Apple has just begun seeding the next installment of Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4) to both AppleSeed testers and developers registered at Dev Center. The associated information offers very little in the way of detail, but considering this is just a minor number bump up from OS X 10.8.3, we wouldn’t expect anything groundbreaking to reveal itself here.
OS X Mountain Lion Update 10.8.4 is an update to OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.
It’s very likely this early beta includes a bunch of bug fixes and general performance enhancements, focusing on "under the hood" elements of the desktop operating system.
This being the very first beta (build number 12E27), it arrives just a month after the final release of OS X 10.8.3 which, after a lengthy process of testing, was finally deemed ready for public consumption. Bringing with it the ability to scan iTunes gift cards using the Mac’s iSight camera, along with some key improvements to those who like to run Windows (Windows 8 support) using Boot Camp, the update managed to trickle out in a relatively incident-free manner – a lot more than can be said for some of the recent iOS releases.
Although some traditionalists have baulked at Apple’s decision to iOS-ify OS X even further with Mountain Lion, the initial skepticism seems now to have petered out. Many of the new features – particularly iMessage – have quickly found a home on a large proportion of Macs, and notably, Mountain lion has surpassed all previous versions in terms of overall usage.
Even with work still clearly proceeding on updating and improving OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, it is getting nearer and nearer to the stage where we begin to wonder what Apple may have up its sleeve for OS X 10.9. In an ideal world, we suspect the Cupertino company may be looking to bring its Maps app to the desktop, but with the corresponding release on iOS last year easily among 2012’s biggest tech fails, perhaps some refinery may be in store before Apple goes ahead and brings a second wave of its still weak, in-house Maps effort.
Prior to that, though, we’ll be getting OS X 10.8.4.
How about Siri on your Mac in the next major release of OS X? Are you listening, Apple?
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