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.
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.