Infinite Loop / The Apple Ecosystem

Apple preparing round of Snow Leopard beta releases

Although Snow Leopard was introduced during WWDC, things have been quiet for …

Although snow leopards don't actually hibernate, it seems like Apple's have over the last few months. Now that the iPhone 3G has been released and any updates to Apple's notebook line are almost ready to go, though, Snow Leopard may be moving towards the front of the stove. AppleInsider has gotten wind of a round of 10.6 betas that Apple is said to be readying for release to a select group of developers, but so far, the contents of the betas are relatively unknown.

Sure, Snow Leopard was introduced at the most recent WWDC, but following the event, everyone's focus quickly shifted to the iPhone 3G and 10.6 remained a relative mystery. Apple's upcoming beta release appears to be the first such release since the summer. Both Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server betas will presumably be on offer, but the release is said to be fairly exclusive and most ADC members will be left out in the cold. The exact reason for the limited offering is unclear, although substantial changes to 10.6 since WWDC could lead to a somewhat buggy build that Apple probably wouldn't want to make too public.

Aside from improvements to Safari and better Exchange support, the vast majority of Snow Leopard features involve OS X's infrastructure. As a result, I think we'll be seeing a lot of Snow Leopard test releases as Apple and Mac developers cutting their teeth on the new features like 64-bit, multi-core, and Open Computing Language support. 10.6 isn't slated for release anytime soon, though, so folks have plenty of time to get used to the improvements. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll get a few peeks behind the curtain as the testing process continues this winter and next spring.

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