop maintaining an older version of the Mac OS as new ones come out. When OS X 10.9 gets released to the public, the company will continue to develop fixes and security patches (even implement new features) in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.
A big question hovering over many Mac users’ heads is: what will OS X 10.9 be called? Some have suggested that the next cat in line is “Lynx.”