Over the weekend, Apple released new builds of its upcoming Mac OS X 10.5.8 and Mac OS X 10.6 (“Snow Leopard”) Server operating systems.
According to AppleInsider, Mac OS X 10.5.8 build 9L25 may show signs of capping development of Mac OS X 10.5. Users have stated that each new build has arrived with a focus area noticeably distinct from the last, with lower-level technologies and frameworks seeing greater attention than usual. As such, it’s been speculated that the Mac maker may be giving its Leopard OS a final once-over.
This trend appears to have culminated with this past weekend’s release of build 9L25, which no longer asks that developers focus their attention on a small subset of Leopard’s components. Instead, it groups together the more than three dozen components that had been isolated into smaller focus groups in earlier betas.
The latest build also lists no known issues and addresses just two new bugs, one related to saving mail messages as individual message documents and another to URL localization.
Developers were also granted access to a new build of Mac OS X 10.6 Server, labeled build 10A403. With it, Apple asked that they test upgrade installs of the server software itself, in addition to upgrade installs of Calendar server. Where testing was concerned, users were also reportedly asked to spend some time with the system’s new Podcast Producer, evaluating as many third-party video and web cams as they possibly can. Included with the software is a new Web Podcast Capture which leverages a new Dual Source Video Capture feature for allowing users to create picture-in-picture format podcasts.
Finally, Mac OS X 10.6 Server build 10A403 arrived on the heels of Mac OS X 10.6 Client build 10A402a earlier in the week. That build introduced some widely-reported interface tweaks to the Dock’s pop-up menus and Expose.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available and if you’ve had a chance to play with the new builds, please let us know what you think in the comments!