Apple seeds second OS X Mavericks Developer Preview [u]

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Coming on the heels of the iOS 7 beta 2 release, Apple on Monday seeded the second build of its next-generation OS X 10.9 Mavericks Developer Preview to registered developers.

Update: Along with the new Mavericks preview, Apple released the second beta of Xcode 5, which can also be found via the Mac App Store.

Mavericks


According to people familiar with the new Mavericks seed, Apple has dubbed the build "13A497d," a few iterations higher than the "13A476u" designation held by the first preview issued to developers during WWDC 2013.

Apple notes in there are a few bugs with the release, including minor display issues with Safari and iCloud Keychain.

The forthcoming operating system boasts a number of improvements and feature additions like Finder tabs, Maps, App Nap and Compressed Memory, among others.

Mavericks 2


Apple's OS X 10.9 Mavericks Developer Preview 2 is available now for developers via the Mac App Store.

For more on the features and what to expect from the upcoming Mac operating system, check out AppleInsider's ongoing in-depth coverage here.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 64
    andysolandysol Posts: 2,506member
    Not sure if you can mention it or not, but how are y'all liking mavericks so far? Does it seem faster, or smoother- even being in beta? how are maps? I love mountain lion- definite improvement from lion.
  • Reply 2 of 64
    dreyfus2dreyfus2 Posts: 1,072member
    andysol wrote: »
    Not sure if you can mention it or not, but how are y'all liking mavericks so far? Does it seem faster, or smoother- even being in beta? how are maps? I love mountain lion- definite improvement from lion.

    Nothing to complain about, it is the most solid beta I can remember. Actually, it is causing less trouble than any release version I can remember. All drivers work (printers, scanners, video capture boards, audio interfaces), all applications work (with Mail.app plugins being the only exception - I can safely reveal that, as there are several discussions about this on the Internet already).

    Maps work great, including sending directions from the Mac to iDevices. It does (of course) use the same map data as the iOS version, so, your mileage may vary. It also does not have public transport schedules (where I am). Otherwise it works fine.

    My favorite feature by far is the vastly improved support for multi-display setups. Can't say much about the Finder improvements, as I can't live without PathFinder (the only thing I use the Finder for is AirDrop, as PathFinder does not support it).
  • Reply 3 of 64
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    I've learned the hard way to avoid Apple betas! I just don't enjoy that much frustration and none of my development efforts require that I be on the bleeding edge. Given that reports from early adopters is encouraging.
    andysol wrote: »
    Not sure if you can mention it or not, but how are y'all liking mavericks so far? Does it seem faster, or smoother- even being in beta? how are maps? I love mountain lion- definite improvement from lion.
  • Reply 4 of 64
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    My 2008 Air saw battery life improvements. Or perhaps it's an illusion.
  • Reply 5 of 64
    dreyfus2dreyfus2 Posts: 1,072member
    ireland wrote: »
    My 2008 Air saw battery life improvements. Or perhaps it's an illusion.

    Battery life on my 2012 15" rMBP is certainly up 20% or more. And I do not even benefit from the default blocking of Flash ads etc., as I always had the ClickToFlash extension installed.
  • Reply 6 of 64
    aaronjaaronj Posts: 1,595member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dreyfus2 View Post





    Battery life on my 2012 15" rMBP is certainly up 20% or more. And I do not even benefit from the default blocking of Flash ads etc., as I always had the ClickToFlash extension installed.


     


    As an aside, I can't understand how I existed before ClickToFlash.  I mean, I know I did because I vaguely remember it -- like an old nightmare.  But the idea of Flash ads and the like just turns my stomach at this point.


     


    I'm glad that people seem to have positive reviews of Mavericks.  As funny as it sounds, the feature I'm MOST looking forward to is Finder Tabs. :)

  • Reply 7 of 64
    Sounds nice.
  • Reply 8 of 64
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member


    The only thing I want to know about this next OS is … 


     


    … have they changed the f*cking name from "MAVERICKS" yet?   image image image image image

  • Reply 9 of 64


    Sounds like OSX Mavericks is shaping up to be a better release then iOS 7.

  • Reply 10 of 64
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member

    Quote:


    Update: Along with the new Mavericks preview, Apple released the second beta of Xcode 5, which can also be found via the Mac App Store.



     


    Xcode 5 is not available through the Mac App Store neither is the update (just checked). Xcode 5 new beta needs to be downloaded from the Developers website.

  • Reply 11 of 64
    mactelmactel Posts: 1,275member


    When will Apple ever release a more general beta of OSX?  They did this with the first version of OSX but I don't recall them ever doing it again.  With Mavericks and the change in leadership their policy of developers only should change to get the widest adoption possible.  I'm sure there's plenty of corporation on OSX that be willing to beta test and submit bug reports.

  • Reply 12 of 64
    dreyfus2dreyfus2 Posts: 1,072member
    mactel wrote: »
    When will Apple ever release a more general beta of OSX? ...  With Mavericks and the change in leadership their policy of developers only should change to get the widest adoption possible.

    I do not know a single software that got better because there was a public beta. Windows 8? Millions of testers and a complete failure.

    You are right that Apple did a "public beta" of Kodiak, but it was $30 and a way to work around the fact that there was no OS X developer program at that point.
  • Reply 13 of 64
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    gazoobee wrote: »
    … have they changed the f*cking name from "MAVERICKS" yet?

    What about Apple would give you the idea that this would ever happen? Do you know Apple?
    mactel wrote: »
    When will Apple ever release a more general beta of OSX?

    You've seen the comments when regular idiots get their hands on the DPs, right? You've seen the "complaints", right?

    People today are too stupid to comprehend what they're doing even with RELEASE SOFTWARE. All I've seen is ruination of third-party developers' reputations by morons who don't know what iOS 7 and 10.9 are; imagine how that would change if it was PUBLIC!

    OS X worked as a public beta for many reasons, not the least of which Apple's situation at that time and their userbase being, what, I think it was more than 5x smaller than today.
  • Reply 14 of 64
    zozmanzozman Posts: 393member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dreyfus2 View Post



    Battery life on my 2012 15" rMBP is certainly up 20% or more. 


     


    Music to my ears, I cant wait for Mav to come out! :D


    i have the rMBP 15, battery life is pretty good, more would be great, does all the extra core animation stuff make things smoother?.


    my 2010 air 11" will hopefully feel some improvements, battery & zippieness.


     


    Even tho i have the 15" rMBP, I'm really keen to see what apple focus on when they do the haswell update on the macbook pros, If the 13" rMBP gets amazing battery life & GPU improvements are enough, i might get one & use it in place of the air, waiting on a retina air might be a few years away.

  • Reply 15 of 64
    dreyfus2dreyfus2 Posts: 1,072member
    zozman wrote: »
    ..., does all the extra core animation stuff make things smoother?.

    There isn't much in terms of additional animations. But 10.9 is definitely a lot smoother than 10.8.x. In all areas as far as I can say. Multitasking is much smoother, Safari is virtually stutter-free, even when zooming into pages on the Retina display, everything is more responsive, memory-compression clearly reduces page-outs... it really feels like there is refinement everywhere. I normally do not upgrade production machines before a .2 or .3 release, but I am really tempted to install this beta. Of course, I won't... but I feel I could.
    zozman wrote: »
    Even tho i have the 15" rMBP, I'm really keen to see what apple focus on when they do the haswell update on the macbook pros, If the 13" rMBP gets amazing battery life & GPU improvements are enough, i might get one & use it in place of the air, waiting on a retina air might be a few years away.

    I am curious as well. If I had to bet money, I would bet on Apple trying to get the 13" as slim as the 15" before they do anything else. And I sincerely hope that a Retina Air is not "a few years away"... I really want one!
  • Reply 16 of 64
    cyniccynic Posts: 124member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by MacTel View Post


    When will Apple ever release a more general beta of OSX?  They did this with the first version of OSX but I don't recall them ever doing it again.  With Mavericks and the change in leadership their policy of developers only should change to get the widest adoption possible.  I'm sure there's plenty of corporation on OSX that be willing to beta test and submit bug reports.



     


    Well, they've answered this before. They won't.


     


    The reason for this is simply, that there is no benefit of doing public betas. Apple got a large developer community that helps them test their releases. Thanks to a myriad of various apps people are writing and/or optimising for each release, they are likely to uncover bugs in about every possible corner of the OS and in many cases they have enough technical understanding to describe them properly, do additional research, dig a bit deeper etc.


     


    You can pretty much see all the negative side effects of being public in the current dev forums. When there still was ADC, which costed real money, only the most diehard fans would subscribe. However, since the Developer Program memberships became so super affordable the forums get swamped with regular users who simply want to try out the beta. Same story happening every year.


     


    And honestly, there is absolutely no benefit to that, in fact it is terribly annoying, because you get all those people who swamp the forums with endless duplicate usability questions and generally stupid questions such as why their device got locked, because they failed to read the proper instructions and documentation before installing a beta on their everyday device. At the same time they have nothing to contribute to the community and this essentially makes it harder for developers and everyone who is actually trying to get real work done with those releases to find the information they need.


     


    So no offence there, but there is little reason to make those releases more public.

  • Reply 17 of 64
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Either something went wrong with my update or Safari's default font changed. Not sure I like it.
    [IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/27465/width/500/height/1000[/IMG]

    EDIT: Aha, I knew I'd seen that style before; Safari just needed a clean quit and reopening. It's back to normal now.
  • Reply 18 of 64
    zozmanzozman Posts: 393member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dreyfus2 View Post





    There isn't much in terms of additional animations. But 10.9 is definitely a lot smoother than 10.8.x. In all areas as far as I can say. Multitasking is much smoother, Safari is virtually stutter-free, even when zooming into pages on the Retina display, everything is more responsive, memory-compression clearly reduces page-outs... it really feels like there is refinement everywhere. I normally do not upgrade production machines before a .2 or .3 release, but I am really tempted to install this beta. Of course, I won't... but I feel I could.


     


    Good to know, an upgrade to look forward to image


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dreyfus2 View Post


    I sincerely hope that a Retina Air is not "a few years away"... I really want one!


     


    Its gotta be at least a year away, they just updated the airs, a great update, but I'll wait & see how the rMBPs go.


    between the current 13" (new) air & 13" pro, they each have their upsides, battery vs performance, if they give the 13" pro amazing crazy battery life, It makes the air a harder choice for me to make, its cheaper & slightly smaller.


     


    Mavericks giving even 10% (at least) more battery life, is amazing, I really hope its noticeable. 

  • Reply 19 of 64
    superbasssuperbass Posts: 688member


    Still no name change? Mavericks is just plain awful, unless they're releasing a sports team or using Tom Selleck's head as the new logo for Safari.

  • Reply 20 of 64
    aaronjaaronj Posts: 1,595member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Superbass View Post


    Still no name change? Mavericks is just plain awful, unless they're releasing a sports team or using Tom Selleck's head as the new logo for Safari.



     


    Honestly, the people who have a problem with the name need to begin associating images like this to "Mavericks":


     


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