Affiliate Disclosure
If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Read our ethics policy.

Apple testing Mac OS X 10.7.2 alongside iCloud for Lion beta 5

Apple on Saturday evening tapped developers to begin testing a fifth pre-release version of its iCloud cloud computing service software for the company's new Mac OS X 10.7 Lion operating system alongside the first external beta of Mac OS X 10.7.2.

The move is somewhat unusual given that Apple is requiring developers to install Mac OS X 10.7.2 build 11C26 in order to use iCloud beta 5 but has yet to provide developers with any information of test builds of Mac OS X 10.7.1.

"You must install OS X Lion 10.7.2 in order to use iCloud for OS X Lion beta 5," Apple reportedly told developers. "This pre-release version of OS X Lion is being provided solely for testing iCloud."

As such, people familiar with the release say OS X Lion 10.7.2 does not appear to address any of the outstanding issues or glitches that have surfaced with Wednesday's market release of OS X Lion 10.7. Instead, it's believed that Apple will initiate a separate beta test for Mac OS X 10.7.1 in the coming days or weeks.

Developers who've installed Mac OS X 10.7.2 and iCloud beta 5 note that the software updates Lion's "Mail, Contacts & Calendars" control panel with iCloud management interface that lets users choose which forms of data they'd like synced to the cloud.

iCloud beta 5

The new interface also provides tools for managing storage, backups, and purchasing additional storage, though the latter capability is said to be non-functional at this time.

Apple plans to formally roll out iCloud for both OS X Lion and iOS 5.0 sometime this fall.