Source Confirms First Seed of Mac OS X 10.6.4 as ‘Imminent’

A generally reliable source tracking Apple’s Mac OS X development cycles has been tipped off on the company’s plans to commence the seeding of early Mac OS X 10.6.4 builds. Mac owners running Snow Leopard have just recently received the third maintenance and security update from Apple, but the company’s technicians always have a few more bugs to squash, or new security holes to patch.

Notorious for rushing to post the seed notes of every new Mac OS X developer build, World of Apple now reports that, “The third major update to Mac OS X Snow Leopard was released at the end of March after several months of intense developer testing, now World of Apple has learnt that the first build of Mac OS X 10.6.4 is imminent.” It reveals that, “A select group of Snow Leopard beta testers have been notified of a new seed program beginning, usually a sign that a fresh build of software will follow within seven days.”

Citing people close to Apple, iPhone in Canada claimed last week that Cupertino was already making arrangements to begin development on the fourth major revision to its Snow Leopard operating system. Softpedia reported that Mac OS X 10.6.2 spent only a month in development, while the most recent update – version 10.6.3 – took about three months to go public. We noted that Apple’s development cycles were far from predictable, yet customers can expect a new incremental system update once every two to four months.

Upon releasing the 10.6.3 update to the public, Apple mentioned key improvements like a more reliable QuickTime X. Apple’s player got some compatibility fixes, according to the summary of changes, while other compatibility issues have been addressed with OpenGL-based applications. Improved performance of Logic Pro 9 and Main Stage 2 when running in 64-bit mode, and improved reliability of 3rd-party USB input devices were also part of the 10.6.3 update to Snow Leopard.