AppleInsider Staff
Apple on Wednesday released the latest beta versions of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, allowing developers for the first time to test its iBooks software for Mac.
OS X 10.9 Mavericks Developer Preview 5 comes a little over two weeks after the fourth preview was made available at the end of July. Due to an eight-day downtime after Apple's Developer Center was affected by an intruder, the timing of the latest Mavericks release is slightly off from the two-week cycle Apple had kept until Developer Preview 4.
Notable in the latest preview is the inclusion of iBooks for OS X, which was announced at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Like Apple Maps, iBooks will make the crossover from iOS to OS X when Mavericks launches this fall.
As with previous version of Mavericks, Dev Preview 5 contains minor backend changes. Release notes from a previous Developer Preview suggested changes were made to bring support for iCloud Keychain.
Apple's maintenance update for the current OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion, dubbed build 12F33, comes with no known issues and once again requests developers focus on graphics, Wi-Fi and wake from sleep functionality. Prior to the temporary Dev Center shutdown, Apple was releasing builds of 10.8.5 on a weekly basis.
Both Mavericks and the Mountain Lion update are slated to launch this fall.
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Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
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22 Comments
Seems snappier.
Is it a known fact that OSX 10.8.5 will launch in the fall? Is it aimed at customers who won't be able to run OSX Mavericks?
Can't wait to use the new mapping features.
10.8.5 is not that far out, should be in a month or less.
Is it a known fact that OSX 10.8.5 will launch in the fall? Is it aimed at customers who won't be able to run OSX Mavericks?
If not before. From past history, it usually takes about 3 months or somewhere in that neighborhood for bug fixes, so if they have any more bug fixes to 10.8, then they'll release them when they are fixed. I'm not aware of any beta development for 10.8.5, but it they are circulating it amongst the Developers, then I'm sure it might actually come out soon.
I wouldn't worry about it, even after the next major release has been made public, if there are any bug issues, they still fix them and they still release security updates, etc.
Thankfully Apple typically doesn't take forever to get the product stable and most users upgrade to the most recent version in a timely manner. It's always best to keep on top of OS releases as much as you can, but obviously some hardware or third party s/w might be a limiting factor.