14 DAY TRIAL // As rumored earlier this week, Apple has seeded its developer community with a new beta build of Snow Leopard. Correctly predicted by AppleInsider as being labeled 10A335, the build features no significant changes, while Apple continues to ask developers to test any 64-bit kernel extensions that their third-party products will require under the new OS.
Reportedly, Apple has listed a handful of bugs affecting build 10A335, such as crashes in QuickTime X player, application crashes under Rosetta, problems with Migration Assistant and some rather strange errors in Disk Utility. People familiar with the software also tell AppleInsider that, along the new client beta of Snow Leopard, came an identically labeled (10A335) build of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server. “And unlike the client release, Apple is reported to have mentioned a handful of advances new to the build,” the report reveals.
The changes include an easier-to-use and -configure version of Podcast Producer for picture-in-picture podcasts, as well as the ability to remotely manage cameras over the web using a Mac, PC, or iPhone. Also new to the Snow Leopard Server are the junk mail filters in Mail Server, the better automated account creation in Calendar Server, and the completely re-written certificate management code, according to the report.
Softpedia also took a shot this week at predicting that Apple's next Snow Leopard build would not feature any changes as far as the software's interface was concerned. With build 10A335 confirming our expectations, we have all the reasons to believe that the Cupertino-based company is keeping the aesthetics of Snow Leopard on pause for a proper unveiling at WWDC '09.
Apple is widely believed to require at least two more months of testing on the OS leveraging on the CPUs and GPUs of new Macs through technologies like OpenCL and Grand Central, after the WWDC showcase. When introducing Snow Leopard at last year's conference, Apple itself noted that it was planning to build upon the existing features in Leopard, enhancing the reliability and stability of the software.