Apple’s Mac OS X software engineers were busy on Friday before leaving for the holiday weekend here in the U.S., pushing out a new build of the forthcoming Mac OS X 10.6.8 that appears to offer the promised ability to squash the MacDefender malware as well as Mac App Store preparations for Lion this summer.
MacRumors is reporting that Apple seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.8 to developers on Friday with a build number 10K531. As you can see from the screenshot of the release notes below, the next update to Snow Leopard squashes a few bugs and also brings two noteworthy new arrivals.
The more mundane of the two is the last, “Identify and remove known variants of Mac Defender,” the pesky malware that recently made headlines which Apple promised to eradicate in a forthcoming software update. It appears that will be happening with Mac OS X 10.6.8.
Perhaps the bigger news from the Mac OS X 10.6.8 update is the first item: “Enhance the Mac App Store to get your Mac ready to upgrade to Mac OS X Lion.” Lion, of course, is the next major version of Mac OS X (10.7 to be exact) which is set to debut sometime this summer. Many believe that Apple will offer the new OS X through the Mac App Store as a paid download, although a traditional disc-based release is also anticipated.
With Apple’s WWDC kicking off in one week, we’re hoping to hear more about Mac OS X 10.6.8 soon, as well as when we can warm up our credit cards for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion -- especially now that summer has finally arrived as of today, which is Memorial Day here in the United States. Bring it, Apple!
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(Image courtesy of MacRumors)
MacRob
May 31, 2011 at 2:26am
Summer hasn't started yet.
Northern Hemisphere summer begins-- astronomically/technically-- at the moment of the summer solstice, June 21. The solstice is when the sun reaches its highest altitude in the north, the Tropic of Cancer.
