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Apple releases OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3

Apple on Wednesday supplied developers with the third preview build of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, giving developers a chance to test out the latest version of the prerelease software.

According to people familiar with the latest build, a number of known issues remain in Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3. They include a bug that can occur on systems with FileVault enabled where a password dialog may not appear at boot time.

In addition, iTunes is said to no longer sync Notes, and the photo browser in Apple's Mail application cannot access the iPhoto library.

The third build also includes an error where Back to My Mac doesn't work for the first five minutes after rebooting. Those familiar with the build said that the DVD Player also may not launch after inserting a disc.

The pre-release software also reportedly has a handful of issues with the new Game Center for OS X. Currently, no "Top Games" are displayed in the "Me" tab, and recommendations are not shown in the "Games" tab either.

Multiplayer gaming between OS X and iOS is said to not currently be available with Game Center on Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3. The application also does not currently display game detail information such as pricing.

As before, the OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview is only supported on a specific list of Macs that support running on a 64-bit kernel:

  • iMac (Mid 2007 or later)
  • MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
  • MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)
  • MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
  • Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)
  • Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)

Apple provided developers with the second preview of Mountain Lion in mid-March. The software is due for public release on the Mac App Store this summer.



17 Comments

tallest skil 14 Years · 43086 comments

Seems odd that they'd leave a flaw like this in a dev release?

Quote:
Some Apple menu items such as Restart may not work when a sandboxed app is in the foreground

I realize that yes, it's a dev release, but this sounds more like a 'fix it in the alpha' problem to me.

Of course, what do I know; Apple still won't reorder their wake priority to get Wi-Fi working like it used to.

solipsismx 13 Years · 19562 comments

I expected it last Friday. Glad to see it's finally here as Preview 2 introduced some odd GPU issues that could crash my system when playing back any video type in any browser.

gustav 22 Years · 828 comments

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

Seems odd that they'd leave a flaw like this in a dev release?
I realize that yes, it's a dev release, but this sounds more like a 'fix it in the alpha' problem to me.

Of course, what do I know; Apple still won't reorder their wake priority to get Wi-Fi working like it used to.

Traditionally a dev build is a rougher build than alpha.

crisss1205 15 Years · 61 comments

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

Seems odd that they'd leave a flaw like this in a dev release…
I realize that yes, it's a dev release, but this sounds more like a 'fix it in the alpha' problem to me.

I understand that this may not apply to you but some people just do not understand what the point of developer previews are. A developer preview is not supposed to be for Apple to have others test out the OS to get it ready for public release, it is supposed to give developers access to the new APIs to make sure their existing and future apps work correctly with the new operating system.

I see that confusion a lot when the iOS betas come around.

mdriftmeyer 20 Years · 7395 comments

According to reliable sources....

Gotta love journalism. You go and register and pay to get access to Pre-release software and you state in your article,``According to people familiar with the latest build...''

Come on. I know you guys are trying to skirt around the NDA, but come on. This gets old.