Apple preparing for first external betas of OS X 10.7.4

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Apple is wrapping up work on its next performance and maintenance update for the Lion operating system, as OS X 10.7.4 will soon make its way to developers for testing.

People familiar with the software update say that a pre-release build of OS X 10.7.4 will be released to a limited number of developers within days. A wider release to all members of the Apple Developer Connection is likely to take place by week's end.

Exactly what enhancements or fixes will be contained in the OS X 10.7.4 update remain unknown. Apple typically releases a number of beta builds to developers for testing before an update to OS X is released to the public.

The previously unannounced update to Lion was mistakenly referenced last week on Apple's official website, following the launch of iPhoto for iOS. The official site noted that the software was compatible with the latest version of iPhoto for Mac, which it said required a system running OS X 10.7.4 or later.

The last update to Lion, OS X 10.7.3, was released to the public in early February. It mainly addressed bugs, but brought a handful of new features like support for new languages, Wi-Fi connectivity fixes and Windows file sharing compatibility.

The forthcoming OS X 10.7.4 is likely to be one of the last updates to Lion before its follow-up, Mountain Lion, becomes publicly available. OS X 10.8 is scheduled to launch this summer on the Mac App Store packing over 100 new features, including Messages, Notes, Reminders, Game Center, Twitter integration, Notification Center, and AirPlay Mirroring.

Comments (14)

melgross

said about 10 years ago

"One of the last"? What does that mean? ML isn't due until late summer, and it's just mid March.

conrail

said about 10 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by melgross

"One of the last"? What does that mean? ML isn't due until late summer, and it's just mid March.

I can't see them getting much farther than 10.7.6 by late summer, so one of the last sounds about right.

mstone

said about 10 years ago

Lion will be 'the last' OS I will be able use until new iMacs and/or new Mac Pros are released as none of several Macs we have are 64 bit kernel machines.

solipsismx

said about 10 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by melgross

"One of the last"? What does that mean? ML isn't due until late summer, and it's just mid March.

Plus, with yearly updates I can see them extended the point update out a little farther past the new OS release than normal... unless they change the Mac accounting and start offering major Mac OS updates for free. There is certainly a case to be made that it would help Macs sales and reduce support costs.

ron1701

said about 10 years ago

Personally I'm at wits end with Lion's instability. It's generally slow, it swaps excessively and doesn't seem to reuse swap space, very often is doesn't hibernate properly ( I know hibernation isn't in the UI, but it is documented and it worked with SL ) and its got that idiotic "resume windows" feature that can't be disabled. I know that I can select deselect "reopen windows" when shutting down, but when Lion crashes, a frequent occurrence, it defaults to "reopen windows". I can't even speak about the instabilities with iCAL and Address book because I don't use those features. I'd downgrade to Snow Leopard in a second if I could do so without disabling iCloud, iPhoto and God knows what else.I'm wondering at this point if the Mountain Lion Developer preview wouldn't be an improvement. I realize its usually a terrible idea to run beta software on a production environment, but I'm reminded that the early Windows 7 beta's were preferable to the then current builds of Vista.

As Microsoft eventually gave up on Vista, it appears that Apple has given up on Lion. I'm shocked that they are just now releasing test builds of 10.7.4, considering all the problems they've had with 10.7.3. Its clear that iOS and Mountain Lion are the priorities and have pushed Lion maintenance to the back burner.