Apple Posts A New OS X Lion Build — Developers You'll Want To Try This One Out

Mg Siegler

MG Siegler is a general partner at Google Ventures and a columnist for TechCrunch, where he has been writing since 2009. Previously, MG was a general partner at CrunchFund. And before TechCrunch, MG covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. He’s previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked... → Learn More

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

Five days ago, we reported that Apple was gearing up to release a new build of the OS X Lion Developer Preview. Sure enough, that’s exactly what they did today as build 11A419 has been seeded to developers.

This matters for a couple of reasons. First, it’s the first update to the OS X Lion preview which many developers complained was fairly buggy. Despite the bugs, the preview went a month without any updates. More importantly, this is the build that Apple is considering to be a “GM1″ revision internally, we hear. And yes, it’s said to be much more stable and complete than the previous build.

You’ll note that the build number has jumped pretty dramatically: from 11A390 for the initial build to 11A419. That seems to indicate that a number of builds were tested out internally before this one was released.

Having said that, it’s unlikely that this will be the actual “Golden Master” copy. We’re still a solid two months away from Apple’s WWDC event where Lion will be a key area of focus. Apple may attempt to launch Lion there, but more likely is that the release candidates is handed out to developers there. A public launch would come shortly thereafter.

This developer preview 2 launch follows a smaller update that came through earlier so that developers could get this latest build of Lion through the Mac App Store. As we previously reported, that initial roll-out was less than ideal.

Again, this build of OS X Lion is for developers only.