Apple seeds new Mac OS X 10.7.3 Build 11D46 to developers

The new gigabyte-sized delta version of the 11D46 build replaces last week's 11D42, three other builds released in December, and the initial developer build in November, all of which were designated as Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3.

The focus of these builds hasn't changed, underscoring the complexity of Apple's shift to iCloud, and the support for it required in both its new Documents & Data features open to third party developers and in basic messaging apps including Mail, iCal and Address Book.

While Apple already supports iCloud document features between its iPhone and iPad versions of iWork apps, its Mac version of iWork hasn't yet rolled out support for seamless cross-platform document editing.

Once publicly released, the new 10.7.3 build will extend official Mac support for Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai and Ukrainian languages. The last update Apple released for Mac OS X Lion was 10.7.2 in October.

The new 10.3.7 build also incorporates fixes related to smart cards, directory services authentication, and Apple's homegrown Windows file sharing, which the company just began using in Mac OS X Lion after dumping SAMBA as the code it uses for working with Windows PCs over the network. Additionally, it includes drivers for new AMD (ATI) "Tahiti" graphics cards.

New Mac OS X Server build

The new build is accompanied by a parallel Mac OS X Lion Server 10.7.3 build that focuses on Apple's Address Book Server, Calendar & Contacts Server, WebDAV Sharing and Directory Utility, as well as tweaking the user interface of the Server Application related to Sharing, Web and VPN services.

The new server build also includes support for the Profile Manager (used to deploy and manage Macs and iOS devices), Webmail, adds iPad editing support in its Wiki Server and fixes elements of the Xsan file system Apple now ships for free within $50 Server app available in the Mac App Store.