14 DAY TRIAL // After pushing a pre-release iTunes 11.1.6 to AppleCare employees, Apple this week started offering the same build to its sea of registered developers, in what could signal an imminent public release.
Developers this week were greeted by two new betas, OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 Build 13D21 and iTunes 11.1.6 “pre-release.” Both betas have something in common and they are likely to make their public debut in tandem.
Specifically, the latest 10.9.3 beta adds two new focus areas, one of which is “Contacts and Calendar sync over USB in iTunes.”
Not coincidentally, the iTunes 11.1.6 beta says, “this update restores the ability to sync contacts and calendar information to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from your Mac running OS X 10.9.3.” So far, users have been offered the option to sync this type of data through iCloud, but it has proved troublesome for many customers.
Apple’s move to seed iTunes 11.1.6 and OS X 10.9.3 to AppleCare staff then immediately to developers for widespread testing might suggest an imminent release to the general population in a matter of days.
While the two updates should be deployed together, there is also some indication that the company might spend more time developing them.
Developers who are familiar with the latest Mavericks beta tell us that Apple has added an extra two focus areas to the existing two that came with the first betas. Initially, it was thought that the Cupertino giant was planning a rapid release of OS X 10.9.3, as the betas only asked developers to focus on graphics and audio.
As it turned out, the third beta seeded by Apple arrived with an extra two focus areas, for a total of four key components to watch for: Graphics Drivers, Audio, Safari, and Contacts and Calendar sync over USB in iTunes.
The addition of more focus areas doesn’t necessarily indicate a timeframe, but the greater the test span, the more time the update is likely to spend in development.
The current version of Apple’s Mavericks OS is 10.9.2. Released publicly on February 25, the update adds new FaceTime features (such as audio calls and call waiting), an option to block iMessages from certain people, Mail enhancements, AutoFill compatibility improvements in Safari, better VoiceOver navigation, and an important fix for a widely-reported security flaw.
OS X 10.9.3 is expected to pack a smaller dose of new features (if any at all), but the bug fix count is likely to be just as big as the last one.