14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has seeded a new Snow Leopard build to those enrolled with the company’s developer program. Focus areas for this beta include the Mac App Store, AirPort, Graphics Drivers, Networking, QuickTime and VPN.
The eighth incremental update for Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6.8 is expected to drop in its final form momentarily with support for downloading Mac OS X version 10.7 from the Mac App Store.
On its Mac OS X page at Apple.com, the Cupertino, California-tech giant stresses that, in order to download and have Lion installed on a supported Mac, users must “Get up to date with the latest version of OS X Snow Leopard.”
The release notes for the already released Mac OS X 10.6.7 specifically stated that the update “enhace[s] the Mac App Store to get your Mac ready to upgrade to Mac OS X Lion.”
It is therefore clear that users running Mac OS X 10.6.7 at the time of Lion’s launch will be able to upgrade without having to go through 10.6.8 first, should Apple release the final bits by then.
“If you have Snow Leopard, click the Apple icon and choose Software Update to install the latest version,” the company adds.
The final version of Mac OS X 10.6.8 is also expected to address a number of issues, including one that may cause Preview to unexpectedly quit.
Improvements making their way into the update will also touch IPv6 and VPN reliability.
Those who haven’t applied OS X 10.6.7 yet will also get the Mac Defender patch.
Apple is now taking security a tad more seriously by implementing a mechanism that updates the OS’s malware definitions on a daily basis.
As for the upcoming major update, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple promised to make it available next month. The company did not specify an exact launch date.
Lion will be a 30 dollar upgrade to Snow Leopard users. Mac owners running Leopard will unfortunately have to install Snow Leopard first, in order to upgrade to the latest version of Mac OS X.