New Snow Leopard build (10A286) seeded to developers

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Apple has seeded a new build of its upcoming operating system, Snow Leopard, to developers of Apple software. The news is being reported by website World of Apple, and they have said that the new build features a new QuickTime, and a new Cocoa-based Finder. It's also interesting to note that Apple is further endorsing that developers try running the build in 64-bit, showing that they still strongly wish to make the switch to it.

Here are the, as World of Apple mentions, strangely short build notes:

New Content

This seed contains some major new changes in the following areas:

QuickTime Player:
The new QuickTime Player has a new minimal UI and is focused on playback.

Finder:
Finder includes a new Cocoa Desktop, Info Window and Contextual Menu

Safari:
Safari 4 beta is included in the seed as the default browser.

Known Issues

Remote Installs over Airport may cause panics (A workaround is to install via Ethernet or DVD.)
Booting from the install DVD can take a long time
Some settings are not migrated from the previous system when upgrading, including file sharing, sharing name and energy saver settings.
Finder issues: Icon previews will not appear on the Desktop, selecting Clean Up does not change icon placement on the Desktop. Sometimes the Finder and Desktop will stop responding to input. A workaround is to restart Finder.
iTunes will sometimes lock up when an iPhone is connected. A workaround is to rename or delete ~/Library/Lockdown)
Microsoft Office 2004 applications can hang when using the File->Open menu. A workaround is to open the file by opening it in Finder.)
On newer MacBook Pros, the screen's backlight will not come on when booting into the installer if the brightness is set below 6.
Hibernation is not working on machines with Nvidia graphics cards and will result in a frozen machine.
The Time Machine UI cannot be activated in Finder and Mail in some cases.
The linker creates a bad image when the minimum OS target is set to Mac OS X 10.5 and weak external symbols are used. (A workaround is to set Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.6 as the minimum OS target.)
Xcode often crashes when navigating in documentation using the navigation buttons.

We do not recommended installing this seed on the Nehalem Mac Pros.

There are some quite nasty issues listed there, but that is the nature of pre-release software, and it's good to see a new QuickTime and a newly revamped Finder. Apple is making good progress on Snow Leopard, which is expected to be released later this year, so keep an eye out.

(4 replies) #1 FoxieFoxie on 06 Mar 2009 - 20:45

pics or it didn't happen

#1.1 dhan on 06 Mar 2009 - 20:53

#1.2 Sam Symons Live on 06 Mar 2009 - 20:58

FoxieFoxie said,

I'm sure there'll be some images soon, if there aren't already

#1.3 PureLegend on 06 Mar 2009 - 21:21

I'd like to see this new Quicktime Player and Finder

#1.4 PsykX on 06 Mar 2009 - 22:36

Me too. Quicktime better be good

A site reported "maybe something like iTunes". I don't want that. I want something better. if I have to name one thing on Windows that is better than OS X, it really has to be WMP (for videos only though).

Also, by looking at all these issues, I'm sure they took something away from it and it'll be shown at WWDC only. I remember with Leopard, there were so many issues with the Finder and whatnot, but like a month after, there was this keynote and Steve Jobs showed us the new Leopard Finder. I smell something fishy.

(3 replies) #2 9UnknownMen on 06 Mar 2009 - 20:56

Yawn. It's nothing more that Service Pack. The [< snipped > - CalumJR] will soil their underwear nonetheless and tell us how Apple is some how true 64bit or some [< snipped > - CalumJR] meme like that.

Last edited by CalumJR on 06 Mar 2009 - 22:04

#2.1 thealexweb on 06 Mar 2009 - 21:10

9UnknownMen said,

It may not be a very big release but I think it's a bigger than just a service pack. However the Apple fans are severally overrating this release.

Last edited by CalumJR on 06 Mar 2009 - 22:40

#2.2 +what on 06 Mar 2009 - 21:19

thealexweb said,

It may not be a very big release but I think it's a bigger than just a service pack. However the Apple fans are severally overrating this release.

Or maybe you're underrating it. Who can tell.

#2.3 leojei on 06 Mar 2009 - 22:37

Agree. Well that's what Apple has been doing to OSX... not big changese, but certainly not small either~

(2 replies) #3 Ambroos on 06 Mar 2009 - 21:24

It's just the next release, but mainly a maintenance release. Kinda like Windows 7 is for to Windows Vista but without the fancy new taskbar.

#3.1 Jugalator on 06 Mar 2009 - 22:52

To the end user yes, architecture-wise it is however easily a major release, going 64-bit like this.

As well as offering OpenCL...

I think Snow Leopard is more like setting a stage for Apple for the next release, a necessary one.

#3.2 Faisal Islam on 07 Mar 2009 - 09:39

No, Windows 7 is not minor release.

(3 replies) #4 MMaster23 on 06 Mar 2009 - 21:39

"We do not recommended installing this seed on the Nehalem Mac Pros"

Wait .. what?

#4.1 leojei on 06 Mar 2009 - 22:34

For real, I read that as "We do not recommend installing this seed on Mac"

#4.2 Ledgem on 06 Mar 2009 - 23:06

Probably has to do with hyperthreading (Intel's way of making multiple "virtual" processors). OSX 10.6 incorporates "Grand Central" - Apple's way of making multi-core processor usage more efficient. I'd imagine that they were designing it based around the Core2Duo-type architectures. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Nehalem processors seem to contain multiple cores similar to Core2Duo, but then virtually double those cores through HyperThreading. Given that hyperthreading doesn't actually introduce a new processor or new processing core, I'd wonder if that somehow messes things up.

Not a programmer, though - just guessing.

#4.3 roadwarrior on 07 Mar 2009 - 02:17

Ledgem said,

Given that hyperthreading doesn't actually introduce a new processor or new processing core, I'd wonder if that somehow messes things up.

Not a programmer, though - just guessing.

From my experience running Leopard on my Acer Aspire One (the Intel Atom has HT but not dual-core), there are issues with how the kernel detects HT processors. The ironic thing is, Apple could probably make use of some of the patches developed by the people working on generic kernels in the OSx86 scene to fix whatever is wrong with the Nehalem processors.

#5 artfuldodga on 07 Mar 2009 - 00:37

whats this seeded they talk about? do they use bittorrent ... yeah i know what it means, but why not just say released

(1 reply) #6 Mr. Dee on 07 Mar 2009 - 03:52

A lot of you really don't know what you are saying. Please do not compare Windows 7 with Mac OS 10.6. The two have different goals and philosophies. Windows 7 is a major release, but its not a rehaul of the kernel and does not need to be like Vista. Vista did most of the heavy lifting in terms of security - Patch Guard, ASRL, Device Driver Signing. Windows 7 is about building on that foundation and bringing investments in Vista forward. Windows 7 on the surface is still a major release in the respect that its bringing new innovation to the Desktop, things like Open Search, more productive Taskbar, enhanced Search and Indexing, Customization, features like Windows Touch makes it a very feature rich release.

Snow Leopard has similar goals, for instance API's aren't broken, so if you built for 10.5 your apps will just work. What Leopard is doing is bringing innovation to the core, exploiting potential in multi core processors, utilizing the GPU for more than rendering the desktop. Standards like OpenCL on which Snow Leopard is focusing making the GPU actually do some work beyond graphics. Its bringing new opportunities for developers to write to this standard to bring new applications to market. Grand Central will allow the OS to scale and off put work to those multiple processors. For instance, so parallel programming will be easy for third party developers.

#6.1 Faisal Islam on 07 Mar 2009 - 09:40

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