Apple seeds OS X Yosemite Public Beta 6 to testers
Apple on Monday pushed an update to the public beta of its next-generation desktop operating system, granting members of the prerelease program access to a sixth revision that brings it up to speed with the version released to developers late last week.
Public beta members will find the new version available via the Updates tab in the Mac App Store. While the exact changes are not enumerated, it likely matches up with the third "golden master" version that registered developers received last Thursday.
Such a public beta program is rare for Apple, who previously strictly limited access to unfinished software to developers. That remains the case for the company's mobile operating system, iOS.
When announcing the public beta program, Apple indicated that they would accept up to 1 million beta testers. Though it is unclear how popular the program has been, sign-ups remain open, suggesting that they have thus far fallen short of that figure.
OS X Yosemite brings new Continuity and AirDrop features to OS X and iOS, which allow owners of devices running iOS 8 to perform cross-platform operations like creating ad-hoc data connections for transporting files, routing iPhone voice calls through a Mac and continuing in-app functions across devices. The next-gen operating system also incorporates a "flat" iOS-style user interface and other graphical tweaks.
Apple is expected to provide more detail about OS X Yosemite, and its release, at a media event on Thursday, Oct. 16. AppleInsider will be on hand at Apple headquarters in Cupertino and will bring live coverage from the event.
Public beta members will find the new version available via the Updates tab in the Mac App Store. While the exact changes are not enumerated, it likely matches up with the third "golden master" version that registered developers received last Thursday.
Such a public beta program is rare for Apple, who previously strictly limited access to unfinished software to developers. That remains the case for the company's mobile operating system, iOS.
When announcing the public beta program, Apple indicated that they would accept up to 1 million beta testers. Though it is unclear how popular the program has been, sign-ups remain open, suggesting that they have thus far fallen short of that figure.
OS X Yosemite brings new Continuity and AirDrop features to OS X and iOS, which allow owners of devices running iOS 8 to perform cross-platform operations like creating ad-hoc data connections for transporting files, routing iPhone voice calls through a Mac and continuing in-app functions across devices. The next-gen operating system also incorporates a "flat" iOS-style user interface and other graphical tweaks.
Apple is expected to provide more detail about OS X Yosemite, and its release, at a media event on Thursday, Oct. 16. AppleInsider will be on hand at Apple headquarters in Cupertino and will bring live coverage from the event.
Comments
A golden master a day, keeps the analysts at bay ...
This is oddly close to the event or next week's release. I wonder will they definitely release next week. A beta program will expose bugs - which is good. But a week isn't enough time.
at 55MB's
(for both 2009 Mac Mini and 2012 iMac 27)
This is Not an Update,
This is a Patch ! ......" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
55 MB is the exact same download size as the GM Candidate 3.0 that us devs got on Thursday, so I'm guessing this is the same build (note that only 9 or so MB of that was the actual patch, the rest was a firmware update). But I would like to see a build number from someone using the Public Beta to verify that.
The PBs and DPs are always different.
I was hoping we might see the Yosemite release (along with iOS 8.1) immediately after Thursday's announcement but that is looking far from likely now - I guess maybe a GM of both at best and then release a week or so later, possibly timed with whatever new hardware is unveiled.
Why does it look far from likely? Yosemite is ready to go. Yes, there may be issues but its ready to be released to the public. The last few updates have been very stable for me. I don't think it was ever meant to be available on the 16th anyways, but thats always possible.
iOS 8.1 well its ready when its ready. They'd best not rush a release and screw up like 8.0.1.
You don't have the only machine in the world. On the forums there are quite a few blockers. Apple probably needs to seed this beta to see how prevalent those bugs are.
I was working on the (perhaps misguided) theory that we'd see an official GM release around a week before public release, but so far we've just had the 3 developer GM "candidate" releases and a 6th public beta and we are now only 3 days from the announcement.
As far as iOS 8.1 goes I think this pretty much needs to be released in unison with Yosemite as it will contain all the Yosemite handoff functionality so I'm expecting them both at the same time, I'm just not sure when.
The latest Yosemite GM candidate and the latest iOS 8.1 beta have both been pretty much rock solid for me on a combination of mid 2011 Mac Mini, late 2013 Macbook Pro, iPad 3 and iPhone 6, so it is possible they could still make an appearance on Thursday...
Why does it look far from likely? Yosemite is ready to go. Yes, there may be issues but its ready to be released to the public. The last few updates have been very stable for me. I don't think it was ever meant to be available on the 16th anyways, but thats always possible.
iOS 8.1 well its ready when its ready. They'd best not rush a release and screw up like 8.0.1.
Still quite a few bugs here.
at 55MB's
(for both 2009 Mac Mini and 2012 iMac 27)
This is Not an Update,
This is a Patch ! ......" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
Yah, I'm quite disappointed that Apple isn't providing more detailed Change Notes listing what has changed between each release. Their update notes are far too sparse. Makes you wonder if they are making many changes at all, or just minor tweaks here and there. In my eyes, Yosemite is not an upgrade to Mavericks from a purely visual standpoint. It's a big step backwards, and my eyes are not looking forward to the whiter-brighter, washed-out appearance that is severely lacking the more balanced contrast and colour spread that Mavericks now has.
All beta updates are patching something.
What bugs are you experiencing in Yosemite?
I can't find anything buggy that's note worthy with this latest dev release, did you? By the way, I upgraded my iCloud Drive to 500 GIGs and it shows in settings but my actual iCloud drive went from 25 GIGs to 50 GIGs not 500! I suspect this is teething trouble or upgrade still only related to iCloud of old (Mavericks) as opposed to iCloud Drive itself. Weird it did double though.
There is virtually nothing in the folders BTW, The Folder, 'Aperture Vault' is ready for a 350 GIG Vault when the space shows up.
EDIT: It gets stranger ... On my MBP the same iCloud Drive shows 30 GIGs free.
The latest version, the one coming to the public next, is so stable I did bite the bullet and have it on all Macs. That's after I made clones of all boot drives with Carbon Copy Cloner of course. would never, ever upgrade an OS without a bootable backup.
EDITE: I'd even clone the boot drive of any Mac before an official update let alone a beta.
By the way, I upgraded my iCloud Drive to 500 GIGs and it shows in settings but my actual iCloud drive went from 25 GIGs to 50 GIGs not 500! I suspect this is teething trouble or upgrade still only related to iCloud of old (Mavericks) as opposed to iCloud Drive itself. Weird it did double though.
EDIT: It gets stranger ... On my MBP the same iCloud Drive shows 30 GIGs free.
The storage shown in iCloud Drive in Finder is the remaining space on the Mac's boot drive. As far as I can tell there is no way to see remaining iCloud storage space from the Finder. Consider this a bug if you will, but "iCloud Drive" shows up under Favorites and not Devices, so I think this is how Apple wants the remaining space to show up.
Still quite a few bugs here.
Explain....