14 DAY TRIAL // AppleInsider is citing people familiar with Leopard development as saying that an eighth incremental update to the current Mac OS version is actively being developed and approaching a release fast. Sources point out to the listing of zero known bugs in build 9L20 of Leopard, the fourth beta issued to developers since the public release of Mac OS X 10.5.7.
According to “those aware of the new seed for 10.5.8 [...] it's now advanced four builds from its previous state, to 9L20,” the report in question reveals. “The company appears to be quickly winding up development as it supposedly hasn't mentioned any remaining known bugs and has fixed just a few prior issues.” Such issues that have already been fixed in previous seeds, but are listed only just now (as part of the seed notes for build 9L20), include problems with using auto-complete on CalDAV servers in iCal, Image Capture's support for large files, and syncing Address Book with MobileMe, according to the same people.
As for the focus areas listed in this Leopard build, AppleInsider mentions low-level components like graphics drivers, power management and storage. The Mac-focused site also claims to have learned that Apple has been code-naming Leopard seeds after ancient gods. As such, 10.5.7 builds (containing the letter “J” in their name) were reportedly code-named Juno, while the current update (bearing the letter “L”) is referred to as Loki, internally.
Snow Leopard development is also coming along, according to AppleInsider’s sources, as well as to 9to5Mac, which has even had a go with the latest version of the yet-unreleased software. Reportedly, last week, Snow Leopard beta testers were surprised to see Apple offering the latest Snow Leopard Seed Update via the operating system’s software updater. Build 10A394 of Mac OS X 10.6, weighing in at 700MB, is said to have enabled the Dock Exposé feature emphasized by Apple’s Bertrand Serlet at WWDC '09.